Moral stories (2026)

Book Review from the May 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Moral Ambition. Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference. By Rutger Bregman. Bloomsbury. 2025. 283pp.

‘Humans are social creatures through and through’ (Rutger Bregman)

This is the third of Dutch historian Rutger Bregman’s books to have garnered attention and praise from a wide range of quarters. His theme is, as before, the need for large-scale social change, and on a planetary scale. Described on the book’s dust cover as ‘the internationally bestselling author’, Bregman proposes morally founded activities that people can become involved in to ‘start making a difference’ and help bring about such change. One of the impressive endorsements by various writers and commentators in the book’s opening pages describes it as ‘packed with powerful insights, inspiring stories, and data to back it up’. Another refers to it as ‘a true bible of realistic idealism’. And it is definitely an invigorating and thought-provoking read.

It focuses in significant part on the work of a number of individuals who, by virtue of their dedication and determination to certain causes, have ‘made a difference’, either historically or more recently, to the lives of large numbers of people. Examples of such individuals, some of them little known, include:

• Thomas Clarkson, who, from the age of 24 in 1785, dedicated his life to campaigning against slavery at a time when, as the author points out, the very notion of abolishing slavery seemed unthinkable;
• Arnold Douwes, the Dutchman, who, in the Second World War and at enormous risk to himself, devoted himself to finding shelter for Jews who otherwise would have been transported to concentration camps;
• Ralph Nader, who over very many years campaigned indefatigably in the US against the advertising and sale of manifestly dangerous products and managed to recruit a whole ‘brigade of Davids’ who ‘combined moral indignation with laborious research’ and eventually become known as ‘Naders Raiders’;
• Rosa Parks, the black woman in Alabama who wouldn’t give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus and lit the spark for the civil rights movement;
• Rob Mather, the British business executive, who, in the early 2000s, inspired voluntary and charitable activity among thousands for the purpose of raising money to combat the world’s single largest killer of children, malaria, and up to the present day is estimated to have saved over 100,000 lives;
• and Joey Savoie, a Canadian would-be psychology student who instead dedicated himself to intensive charitable work and founded a school of ‘Charity Entrepreneurship’ whose graduates then set up projects such as Fortify Health that teaches local millers in India to enrich wheat flower with iron, folic acid and vitamin B2 as a way of reducing iron deficiency anaemia among millions there and protecting against congenital defects like spina bifida.

Bregman also gives space to philanthropists such as Katherine McCormick, whose sponsorship of research into female contraception resulted in the pill and so gave millions of women a new kind of control over their lives, and to campaigning scientists like Joseph Salk and Viktor Zhdanov whose dedication and determination brought crippling and deadly diseases like polio and smallpox under control. And he tells all sorts of other quite fascinating tales of people who have dedicated themselves to ‘making a difference’, some much against the odds of their upbringing, education and the society around them. He frames these with the consideration that ‘a small group of determined individuals can have enormous influence’.

Such stories make this a truly compelling book, as also does its manifest ambition to contribute to improving the lives of humans. So is there anything not to like? In the course of the recent Reith Lectures which its author delivered for the BBC on the subject of ‘moral revolution’, he described himself, on more than one occasion, as ‘an old-fashioned social democrat’. And the trouble is that, just like so many others who call themselves ‘social democrats’, he confines himself to seeking to solve or alleviate the world’s problems within the confines of the existing system, capitalism. His abiding focus is on how to make that system better.

With this book, therefore, he has produced a kind of guide to reformism, novel and very readable, but never seeking to peer outside of the constricting framework of existing society, based as it is on monetary exchange, buying and selling and production for profit. This means that, despite the fact that certain problems may be capable of alleviation or even solution through devoted campaigning or pressure on governments, in the final analysis the anti-human needs of the market and its profit imperative will never allow continuing and widespread scourges such as poverty, insecurity, oppression and unfulfilling work to be consigned to history, and tragedies such as wars and environmental degradation will ever lurk and sometimes pounce. In other words, while admirable in so many ways, this book fails to engage with the real reason that renders necessary all the campaigning and dedication its author records and recommends to others.

That is not to say that the kind of campaigning activity recommended by Bregman – radical, persistent and confident in its ideas – is not necessary. However, it needs to be focused not on ‘morality’ but on challenging the system at source and creating a society capable of offering to everyone a share of the potential wealth and abundance that capitalism – with its interconnected production across the globe, its robots, 3-D printing and digital media – has made possible. Currently all this is being held back by the artificial scarcity and oppression associated with the market, money and production for profit and will only be achievable on the basis of common ownership, the abolition of the market and free access to wealth.

Howard Moss

Editorial: Socialism no accident (1982)

Editorial from the August 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

The readers of the Sun may not have been aware of it, but when their man in the Falklands sent in his reports, couched as they were in glorious yobspeak (“Up Yours, Galtieri”), he was making his small contribution to bolstering a seriously misguided concept of history.

It is an established, popular notion that wars spring from the personal idiosyncrasies and failings of political leaders. In some cases, those leaders are supposed to be insatiably belligerent — like Galtieri. In other cases, they are described as bloodthirsty and genocidal — like Hitler or Menachem Begin. According to this theory, if there had been no Galtieri and no junta, there would have been no war over the Falklands. More peaceable leaders would never have tried to take by force that which was not theirs by “right”. On this theory, the Falklands war was something of an historical accident.

At home, we have seen this notion at work also in the case of the rail strikes by ASLEF and the NUR. These strikes, we were told, were the work of a minority of unreasonable, restless militants. Without them, the railways would operate smoothly, as workers and management co-operated to the benefit of everyone. By these standards, the rail strikes were also accidental.

Then there is the example of Margaret Thatcher, who is the butt of much anger as a stubborn, prejudiced and callous adherent to policies which. she insists, will be good for us even if they kill us in the process. Three million unemployed, and the intensifying pressure on workers’ living standards, are attributed to the historical misfortunes of Thatcher’s obduracy. Without her, we hear, there would be less unemployment — or even none at all — and easier, fuller lives for everyone.

But while it is true that people have a crucial influence on the course of history, and while there are important historical factors which might loosely be described as “accidents”, the fact is that history is basically not to be understood in such terms. The process of social development from the most primitive of societies to the present day has only one valid interpretation and that is as a continuous, predictable, evolution along a discernible course. On that concept, we not only understand what has happened in the past; we can foresee with some confidence what is likely to happen in the future.

The Falklands crisis did not spring solely from the determined belligerence of a handful of South American militarists. Latterly the Islands have assumed an increasing importance in the overall strategy of Argentinian capitalism, complicated by the possible presence of rich oil fields and the fact that historically the Falklands issue has been cynically used to stifle the realities of wage slavery in Argentina under a blanket of patriotism. The British ruling class, far from losing sleep over the “paramount” wishes of the Falklanders, have for decades been negotiating to pass the Islands over to Argentinian rule. This policy was no accident; it fitted in with the reality of Britain’s place in the conflicts of world capitalism.

The rail strikes cannot be explained in romantic terms, of militants against the true interests of the railwaymen. Workers on the railways, like those in other industries, were resisting a downward pressure on their wages and working conditions. Perhaps their effort was badly timed; when there is high unemployment strikes can have little muscle behind them. Perhaps the abrupt climb-down by the NUR was their acknowledgement that the time was not propitious. But in historical terms it was another incident in the continuing class struggle of capitalism and it will not be the last of its kind, as one side or the other takes advantage of the current conditions of the labour market.

The policies of the Thatcher government are not basically different from those of Callaghan, Wilson, Heath, Macmillan . . . Every government has to contest with the working class; that is part of their function as the administrative arm of the capitalist class. In most cases, governments in post-war Britain have been weakened in their efforts by the strength the workers have drawn from relatively high employment and demand for labour power. This meant that attempts to keep wages in check — pay pauses, wage freezes, social contracts, whatever name they went under — were easily undermined and, sooner or later, modified or abandoned. As Thatcher came to power, the slump in world capitalism had reached such depths as to enable a government to impose policies which until then had had scant chance of success. Thatcher, then, is no accident; she personifies an especially repressive, exploitative phase in capitalist history.

The importance of understanding that capitalism does not progress through a series of accidents is in the fact that the next stage in human history — socialist society — will evolve from the contradictions of the present and will not therefore be accidental. Indeed, the very conditions for that change have been, and are being, historically laid down.

Capitalism has provided the human race with the possibility of producing an abundance of wealth. It has developed the means of production, distribution and communication to the point at which a society in which the human race can live in material security is immediately available to them.

Capitalism has refined the class structure so that there are now only two classes in society. It follows from this that the revolution to bring about the next stage in social evolution must be the work of one of those classes, with the object of emancipating that class.

It is the working class who historically fit that bill; they are the revolutionary class under capitalism. They are the class who are to be emancipated, the class who produce the wealth of capitalism but have no effective ownership. To fulfil their historical, revolutionary role the working class must understand capitalism, and the need to abolish it. They must also be aware of the effectiveness of replacing capitalism with a society of common ownership and free access. Capitalism itself, in the everyday experience of its inability to meet the needs of its people — its wars, famine, repression, disease — provides the motivation towards such an understanding. Historically, capitalism works towards its own demise.

History can be left to condition itself; the work of human beings is to make their history, albeit with many “accidents . . . surprises . . . mistakes. . . ." On those terms, the human race is moving to the historical step of establishing the first social order based on the interests of the majority.

The Genesis of the “Great Man”. (1917)

From the June 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the most commonly held of the many erroneous, and therefore misleading, theories regarding history and the movements of human society is that which frequently goes by the name of the “Great Man Theory.” From its point of view those individuals who achieve prominence in any event or movement are the prime factors and forces behind it, and the real social forces which underlie them are entirely unappreciated. Thus the personality of Napoleon is looked upon as the cause of the wars associated with his name, Wat Tyler is regarded as the author of the Peasants’ Revolt, the evolution theory is thought to be due to the genius of men like Spencer and Darwin, Karl Marx is credited with being the generator of modern Socialism, and to Cecil Rhodes is attributed the Cape to Cairo Railway.

The influence of this theory upon the working class is baneful because under it many are deluded into looking to “leaders” and “intellectuals,” instead of to themselves, for their salvation, while some are led to embrace the vagaries and absurdities of Anarchism. It is quite easy to see that political assasination must appear a really sound and sensible procedure to those who, holding this point of view, wish to abolish social evils. Experience, however, shows that such action rarely, if ever, has the desired effect. And why ? Because the social conditions obtaining at any time are not dependent upon the existence of any individual, however prominent, but are decreed by the material conditions under which men live. So long as these remain unchanged, so long will the resultant social forms remain, and they will not be appreciably affected by the removal of any individual whatever.

To say this is not, of course, to deny the existence of great men, for to do so would be just as foolish as going to the other extreme. Every “great man” is the outcome of two main factors. One is biological and internal. No one will deny that the mental or physical capacity of an Alexander or an Aristotle, a Marx, a Darwin or a Napoleon, is vastly superior to that of the majority of men. The case is one of variations like unto those which occur in all living creatures. But this capacity alone is not sufficient to make a “great man.” Charles Peace would never be included among such, yet his genius was probably as pronounced as that of many who would be so designated.

This brings us to the second factor: the historical and external one. Every person is born into surroundings or environment conditions which have grown out of different preceding conditions, this movement itself being part of a continuous process of change and growth.

We may broadly classify the changing forms of environment into three mutually pervading and interdependent divisions or phases, material, social, and intellectual. That these are interlinked is easily shown when it is remembered that societies are forms of group relationships between material things, e.g., human beings ; that all ideas are based upon the perception of material phenomena and the relations between them, through the medium of the sense organs and the nervous system, themselves material in structure ; that the mind perceives among other things social conditions, and that ideas can aid in bringing about both social changes and fresh material things into existence.

But that the above classification is justifiable and useful enough can be shown by contrasting two different environments in their several phases. In England about the twelfth century the face of the country presented an aspect very different in many respects to its present one. Great belts of virgin forest and open fen remained of the great primaeval wild. There existed nothing of the network of hedges which to-day cuts up the country like a monster chess board. Wild animals were much more varied and plentiful. The towns were small and few and far between. There were no railways, few roads, and few brick buildings.

Social relations were just as different. There were practically no wage-workers. A large serf population existed—men unable to leave the village of their birth ; conditionally holding land and rendering compulsory service to a lord. The prices of merchandise were regulated largely by Guild associations and not by competition as to-day. In the intellectual field the contrast is just as marked. The majority of the population were then unable to read or write. Everyone, aristocrat or peasant, was deeply superstitious, believing in personal gods, devils, saints, and witches. Little or nothing was known of natural laws. There was no geology, no biology, nothing of the modern conception of universal evolution, and no social science. Religion dominated men’s theories, science was embryonic.

Returning now, after this digression, to “great men,” it is evident that everyone’s activities are moulded by the conditions of the age. No one, however clever, can transcend the possibilities of his time. Even the most profound thinkers and men of action must use the material to hand and must build upon the past labours of others. It is this inheritance of the accumulated experience of mankind’s past, in each generation, which makes all cultural and social progress possible. Were it possible for a child of highly civilised parents to develop in isolation amid natural surroundings, it would grow up not only illiterate but almost speechless, and with intelligence woefully stunted from lack of opportunity to develop it.

Real greatness consists of making the most of the material available, in reaching to the very outposts of the possible, in seeing things only just perceptible and hidden from the commonality of men.

The conditions for Darwin’s “Origin of Species” were laid before a line of it was penned. Darwin was obviously dependent upon the developed arts of writing and printing, on tho orderly classification of living things such as had been performed by Linnaeus. In his dedication to the “Voyage of the Beagle” Darwin pays a tribute to Lyell’s “Principles of Geology” as forming an essential preliminary to all his works. The point is clinched when it is remembered how many minds independently approached the theory of natural selection about the same time (see the historical note to the “Origin”), and it is well known how tho eminent naturalist, A. Russel Wallace, came to identical conclusions on his own accord.

The same phenomenon is apparent right through the history of science. Marius, Jansen, and Lippershey simultaneously invented the telescope. Both Adams and Leverrier discovered Neptune. Marx, Engels, and Morgan, by different routes, reached “Historical Materialism.” After decades of failures, Peary, Amundsen, and Scott reached the earth’s poles within a very brief period of each other. The recent development of aviation is equally instructive.

In political or social movements generally, conditions are somewhat different, for the action once taken, it cannot as a rule be repeated, and verification such as that possible in intellectual evolution is here impossible. But a little examination will always reveal the conditions prepared before any movement is realised. Alexander’s empire was made possible by the weakened and disorganised state of the older Greek powers, due to internal corruption and the ravages of the Peloponnesian War, together with the rotten organisation of the Persian empire already revealed by the notorious retreat of “the ten thousand.” The Macedonian spear and the efficient phalanx military formation were the deciding forces and Alexander the pinnacle of a whole system of favourable conditions. In like manner Napoleon as Emperor without the French Revolution as a preparation is quite unthinkable.

In conclusion it may be mentioned that there are always sufficient men of genius to satisfy all requirements. A “great man” never fails to sprout when the environment is favourable. Scores of men with the internal potentialities of greatness must be “wasted” by their labours being suffocated in unfruitful channels. In a sentence, we find that the greatest of men are the creatures and not the creators of their age.

H.

On Leaders (1940)

From the August 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

The tragedy for Socialists is the manner in which the Nazi movement captured the minds and support of the German masses. Many factors contributed towards this end, but one thing stands out above all else, the misunderstanding of the principles of Socialism. Had this not been so there would not, and could not, have been a mass following for the spurious National Socialism. Throughout the world this method is being employed. Why does it succeed? Because the Labour, Communist and Social Democratic organisations are daily filling the minds of the workers with reformist notions and labelling them Socialism. Thus is provided the foundations of illusion. It is absurd to ask German workers not to believe false ideas, whilst workers everywhere else are taught to believe them. If it is wrong for the workers of Germany to believe blindly in a leader called Hitler, then it is equally wrong for the workers of Russia to believe blindly in one called Stalin, or the workers of Britain in one called MacDonald. This belief in a “Leader” is one fostered through the ages and aided by the reactionary as well as reformist sections. On one occasion, whilst lecturing in Manchester, the writer was asked by a young man, “Who is your leader?” His attendance at other meetings had left him with a psychological reflex resulting in this one question.

A century ago Thomas Carlyle laid down the fashion followed a few years later by Emerson in his “Representative Men,” which reaches its height in Hitler as the “Fuehrer.” From this comes the story of the “self-made man,” as does “Dick Whittington,” and has served Capitalism well as a theme to delude the worker with the belief that he could do it, and so adroitly sidetracking the workers’ class outlook. Individuals there are, of outstanding ability, who, given suitable conditions, stand out as historic figures and may become a Karl Marx or a Charles Peace, but only under the suitable conditions. The world has yet to produce “great” men who can make a fortune selling ice-cream in Greenland. How does Hitler fit in with this? Is he one of Carlyle’s “heroes,” or one of Emerson’s “representative” men? Demosthenes, in his “First Phillipic,” says it would make no difference if Philip were to die, because, if the Athenians acted as they had been doing, they would soon raise up against them another Philip.

Hitler had a secondary school education, had a taste for drawing, considered himself an artist, went to an art school and failed to pass the examination necessary to go further. He was a builder’s labourer, painter and paper-hanger, and lived a down-at-heels life in Vienna and Germany until the outbreak of war in 1914. Now, here was a “born” leader who should have made a fortune and become a power, because, according to conventional ideas, he had it in him. In spite of all the sacredness of his ego, he managed in four years to become, not a General, but only a Corporal. Turn again, Dick Whittington.

The collapse of the Kaiser’s Germany gave a shock to the officer caste. They realised the Army’s position in the nation could no longer be taken for granted. They must exert influence in civilian life by political support, spies, propagandists and political agents of their own. They sent Hitler as their spy, and for propaganda to the public houses in Munich, then under an ill-starred Soviet. When the Army reconquered the city, Hitler’s information sent many Communists and others before a firing squad. He was next sent to spy on the tiny groups formed by Gregor Strasser, known as the German Workers’ Party. He introduced numerous members (private soldiers specially sent) and swamped the group, changing its name to the one now known as Nazi. The first Defence Troop, forerunner of the S.A. (Storm Abteilung) was organised by a paid soldier, whilst the money needed to buy for the party (and Hitler) their own paper (The Beobachter) was raised and supplied by the officer commanding the Munich Army, General von Epp. Thus Hitler had “greatness” thrust upon him. He was not Carlyle’s “hero,” but, due to the foregoing suitable conditions, became an Emerson “representative man.” There stood behind him a national force, the officers of the Army, and on their wings he soared upward. He fished in troubled waters, using the years 1922-1923 of currency depreciation to further his growth. From 1924 to 1929 no progress was made by Hitler, because a moderate but distinct period of “prosperity” showed itself, and in the election prior to obtaining power, Hitler dropped over a million votes. Then came the economic blizzard of 1932-1933. The small investor and business man was swamped; suitable conditions again prevailed; the Big Business needed him and his party, and Hitler turned again to become what he is, not a “born” leader, but a representative man, representing unbridled rapacity. He did not make, he was made.

Lew.

"The Red Prussian" (1948)

Book Review from the March 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Red Prussian; the life and legend of Karl Marx 

by Leopold Schwarzschild

Much has been written on "What Marx really meant.” This book sets out to tell us what Marx really, was.

There is, however, a startling paradox in the author's presentation. According to Mr. Schwarzschild Marx is a defamer, intriguer and political.thug. A man of many passions but no parts, possessed by an unscrupulous lust for power.

It is with mild astonishment, therefore, that we learn from the preface that "The most important facts of our times all lead back to one man—Karl Marx.” This is followed by the shattering contention, "There is no doubt if Marx had never lived our whole life would have been different ”

One can only say even at the risk of debunking Marx further in the eyes of Mr. Schwarzschild that had Birth Control been fashionable enough at the time to have put Marx among "the missing” "our life” would have been much—very much, the same, a statement Marx would have sworn to by the hairs of his beard. The old "megalomaniac” even constructed a theory debunking for all time the notion that history is a fairy-tale of the "adventures" of great men and "heroes.”

The case for the prosecution rests on excerpts and quotes mostly of Marx's and Engels' views and personal assessment of their associates. The source is the complete Marx-Engels correspondence.

It adds very little in essentials to what is known on the matter. That Marx's personal opinions were often excoriating and unjustified is ancient knowledge. That his personal opinions were often harsh but justified by subsequent events is neither ancient nor modern knowledge to Mr. Schwarzschild. Marx could even be conciliatory to views other than his own as his relations with the various sections of the First International amply testify.

Mr. Schwarzschild, indicting Marx before the bar of history as the arch-evil-maker of all time, cannot admit of any concession, or charity. He is out to get his man.

For the same reason the objective basis of Marx’s disputes with his contemporaries—disputes, over important and often decisive doctrinal differences—are no part of Mr. Schwarzschild’s evidence.

For that reason again we learn nothing of Marx's real criticism of Bruno Bauer's mystical belief in the creative power of ideas; of: his real dispute with Arnold Ruge over the nature and function of the State, or his withering analysis of the reactionary doctrines of Moses Hess’s "True Socialism”; of Proudhon’s petty bourgeois theories or Bakunin’s eclectic Anarchism.

Mr. Schwarzschild is merely concerned to use on the surface of this cauldron of simmering controversy the ladle of malice and scoop up the froth of personal remarks and chit-chat—used by all sides, incidentally—and present this froth as the essence of Marxism.

That all this is not even a part of Marxism is perhaps the most ironical commentary one can make on this book.

Marx, of course, did not affirm that morality was a bourgeois inhibition. He did deny, however, that there was some superior ethical judgment to which conflicting class-interests could be referred and successfully settled. For Marx the preaching of an abstract ethical ideal in a class dominated society was dangerous utopianism. It was against such "Utopians” that he directed his sharpest criticism.

Hegel is dealt with in a summary and largely flippant fashion. The author apparently knows nothing of the social and economic background which made Hegel such a force and compelled for a period all German philosophy and culture to stand within his shadow.

Marx is made out to be merely a slavish disciple of Hegel. It is, of course, a common-place among Marxist students that the differences between Marx and Hegel were in some aspects more emphatic than that which they had in common. The publisher's blurb informs us that the author took a degree. We might assume that it was not in Philosophy.

Risking the fact that the author's lack of knowledge of Marxism may tend to become monotonous in recounting, we are compelled to say Marx never held the view that man was a mere mechanical by-product of some mysterious ineluctable "economic process.” Consciousness—not the abstract consciousness of Hegel, but the historically class-conditioned consciousness of human beings—is central to Marx's doctrines.

Marx did not say human instincts and emotions must of necessity have an economic origin. He would have utterly repudiated the statement.

Marx did not say (vide the author) History makes men; he said the opposite, Men make History. He even said “ History possesses no riches; it fights no fight.” He added, History is nothing more than the activity of man—real living man—in pursuit of his ends. That this human activity is conditioned by the objective productive relations in which man as social groups find themselves is an interpretation of history which can be empirically established. Even academic sociologists who are not “Marxists” accept this interpretation as the most fruitful one. But as the author infers, Dr. Marx fluked his degree all these academic gentlemen might have done the same.

Finally Marx did not say what Mr. Schwarzschild says, that economics was the exclusive factor in history. The author in his zealous search through the Marx-Engels correspondence could have read Engel’s letter to Bloch on the part ideological factors play in Marx's theory. That, however, was not the sort of thing Mr. Schwarzschild was looking for.

Mr. Schwarzschild indulges in the fashionable practice of biographers by seeming to read Marx’s secret thoughts in imaginary soliloquies and conversations. The absurdities supposedly uttered by Marx in this manner are, of course, the exclusive copyright of Mr. Schwarzschild. His interpretation of Marx's theory is not the Historical Materialism of Marx but the some what hysterical romanticism of Mr. Schwarzchild.

His criticism of Marx’s economic doctrines is even below the conventional stereotyped “refutations.” Unable to refute Marx’s analysis that the objective source of profit is unpaid labour he falls back on such contentions that a source of profit is buying houses and selling them at three times their value. He is utterly unable to grasp the fact that labour is required to produce houses and therefore the basis of profit must be the element of unpaid labour contained in producing them.

He does not pursue the fascinating possibilities of this economic discovery by showing in disproof of Marx that the great increases in the wealth of present society and the vast accumulation of capital can be explained perhaps on the hypothesis of buying houses and selling them at three times their price.

He also assures us that profits are made by trading, i.e. the act of buying and selling. Here he confuses the production of profit with its realization. If labour is to be considered a source of profit then Mr. Schwarzchild’s viewpoint is that it is the dead labour of constant capital—the costs of running machines and worked up material—to which we must look. Apparently it is only living labour—the application of human labour power itself—which is denied this profit-making function.

He even tells us that many of the causes of profit-making are immaterial ones. For such a statement he offers not the slightest evidence—not even “immaterial” evidence. ’

Present-day, monopolistic, control-ridden society is referred to as a liberal capitalist system based upon thee free-play of forces. This is not the statement of John Bright a century ago but the considered opinion of a journalist called Mr. Schwarzschild in this year of grace 1948.

The author says that no economist has accepted the economics of Marx. The reason being, of course, self-evident. We wonder if even the present apologists for capitalism would accept the economics of Mr. Schwarzschild.

Mr. Schwarzschild contends that Marx refused to give a blueprint of future socialist society because it would have revealed a Super Prussian State. That Socialism cannot be a sum of ready-made proscriptions but the historic product of the living concrete conditions developing in Capitalist Society is the one thing which marks off Scientific Socialism from the utopian brands. Such a remark revealingly shows that Mr. Schwarzschild’s knowledge of Scientific Socialism could be amply accommodated with a suitable margin on the back of a postage-stamp. Incidentally, when Marx showed that Socialism must inevitably mean the establishment of a classless society the author simply says that Marx was lying.

It is rather amusing to reflect that the capitalist press, each in their different ways, have largely demolished Mr. Schwarzschild’s contentions. It is equally amusing to note that in their contradictory assessment of Marxism they also contradict each other. Thus the journal Truth comments not unfavourably on the author’s contention that “Bismark was a champion of human liberty against the soul-destroying tyranny of Marx.” The liberal Manchester Guardian review agrees with Mr. Schwarzschild’s personal assessment of Marx but disagrees with the liberal Mr. Schwarzschild’s estimate of Bismark bv stating that like Marx “Bismark had the same repellent qualities even more intensely.” The Economist's reviewer thought that the author’s tendency to exaggerate the triumphs of Liberalism contained some startling inaccuracies. He believed, however, that Marxist science is but a painful attempt to justify Marx’s dogmatic pronouncements before 1848. Mr. Crankshaw in the Observer holds, however, that “Marx’s philosophic contribution is badly under-rated by Mr. Schwarzschild” and says “here in the midst of the 20th century Dr. Marx and his dialectic very much is.” In spite of Mr. Crankshaw’s assertion that a man of lesser talent than Mr. Schwarzschild could have disposed of Marx’s theory of surplus-value Mr. George Malcolm in the most objective of the reviews in the Evening Standard regards Capital as one of the most potent books in the world. The ineffable Frank Owen in the Mail commenting on the Red Prussian asks “was Marx a great genius or monster fraud?” and never really answers it. Mr. Harold Nicholson in the Daily Telegraph “cannot believe that a man who earned the unflagging devotion of his wife and Engels could have been quite the monster Mr. Schwarzschild portrays.” Finally the Manchester Guardian's summing up that the hook “is not the last word on one who is, after all, a great historic figure” expresses the more or less general viewpoint of most of those quoted.

All of which must be most disconcerting to an author who sets out to prove that Marx was a cross between an educated half-wit and an Al Capone.

Anybody with the barest knowledge of Marxism can read it with tolerant amusement. But the book is 16s. and that is a lot to pay for amusement, even these days. If it is merely relaxation the reader wants then “Itma” or “ Dick Barton ” is much more entertaining and wholesome.

Ted Wilmott

Dictator revealed (2006)

Book Review from the March 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Simon Sebag Montefiore Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. Orion, £9.99.

Montefiore’s blockbuster is a mighty, novel-like biography of Stalin and the evil apparatchik that attained the economic and political dominance of a ruling class in Russia following on the Bolshevik coup d’etat of 1917. But don’t look for explanations of the Bolshevik phenomenon or why someone like Lenin, closely familiar with the writings of Marx, Engels and the pioneers of scientific socialism, should lay the foundations for the establishment of an empire at least on a par with the concurrent social evil of Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

All things within the wide ambit of the awful world of Joseph Stalin’s Russia are explicable to Montefiore in terms of an ill-conceived notion of Marxism. His research is punctilious to the extent where he can report dialogue between some of the most nefarious characters to (dis)grace European history between capitalism’s two world wars. With minute precision he reports the economic lunacies of the forced collectivisation period, the mass murder of literally millions of peasants, the grim destruction of the lives of men, women and children who are made enemies because they are not deemed to be friends; here and there is the profanity of humour within this coterie of evil men with power over life and death who themselves are beholden to a master with power over their life and death. And all this is put down by Montefiore as a consequence of a contamination by ‘Marxism’, a claim with as much justification as blaming god for the ravages of a tsunami; a claim unsupported by the pointed absence of any of Marx’s writings from the generous bibliography.

The fact that the author knows nothing about Marxism, while clearly doing no service to that subject, perhaps rescues the narrative from a taxing analysis that might have impeded this grim, gossipy biography of men and women striving for power with the tenacity of private entrepreneurial billionaires because power in state capitalism, like money in ‘western’ capitalism, is truly a universal medium of exchange.

Stalin is an easy read, perhaps a little tedious in its replication and its ‘facts’ coloured often in that they are the post-Stalin ‘justifications’ by Stalin’s surviving accomplices or relatives of both friends and foes still extant. In summary, Montefiore is an good writer, a good storyteller and a lousy historian.

Richard Montague

Correspondence: Socialism and “Supermen.” (1928)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1928 issue of the Socialist Standard

A critic's rejoinder and our reply.

London, N.W.5.

To the Editor of the Socialist Standard.

Sir,—Your answer to my criticism of socialism in the December Socialist Standard was very interesting, and I thank you for printing my letter. But why say that to-day is beloved of myself if I point out that exploitation, war and appropriation are features of all life, and are bound up in the function of living things; and that capitalism is a manifestation of the life process. I shall be even more interested if you can show that this is not a fundamental fact of all history up to the present moment. Especially as you seem to regard yourselves as authorities on that subject, and accuse me of ignorance.

You say that civilisations proceed from the changes in the material conditions of existence. Perhaps the S.P. might study the characters of the men who played a prominent part in the English rebellion, and find out whether Cromwell and his colleagues were not far different men than Charles I in appearance, in habits, and in tastes. Also whether the civilisation proceeding from that rebellion was marked by the puritanical avaricious character of the men who ruled it. It is human beings who make history; and the breeding, tastes and racial characteristics of those human beings set their mark upon a civilisation and give it its meaning and its peculiar form and excellence. Thus we have the noticeable variety and diversity of such civilisations as Egypt, Greece, the East, etc. To say that civilisations proceed from material conditions is equivalent to saying that pictures proceed from paint and brushes and not from artists. Civilisations, which are works of art on a grand scale, proceed from the race, and more particularly from the higher and more gifted members of that race. Why are the terms higher and lower men the cant and humbug of a ruling class? They are tangible, existing realities.

Next I come to your explanation of philanthropy. That it “has its roots either in a fear of a hereafter, the belief in a heaven or hell, or else a desire to achieve notoriety.” But why precisely should a reward in the hereafter be expected to be earned by bestowing sums of money upon asylums for cripples, the insane, and the diseased—why should people fear not to do so, and why should such bestowals achieve fame on this earth? You say that this is no different from any other philanthropy—ancient or modern. But whenever did entry to Valhalla or Olympus depend upon exactly such terms? One had to possess far different qualifications to earn a place among the heroes. The reason that modern philanthropy takes the form it largely does, and the fame it obtains in so doing, is to be found in Christian morality. There everything weak, exhausted, declining and ailing is declared holy. The healthy, the vigorous, the triumphant are looked upon with suspicion. “The Lord has chosen the things that are not, to bring to naught the things that are, that no flesh shall glory in his presence,” says Paul. The lowly were declared to be holy. This train of thought has become uppermost. It has paved the way for the conception that evolution results in revolution; therefore it has paved the way for Socialism with its belief in the working-class as introducers of the next step in social evolution.

No wonder you distil from history the theory that it is a series of emancipations; and that the working-class, which is the bottom class, can establish a society in which there will be no privilege, no slavery, no poverty; instead, comfort, equality and freedom for all. But first, my dear fellows, you will have to discover a new sort of life, for none existing can be made to fit that nihilistic dream.

However, I regard it as quite possible so to weaken and suppress living beings that for long periods they will acquiesce in a tame and castrated society whose level is determined by the majority vote of its members. Your assurance that there is nothing in Socialism to prevent ideas being furthered, with the stipulation that this furtherance is not to the injury of the community, is a revelation of the sort of freedom permissible under Socialism. Everyone as agent of the community watching everyone else. What a community ! What a conception of freedom ! To offset this you say that to-day ideas that do not suit the ruling class are crushed at birth. Then how is it that the Socialist Standard appears every month? And is quite old, I believe. Perhaps, after all, it was crushed at birth by somebody, as its ideas are very strange. But the Socialist seems unable to comprehend the simple explanation that life is a multifarious, changing, conflicting phenomena, wherein none are consulted as to whether they want it, and in which it is impossible to live, breathe, eat and breed without violating some other form of life.

Your accusation of robbery against the capitalist smacks of that pious fraud whereby existence was made to appear as a struggle of good against evil. And, as I pointed out in my criticism, it is an emanation from the vanquished and resentful, who thus find a way to get back at the victors. This cannot change the essential nature of life. But by misunderstanding life you can come to believe that it is possible to establish that simpleton’s paradise “that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.” How little you know of life if you believe that. But I doubt if you do believe it. It is a bait with which you hope to draw the unhappy over to your side. A hollow fraud for dupes; a wretched self-deception; the heir of Christianity. The most tremendous falsehood that has ever existed.

—I am, Yours, etc.,

Robert Hart.

Reply to Mr. Hart. 

In our previous reply to Mr. Hart we pointed out that his first letter consisted almost entirely of unsupported assertions, and we challenged him to give any evidence to support his defence of the claims of capitalists.

His second letter makes not the slightest attempt to meet this challenge, and supplies no evidence in support of his statements.

Instead of doing this he repeats his baseless assertions, and then calls upon us to prove a negative. This cheap, ancient, but badly-worn trick of the dodger in controversy, is useless when it is attempted to be played on any who have some acquaintance with the elements of logic and sense. Unless Mr. Hart is prepared to give something beyond mere assertion for his stale and exploded views, it is no business of ours to fall into his obvious trap by setting out to establish the contrary.

When Mr. Hart attempts to meet some of our points in the answer to his previous letter the results are childish. Thus he thinks he is refuting the fact that material conditions determine the form of society when he says this “is equivalent to saying that pictures proceed from paints and brushes and not from artists” ! He is evidently mentally unable to distinguish betweeen the tools one may use from the material conditions under which one must live.

This mental incapacity is further illustrated when he fails to see that his question on English philanthropy : “Why precisely should a reward in the hereafter be expected to be earned by bestowing sums of money upon asylums,” etc., has already been answered by our pointing out that it is based upon a belief in a heaven and a hell. It is to seek the approbation or goodwill of the “God” believed in that such acts are taken. The Valhalla is not comparable with a heaven or a hell, as Mr. Hart would know if he had the slightest acquaintance with the facts of history.

To say that we will have “to discover a new sort of life “to live under Socialism is merely to say that Socialism has not existed before, which is one of the things we state ourselves.

Mr. Hart’s last sentence certainly clears the air. Socialism is “a hollow fraud for dupes,” “a wretched self-deception,” “the most tremendous falsehood that has ever existed,” etc. Here is the shriek of the apologist for Capitalism, who, unable to meet the facts and arguments of the Socialists, starts out with false assertions and ends up with a scream.

Editorial Committee.

Hero Worship: A Conversation With a Visitor from Mars. (Part 2) (1927)

From the December 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard 

(Continued from last month.)

“However, Marty, I think Wells hits the right nail on the head when he explains Napoleon’s amazing popularity with his troops by the fact that they never saw him save on a few theatrical and emotional occasions, and that his soldiers idolised not Napoleon, but 'a carefully fostered legend of a little pet of a man, who was devoted to France and to them all.’ Napoleon, it seems to me, was both 'the child of the Revolution’ and the embodiment of the reaction against it. Society in the 18th and 19th century was crying aloud for 'reform,’ but was not ready for a system of society based on common ownership. Napoleon represents the rejection of the theories of Anacharsis Cloots and the beginnings of the Capitalistic State; whilst the French bank, the University and the 'Code Napoleon' were the result not so much of his 'original genius,’ as of the evident social and economic need for them.”

"There must have been, I suppose, in your planet’s history,” remarked the Martian, “many 'great men’ who have attempted to change the course of social or economic development. Have any succeeded?” "Well,” I replied, "I do not know of any individual who has changed the course, but a few have stemmed it for a while. In Roman history, Sulla attempted to re-establish the lost power of the Senate and to crush the rising Equestrian order, which consisted of wealthy traders. To effect this he framed a constitution. In a few years, however, his constitution was practically disregarded, and all that remained of his labours were his administrative and judicial reforms, which, although secondary considerations with Sulla, yet satisfied the social need for better organisation, and thus endured. Strangely enough, Marty, a comic-operatic 'Sulla,’ is operating in Rome to-day, and with the puffed-up pride mediocrity fondly hopes to achieve the success denied to his more illustrious predecessor. How truly Marx interpreted history when he wrote, 'Great historicaL facts and personages appear twice—once as tragedy and again- as farce.” (From 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon.)

Many more examples, however, could be given, Marty, of men whose desire and aims have been thwarted by economic conditions, but time prevents me from doing anything save naming a few, such as Cromwell, Charles XII of Sweden, and (possibly) Lenin of Russia. Spencer has ably summarised the conclusions just arrived at in his essay, "The Social Organism,” portions of which, with your permission, I will “inflict” upon you:—

  “It is not by the 'hero as king’ any more than by collective wisdom that men have been segregated into producers, wholesale distributors, and retail distributors. The whole of our industrial organisation, from its main outlines down to its minutest details has become what it is not simply without legislative guidance but, to a considerable extent in spite of legislative hindrances. . . .  By steps so small that year after year the industrial arrangements have seemed to men just what they were before—by changes as insensible as those through which a seed passes into a tree; society has become the complex body of mutually-dependent workers we now see.  . . . The failure of Cromwell permanently to establish a new social condition and the rapid revival of suppressed institutions and practices after his death show how powerless is a monarch to change the type of a society he governs. He may disturb, he may retard, or he may aid the natural process of organisation; but the general course of this process is beyond his control. . . . Thus, that which is obviously true of the industrial structure of society, is true of its whole structure. The fact that constitutions are not made but grow is simply a fragment of the much larger fact that under all its aspects and through all its ramifications, society is a growth, and not a manufacture.”

“Well,” said the Martian, I have learned a great deal from your discourse; in the first place my conviction that human societies are not jig-saw puzzles, the parts of which have been contributed by 'great men,' but are living and ever-changing organisms in which both 'great' and 'little' men play their respective parts, has been doubly strengthened, whilst it seems evident that 'hero worship’ varies in its form and function according to the state of the community in which it exists. Thus, I gather that, early man was too self-occupied and practical to be carried away by sentimental personal idolatry, and individual control was sanctioned simply because it was the only positive control known. Later, with the evolution of abstract ideas and ideals, moral civilization came into being with the resultant glamour that attached itself to the governing members of society. In the past, my friend, ‘hero worship' seemed to have fulfilled at least one useful purpose—it provided a control over what would be, I assume (compared with your present machines for mass production), crude and strangely miscellaneous instruments of production; that is to say, society, fearing anarchy, submitted to the subordination of efficient individuals. But what of the utility of 'hero worship' at the present time?”

W. J.

(To be continued.)

Che Guevara (1996)

From the April 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The name of Che Guevara was recently in the news again as an ex-officer of the Bolivian military claimed to know where the dead guerrilla's grave is. Guevara was a heroic revolutionary icon throughout the 1960s and 1970s. A famous poster of him wearing a jaunty beret adorned many radical walls and protest tee-shirts. The popular perception of Guevara is as the idealist or utopian dreamer of the Cuban revolution compared with the more tough-minded and pragmatic figure of Castro. But behind the mythology, who was the man, what did he stand for and what is the socialist view of his life and work?

Ernesto "Che" Guevara was born in Argentina in 1928. Graduating with a degree in medicine from Buenos Aires in 1953 he commenced an extensive tour of Latin America, ending up in Guatemala in 1954. He was there when the leftist, reform-minded Arbenz regime was overthrown in a CIA-organised coup. At this period of the cold war the agrarian programme of Arbenz, which threatened extensive American land-holdings, was viewed as a prelude to "communism” by the suspicious Eisenhower administration. Forced to leave Guatemala from the vindictive new authorities. Guevara moved to Mexico City and continued mixing in radical political circles. Anti-American sentiment was commonplace amongst Argentinean intellectuals at the time and the Guatemala episode must have accentuated it with Guevara. He considered himself a revolutionary Marxist but more accurately could be described as being in the Leninist tradition. While in Mexico he met the exiled Fidel Castro who was organising a rebellion against the Batista dictatorship in Cuba. Che quickly agreed to join Castro’s “army of liberation" known as the July 26th Movement.

Cuban Revolution
The rebellion began in 1956 and was based amongst the peasants in the Sierra Maestra. Guevara’s reputation as a heroic fighter dates from this era of mountain struggle where he was a leading military commander in Castro's forces. The historical context to the conflict was that Cuba did not achieve independence from Spain until 1902 and from then until the eventual success of the rebellion in 1959, it was in effect a US protectorate. American business interests dominated the economy and the US government retained the legal right to intervene in Cuban affairs. This was a major irritant to patriotically-minded Cubans and it meant that amongst left-wing nationalists, capitalism was always erroneously identified as being synonymous with American imperialism. The Cuban Communist Party—with the Soviet Union—regarded the 26th July Movement as radical populists fighting against political dictatorship and excessive American interference, being in favour of vague goals to promote social justice. Castro's regime eventually aligned itself with the Soviet Union more as a reaction to Washington’s paranoia rather than out of intrinsic ideological commitment.

Upon the overthrow of Batista, Guevara became Director of the National Bank and than a de facto Minister for Industry. He was prominent in the nationalisation of the foreign controlled sugar production, oil refining, banking and mining industries. He combined these roles with a roving ambassadorship to developing countries seeking to gain international support for Cuba and investigating opportunities to propagate the Cuban revolution. Gradually however his influence waned in Havana and by 1965 he had become almost irrelevant. He criticised the Soviet Union’s treatment of its allies in the developing world saying that in extracting hard-headed trade concessions, they were acting little better than “capitalist” countries. This outspokenness embarrassed Castro. Furthermore he advocated the paying of an equal wage to all Cubans and the use of "moral incentives" to encourage productivity, as a path that would eventually lead to a moneyless society. These arguments were dismissed by the regime in favour of wage differentials and bonuses. Feeling that his talents as a theorist of guerrilla warfare could be put to better use elsewhere, he left Cuba and by 1967 ended up in Bolivia. There with a tiny band of fighters he tried to emulate the Cuban revolution. Despite his initial optimism, the Bolivian peasantry proved to be indifferent and support was unforthcoming. The Bolivian army tracked down the insurgents and in October 1967, Che Guevara was captured, shot and immediately passed from history into myth.

Dictatorial measures
On one level socialists can sympathise with the life of Guevara; from his travels he became aware of the poverty and oppression of the majority of the people in Latin America. This made him a social critic and he was determined to do his part to change society. Undoubtedly the Cuban revolution in which Guevara played a major role brought some initial benefits to the people of the island. The worst forms of worker exploitation (widespread prostitution, the plight of landless labourers) were ended and advances in health and education were tremendous by comparable standards. But side-by-side with this went political oppression; the independent press was closed down, trade unions became an adjunct to the state, there was imprisonment and sometimes execution of political dissidents. Workers were expected to put in long hours in dangerous conditions to satisfy Castro's various industrialisation schemes. In a further parallel with Stalin these dictatorial measures were always justified by reference to an external threat. More recently over the past ten years with the ending of Soviet aid, the fate of the Cuban workers has worsened considerably under the Beijing-like gerontocracy of the Havana leadership. In the popular mind Che Guevara is never linked with this repressive state apparatus though he was an important element in its construction. Ironically too, while Guevara has always in the west been associated with the libertarian “student counter-culture", the regime of which he was a member carried out a severe and ultimately fruitless campaign against western pop music, “decadence" and homosexuality. In fact gay people have been treated particularly harshly in Cuba.

Confusion about the basis on which society is organised meant that Guevara was destined to become part of a doomed experiment in social change. That this same process has repeatedly happened to so many reformers is of immense frustration to socialists. We have a number of reasons for opposing the politics espoused by Che Guevara. We would point to the mistaken Leninist equating of capitalism with imperialism which as in so many other cases inevitably led down the blind alley of nationalism. A good illustration of this is that for the past thirty years in Cuba the 19th century patriotic figure of Marti has been invoked by the establishment as often as Marx.

Another disagreement lies in seeing military action by the self-chosen few as the force to change society. Socialists are not pacifists and have genuine sympathy for those fighting political dictatorship but we recognise that the only meaningful transformation that can occur in society is when the majority of the people on a world-wide basis make a conscious voluntary decision to re-organise their lives and change the system that they live under. At the heart of our difference with Guevara was his belief that an equal wages society would be the spring to a socialist summer. The essence of socialism is a moneyless society; the break with using a means of exchange must be distinct and irrevocable. Equal wages and labour vouchers must inevitably lead back rather than forward as they are based on, and assume, capitalist consciousness continuing.

Denouncing Che Guevara with the easy benefit of hindsight would be facile. Socialists are keen to analyse and discuss such people's lives for the lessons to be learnt. We understand that historical figures like Guevara, Lenin, Garabaldi and Connolly cannot be wholly held responsible for the societies that arose in their wake. Such an approach overestimates the role of the individual as opposed to the political/economic/cultural factors prevailing at the time. Hindsight does show us though that without a proper understanding of the material basis of society any attempts at social change, no matter how initially laudable they may be, will certainly fail.

Kevin Cronin

Wood for the Trees: A ‘Man of his Time’ (2020)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the April 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the many fascinations of history is trying to work out what was the motivation of those who made it. The possibilities can be many and various but historians all warn us not to project our own values and perceptions onto those who lived in the past. Quite often the observation that ‘he was a man of his time’ is used to explain and sometimes justify actions that most feel to be abhorrent in a contemporary context. There seems to be some kind of limit placed on the applicability of this observation since it is never used to justify or explain, for instance, the activities of Hitler or Stalin. We are given the impression that the further back in time we go the more alien the dominant ideologies of morality and politics become. Certainly any attempt to ‘judge’ the actions of historical characters by anachronistically using our own values is problematic but we do see evidence of universal ethical sensibilities throughout history. What are we to make of this paradox?

To examine this question we’ll use The Crusades of the Middle Ages as it remains a prime example of a raging debate about the motivations of the participants that shows no sign of a resolution. Some historians insist on Christian piety as being the prime motivating force whilst others point to the Pope’s desire to unite Christendom under his hegemony or yet others highlight the need of minor sons of the nobility to create their own fiefdoms. Some consider the Crusades as an early precursor of imperialism motivated purely by plunder and power. Not that all or some of these are necessarily incompatible with each other but we do know that they often came into conflict, a factor that would ultimately be one of the reasons leading to the downfall of the Crusader States. It would be naïve to deny that the ideologies and values of the historians concerned play a role in the conclusions they reach despite the manifest importance of guarding against this. It would be equally naïve to believe the motivation of a Crusader to be that which he declared it to be – hypocrisy seems to have thrived within every historical period. Psychologically we also all have a tendency to rationalise our actions, if we feel uneasy about them, in an effort to avoid guilt. In other words our motivation may be unclear to ourselves. We may be able to agree on what was done historically but given the above complexities can we ever be sure why those involved acted as they did?

Many of us enjoy historical biographies which ultimately focus on the question of motivation. No one biography will ever completely coincide with another – if they did the whole exercise would be rendered meaningless. Different crusaders had different motivations which were expressed within a context created by their superiors who in turn reacted to circumstances which led to an inevitable clash of warrior cultures and their imperial ambitions. Two of the most famous of these warriors were Richard I of the Angevin Empire and Saladin of the Ayyubid Empire. Their reputations have fluctuated down the centuries and many biographers have seen both similarities and profound differences in their character and motivation. They were obviously both ‘men of their time’ but one became notorious for brutality and the other is often seen as one of the originators of ‘the chivalric code’. We might ascribe this to their divergent cultural backgrounds but it does weaken the stereotype of what it means to be ‘a man of your time’. Any acknowledgement of acts of compassion, righteousness, mutual respect or regret also weakens the concept of historical figures merely being the conditioned products of their time.

It may be that only a few have ever stepped back from the values of their culture to acquire a more objective perspective (as, of course, socialists claim to be able to do) but in terms of our evolution as a species the historical record is very recent. Our communal and social predilections and the feelings of compassion and empathy that this engenders have often come into conflict with the cultural values of authoritarianism, exploitation and hierarchy. In an attempt to excuse or explain the actions of those in history it is never enough to point to perceived historical/cultural limitations. This can so often lead to unfounded conclusions concerning ‘human nature’ and give those who seek to excuse the excesses of capitalism a readymade formula of despair. We so often hear phrases like: ‘there’s always been warfare’ or there’ll always be hierarchies of wealth and power’ which are clearly projections of contemporary prejudice and historical ignorance onto the motivations of those in the past and this in turn masquerades as an example of not doing so by invoking the importance of not making moral judgements; in other words the formulation of ‘a man of his time’ is itself a projection of contemporary values. It implies that contemporary values are somehow superior to those of the past. It might be that the moral and political aspirations of mankind have remained much the same but have been viciously suppressed by the emergence of private property and its power elites. Will we ever be able to explain or excuse the actions of Tony Blair, George Bush Jnr. or Osama Bin Ladin by saying that they were merely ‘men of their time’?

Wez

The Materialist Conception of History. by Frederick Engels. (1920)

From the February 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

Translated for "The Proletarian" by Prof. J. I. Cheskis, of the University of Michigan.

[The letter printed below is interesting to students of Socialism as one of the instances that show how false is the charge of the superior persons of the Labour Party and the I.L.P., of the "dogmatism" of Marx and Engels. It should also be remembered that a fight was being waged at the time the letter was written between the followers of Marx and the Anarchists of Germany, in which the latter were attempting to stretch some of the phrases of Marx and Engels on the Class War into a support of street fighting and barricades as the essential method of working-class emancipation. Similar tales are sometimes told in this country, and it is a significant fact that every new translation of Marx's and Engels' writings shows still further the falsity of these tales, and how all through their propaganda it was the capture of political power they insisted upon, as the essential that the working class must rely upon for their escape from slavery.—Ed. Com., "S.S."] 

In the course of a discussion that followed a public lecture, given at a seminary, a student asked Engels to give him precise explanations of the two following points:

1. To what extent do economic conditions act as a causative influence ?
2. What part is played by the race and by the individual according to the "historical materialism" of Marx and Engels ?

Engels replied:

London. Jan. 25, 1895. 

122 Regents Park Road, N.W. 

Dear Sir,—Following is the reply to your two questions :

1. The economic conditions, which we consider as the determinative basis in the history of society, we understand to be the manner in which men in a given society produce their means of subsistence and the ways in which they effect the exchange of products among themselves (this as long as division of labour exists). The entire technique of production and transportation is here included. According to our conception this technique determines the mode of exchange, of distribution of products, and—after the disintegration of the tribal system—the division of society into classes, the conditions of master and slave, of State, of politics, law, etc. Further, among the economic conditions under which these phenomena obtain, must be included the geographical environment, and also the actual remains of former phases of economic evolution which often persisted by force of tradition, inertia, or because of circumstances which surrounds that form of society.

Even if, as you say, technique largely depends on the conditions of science, yet, in a greater measure, does the latter depend on the conditions of and the need for technique. If society is in the need of the development of a certain technique, this helps science more than ten universities. The science of hydrostatics was the sole result of the need that Italy felt in the 16th and 17th centuries of controlling the course of her torrents in the mountains. We began to understand the science of electricity only when we discovered its practical application. In Germany, however, they have become accustomed to treat the history of science as though it had fallen out of the sky.

2. We hold, that in the final analysis, economic conditions constitute the determinative factor in historical evolution. Here, therefore, we must hold in view two points:

(A). That the political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc. evolutions are based on the economic evolution. They all re-act upon each other and upon the economic basis. It does not mean that the economic factor is the sole active cause and all the others merely passive effects. But the whole situation presents a mutual interaction among the various forces on the basis of economic necessity, which latter force ultimately prevails. The State, for instance, exerts an influence by means of protective tariffs, free exchange, good or bad revenue laws; and even the boundless stupidity and impotence of the German petty Bourgeoisie—which grew out of Germany's economic misery during the period from 1648 to 1830, and which first manifested itself in piety, then in sentimentality and fawning servility before the nobles and princes— was not without its economic consequences. It was one of the greatest obstacles to the renaissance and was not shaken off until the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars made the economic wretchedness unbearable. History is not as some would imagine for the sake of their greater convenience, an automatic effect of the economic situation, but men themselves make their own history. Certain it is, however, that men act in accordance with the prevailing conditions that dominate their field of action. And among these the economic circumstances, however much influenced by political and ideological forces, are always of chief importance. In the final reckoning they constitute the decisive factor and form the golden thread which guides the student to the correct, all-comprehensive, understanding of the subject.

(B). Men make their own history, but not as the result of a general volition nor in accordance with some general plan,—not even in a given limited social group. Men's aspirations oppose each other. Out of this circumstance, in every similar group, arises an imperative need whose chance concomitant or accidentality is at once the complement and the form of its manifestation. The need or necessity which here underlies every chance appearance is in the end the economic necessity. The so-called great man appears. But the fact that it happens to be a certain great man, appearing at a certain time and at a certain given place, is simply mere chance. But if we eliminate him there arises an immediate demand for a substitute, and this substitute in time found, tant bien que mal. That Napoleon became a military dictator —of which the French republic, exhausted by civil wars, stood in need—was merest chance ; but that in the event of Napoleon's non-appearance there would have been another to occupy his place is proven by the fact that in every instance in which there was such a need the man was found—Caesar, Augustus, Cromwell, etc. If it happened to be Marx who discovered the law of historical materialism, yet Thierry, Mignet, Guizot, who up to 1850 were writing English histories, proves that such a notion already existed, and the discovery of the same idea by Morgan further proves that the times were ripe for such an event and the discovery was an imperative need.

And so it is with every other true or apparent accidentality in history. The farther the field that we may be examining recedes from the economic, and the nearer it approaches the merely abstract ideologic, the more we shall find—in its evolution—such accidentalities appearing on the scene, and the more does the curve of its evolution fluctuate. If one should attempt, however, to trace the axis of this curve, one should find that the longer the time period observed and the larger the field thus treated, the more nearly does this axis run parallel to the axis of the economic evolution.

In Germany the great hindrance to a true understanding of these things lies in the inexcusable neglect of this subject by the writers of economic history. It is so difficult to rid oneself of the historical conceptions inculcated by schools, and still more difficult to collect the necessary materials. Who, for example, has read old J. V. Julich, who includes in his dry collections so many explanations of various political phenomena!

Moreover, it seems to me the beautiful example given us by Marx in his "Eighteenth Brumaire" furnishes a sufficient answer to your questions—the more so because it is a practical illustration. And I believe myself to have touched upon those points in "Anti-Duehring," I., chapters 9-11, II., chapters 2-4, and III., chapter 1, and also in the introduction and in the last chapter of "Feuerbach."

I would ask you not to pass judgment on this letter, but to consider only the thoughts it conveys. I am sorry I have not the time to write you with that exactness I should employ when writing for the public.

Kindly give my regards to Mr. _____ and thank him for the . . . which has given me much pleasure.

With profound respect,

Most devotedly yours,

F. Engels.

Blogger's Note:

See also 'The Materialist Conception of
 History' (1934)

The Middle East and Historic Rights (1978)

From the February 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is no question that individuals do influence society and that without an emphasis on the background and nature of outstanding individuals a complete picture of their times is not possible. The problem is, simply, that too much is made of their importance in the fashioning of history. As Karl Kautsky puts it in Foundations of Christianity:

. . . in terms of historical epochs, their influence is only transitory, merely the outer ornament which strikes the eye first in a building but says nothing about its foundations. But it is the foundations that determine the character of the structure and its permanence . . .

To put the proposition in another way: to understand the basic structure of a society is to grasp the underlying significance behind the actions of outstanding individuals. Take, for example, the apparent earth-shattering decision of Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat to parley with the Israelis for “peace” and the return of Arab lands to their former owners. Consider, too, the stiff-backed arguments of Israel’s Menachem Begin on the “historical right” of the Jewish people to return to Samaria and Judea (commonly referred to – but not by Begin – as the West Bank).

Were one to base one’s understanding on popular belief, the new development in Middle East politics is the brainchild of Anwar Sadat. Millions of words are churned out by the media on his and his lovely wife’s personal backgrounds, their devotion to Allah and to the pressing economic problems of the Egyptian masses. Sadat is widely termed “courageous” excepting, to be sure, in some parts of the Arab world where he is labelled “traitor.” Whatever the appellation, however, he is thought of as the instigator of Egypt’s current political moves.

Now, it is not necessary to construct a theory based upon conspiracy to understand that the business class of Egypt and of Israel have orchestrated the present politics of “peace” in their immediate orbits. The symphony does not have to sound, upon original completion, as a finished work and is subject to refinement. Even the master composers of the classics were known to change their scores from the originals. And so it is with the bourgeoisies of Israel and Egypt. There is a constant urge, a need, in capitalist society for trade and capital investment that transcends historical prejudices. That such activity leads, inevitably, to further ruptures and war is but a contradiction of capitalism and beside the point. Business must go on, somehow, but it is not easy-to whatever extent it is possible — for nations to carry on profitable relations with one another when in a legal state of war.

As a matter of fact, the bourgeoisie, as a whole, is never really pleased with a perpetual need to build armaments and wage war with one another. It is costly and the experiences of the West German and Japanese capitalist class since their defeat in World War II prove how much more profitable it is when huge military establishments do not have to be maintained.

The point is that, whatever the outcome of current negotiations, one should learn more by examining Israeli and Egyptian business needs than by studying the personal characteristics of their heads of state.

Now, what of that “historical right” of the Jewish people to settle in Samaria and Judea (the West Bank)? There are, of course, two main opposing points of view: the area, in biblical times, was Jewish and is thus part of the traditional Jewish homeland; Arab occupancy for a couple of thousand years – more or less – makes it Arab territory. Upon analysis, both views are unsound and unfounded. In the first place, there is no real essence behind the premise that those who espouse Judaism (willingly or not) in our times are descendants of those early Jewish inhabitants of Samaria and Judea. Aside from the intermarriage and general miscegenation between Jews and non-Jews in mediaeval and modem times Judaism, in very early times, was a proselytising religion, particularly so in the early years of Rome’s imperial greatness. As Kautsky puts it:

  Among the many religions that came together in the Roman world empire the Jewish was the one best suited to the thoughts and needs of the time. It was not superior to the philosophy of the ‘heathen’ but to their religions — no wonder that the Jews felt far superior to the Gentiles and that the number of their supporters grew rapidly. ‘Judaism wins over all men,’ says the Alexandrian Jew Philo, ‘and exhorts them to virtue; barbarians, Hellenes, men of the mainland and men of the islands, the nations of the East like those of the West, Europeans, Asiatics, the peoples of the world.’ We expected Judaism to become the religion of the world. This was the time of Christ. (Foundations of Christianity).

And Kautsky goes on to say in his next paragraph:

. . . as early as 139 B.C. in Rome itself Jews were expelled for making Italian proselytes. It was reported from Antioch that the larger part of the Jewish community there consisted of converted Jews (rather than born Jews). It must have been so in many other cities as well . . .

Is it not preposterous, then, to relate present world Jewry to the historical inhabitants of Samaria and Judea or of Palestine, generally?

On the other hand, neither Jews nor Arabs, for the most part, could lay claim to meaningful ownership of the land on which they lived in biblical times any more than they can today. Throughout the period of recorded history the land in any part of civilization has been, mainly, the property of a small minority of any national population. The lesson is still to be learned: “Our land” so far as the vast majority is concerned is ours only in philosophy, poetry, and song — not in actuality. And the only historic right enjoyed by working people anywhere in the civilized world is the right to be exploited (when they can be “used”) by, and subject to, a ruling class and its state.

Harry Morrison

WSP (US), Boston.