Communism in "Le Monde des Livres"

[Eric]

The centre-left French daily had a big splash on Communism in their book section yesterday (5th February 2010). Theory versus practice and similar.

French books and translations reviewed included:

Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek: L'idée du communisme.

Slavoj Žižek:Après la tragédie, la farce!

Yves Citton: Storytelling et imaginaire de gauche

Michael Christofferson: Les Intellectuales contre la gauche

Tristram Hunt: Engels. Le gentleman révolutionnaire

Plus smaller reviews on other aspects of Communism as a theory or ideology.

*

The review that intrigued me most was the one of the last book listed, a translation from the English. This review, entitled Friedrich Engels, la révolution en champagne did a fair hatchet job on Engels. A quote or two:

(...) Engels comme un philosophe austère, sévère, voire un brin pontifiant. Eh bien pas du tout! Ce fils d'un homme d'affaires (...) était en effet un joyeux drille. Partout il vécut, à Berlin, à Manchester, à Bruxelles, il fit la fortune des cabaretiers, la joie des jolies femmes et le délice des cancaniers.

(...) les pages que Tristram Hunt consacre aux vingt ans qu'Engels passa à la tête d'une filature de coton é Manchester sont particulièrement savoureuses.

The review goes on to mention that this clubbing and owning bourgeois revolutionary also said, when asked about why he read the hardly revolutionary journal "The Economist", pointed out that he was not so naïve to consult the socialist press when looking for advice on financial operations.

*

However, another little article in this book section mentions that one French publisher has sold 8,700 copies of "The Communist Manifesto" in 2009. "Das Kapital" was re-issued in 2008 as a two-volume job. They sold 7,200 copies of [each volume of] the book by June 2008 of an original edition of 8,000 and in 2009 a further 3,000 copies were printed.

What does this suggest about the political consciousness of the younger generation, not old enough to remember detailed descriptions of how Communism gripped youth in the 1960s and 1970s? Do we have another generation of gullible middle-class armchair revolutionaries from bourgeois homes who are going to put their faith in Marxism-Leninism and other infantile disorders?

I hope the books listed above awaken an interest in both France and elsewhere of the true nature of the Communist ideology which only seems to be taken seriously nowadays in North Korea.

[saliotthomas]

Originally Posted by Eric

The centre-left French daily .....

As for the rest, well, it's your own subtle parallelle to the thread about Mein Kampf ?
Is it?

[Galatea92]

Originally Posted by Eric

However, another little article in this book section mentions that one French publisher has sold 8,700 copies of "The Communist Manifesto" in 2009. "Das Kapital" was re-issued in 2008 as a two-volume job. They sold 7,200 copies of [each volume of] the book by June 2008 of an original edition of 8,000 and in 2009 a further 3,000 copies were printed.

What does this suggest about the political consciousness of the younger generation, not old enough to remember detailed descriptions of how Communism gripped youth in the 1960s and 1970s? Do we have another generation of gullible middle-class armchair revolutionaries from bourgeois homes who are going to put their faith in Marxism-Leninism and other infantile disorders?

I hope the books listed above awaken an interest in both France and elsewhere of the true nature of the Communist ideology which only seems to be taken seriously nowadays in North Korea.

You won't find the true nature of Communist society in either of those books, only an anger about oppression and an idealism about how to deal with that oppression. How could any young person with a heart not be moved by the Communist Manifesto, and not see the relevance to their own society of passages like the following?

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.

To be honest, Eric, I'd much rather have young people who were moved by that passage, than the kind of selfish egotists whose only aim in life is to make the next bonus and buy a new Porsche.

[Eric]

Galatea92, where would you seek to find the true nature of Communist society? I don't believe in Communism. But I too was a young person once. I was a fellow-traveller and thought Communism a good idea. I don't think that now. And I realise that manipulating national(ist) Eastern and Central European governments are not the same as Western bourgeois intellectuals and theoreticians such as Marx, Gramsci, Marcuse, etc. The idea of young people in our perilous world falling in love with Communism yet again is a pretty scary one. How many people have been murdered in the name of Communism? Would you want your grandchildren to become informers or members of the secret police, rounding up dissidents?

And, Galatea92, what about revealing a few skeletons from your broom cupboard? Everyone hides on this forum. Where do you stand precisely with regard to Communism, and why? I wasn't born yesterday (or in 1992). But it is nice to compare my experiences with those of others. So many people on this forum like to criticise others, but reveal nothing about themselves. Out of fear and insecurity?

Do explain who the selfish egotists with Porsches are, and why. Maybe you drive a Trabant or cycle to work...

[Galatea92]

Originally Posted by Eric

And, Galatea92, what about revealing a few skeletons from your broom cupboard? Everyone hides on this forum. Where do you stand precisely with regard to Communism, and why? I wasn't born yesterday (or in 1992). But it is nice to compare my experiences with those of others. So many people on this forum like to criticise others, but reveal nothing about themselves. Out of fear and insecurity?

Like most people, I love nothing more than talking about myself . But I like having an anonymous, ambiguous persona on internet forums because it forces people to deal with what I'm writing rather than who they think I am. And it also forces me to rely on my arguments rather than on browbeating fellow posters with my vast experience of life .

But for your benefit, here's a little précis of my life and political beliefs.

I've never been a communist, and I've never been a fellow traveller. But that's because I was brought up in the Labour Party (my father and grandfather were working class Labour Party activists in a Lancashire mill town). After a spell at University in the late 70s/early 80s (I went to University College London, to study Anthropology), I also became a Labour Party activist and continued to be one, on and off, until 1997.

Note that, in the previous paragraph, I only described my actions, not my beliefs. When you're brought up in a political tradition your beliefs don't necessarily correspond to your actions. You have a loyalty to the tradition that's a little like loyalty to a family. Nowadays I consider myself a liberal rather than a socialist (I don't think I've voted Labour since 2002), and if asked for a list of political heroes I'd be more likely to name John Stuart Mill than Keir Hardie. I realised that, despite all the idealism amongst Labour Party members, poor people voted for socialist parties to get richer, and when someone else offered a better route to the same end (as the Conservatives did in 1979 and 1983), then, goodbye socialism.

Many socialists, when they realise this, become bitter; they belittle the people they claim to be representing and fantasise all kinds of states where they, the philosopher kings, can rule over all those poor people with their false consciousness until they've come to their senses. For me it had a different effect. I wondered whether those poor people weren't right in their selfishness. (Believe me it was quite hard to believe that all those sneering working class conservatives I had to canvass in the 80s might have been right ).

Eventually I came to the conclusion that what I wanted was a state that intervened only to protect individuals and to help individuals achieve their ends (their "pursuit of happiness", as Thomas Jefferson put it). Sometimes this means the state not doing things when many people want it to interfere (interfering in people's sex lives, for example), but also the state intervening to stop individuals being exploited by those with more power. Basically, I'm now just a classic English liberal .

As for my opinion of communism, it isn't very different from yours - I just don't have such a personal reason for hating it. The Marxists and Trotskyists I met when I was a political activist always reminded me of Christian fundamentalists: full of moral fury, but at bottom, just a bunch of mean-minded people looking for a way of appearing superior.

Originally Posted by Eric

Galatea92, where would you seek to find the true nature of Communist society? I don't believe in Communism. But I too was a young person once. I was a fellow-traveller and thought Communism a good idea. I don't think that now. And I realise that manipulating national(ist) Eastern and Central European governments are not the same as Western bourgeois intellectuals and theoreticians such as Marx, Gramsci, Marcuse, etc. The idea of young people in our perilous world falling in love with Communism yet again is a pretty scary one. How many people have been murdered in the name of Communism? Would you want your grandchildren to become informers or members of the secret police, rounding up dissidents?

As you can imagine from what I've written above, I don't have any sympathy with any kind of authoritarianism, whatever it calls itself. But the dominant ideology these days isn't communism or fascism, it's free market economics. I quoted that extract of the Communist Manifesto because it offers a dissenting voice - and it's always good to have dissenting views. (The political manifesto that comes closest to my own views is John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, but that's another argument).

Originally Posted by Eric

Do explain who the selfish egotists with Porsches are, and why. Maybe you drive a Trabant or cycle to work...

I do cycle to work, actually, but because I enjoy it, not for ideological reasons. There's nothing more enjoyable than cycling along the Ouse at 8 o'clock on a summer morning, listening to the bells of York Minster pealing across the river ... and trying to avoid the goose shit along the riverbank .

[Eric]

Thank-you, Galatea, at last we have a little normal, genuine, communication. I fully understand that most people here like to remain anonymous, but the sum-total of shadow-boxing has become a little wearying of late. I don't care who WLF people are as registered real-life persons, as long as you get the feeling that there is some substance, some reality and sincerity, in their replies here.

I myself used to be a Labour supporter when I was a student at UEA (aka The University of Climate Change Theory) in the 1970s, but I have to admit that my Yorkshire miner grandfather used to always talk about " 't bloody Labour gang " and my father voted Liberal for many years. Not all working class people are automatically supporters of Labour, especially since some traditional proponents of the workers have metamorphosed into such odd vampires (to use Buffy terminology) as Alastair "Weepy" Campbell. So nowadays I am a conservative - but with a small "c". It remains to be seen whether Cameron Tories are of any substance or mere blusterers.

Our views don't seem so far apart when you explain yours, but I have no personal bone to pick with Communism. As I have said variously here, I was a Communist sympathiser in the 1970s, but after living a year in Poland in the mid-1970s, I did begin to realise that theory and practice are not always the same. Nobody sent me to the GULag.

Where I do share your beliefs is regarding the way that Communists have often resembled Christian fundamentalists. I am reading a fascinating book about the Stalinist wing of the Finnish Communist Party in the 1970s. As I met some of these people, I can check what I read against my own perceptions. Luckily the book confirms my observations from three decades ago. These people were manipulated by Russia. The Communists I saw at UEA (I didn't mix much with them) were more fanatic and divided and I was horrified, years later, when I heard that one of the absolutely biggest-mouthed Communists from that university subsequntly became a chartered accountant. My student coevals were just playing at Communism and would, a decade later be absorbed into the middle classes whence they came. So much for all that revolt and renovation of society.

As for cycling, I only cycle to the supermarket and back. Nothing fancy.

I actually worked in York for a few of months in about 1981-82 and visited the Shambles with my parents about twenty years prior to that (when I was living in Batley as a child).

It was nice to see that "Le Monde" had a discussion about the theoretical side of Communism. I hope the British press do the same soon.

[Galatea92]

Originally Posted by Eric

The Communists I saw at UEA (I didn't mix much with them) were more fanatic and divided and I was horrified, years later, when I heard that one of the absolutely biggest-mouthed Communists from that university subsequntly became a chartered accountant. My student coevals were just playing at Communism and would, a decade later be absorbed into the middle classes whence they came. So much for all that revolt and renovation of society.

The people who annoyed me most were the Socialist Workers Party (I think they ran the Union when I was at college). They were always trying to convert you, and I'd find myself getting into political arguments with them (I always enjoyed arguing ). But they were rubbish at debate and as soon as they realised you weren't ripe for conversion they'd start going on about how you couldn't accept the truth because you were too bourgeois.

You can imagine how irritating that was for me, a working class grammar school kid, being accused of being bourgeois by some middle class tosser who you knew in ten years was going to end up in some comfortable job in law or accountancy, his extreme left wing views flipped into equally extreme right wing views.

[Eric]

Surely the Socialist Workers Party (or should the middle word be spelt with "an" instead of "or"...?) are the Trotskyists, the party where you can, in theory, have you cake and eat it. So while fighting for the revolution, you're supposed to infiltrate the power classes. The problem is that the would-be revolutionaries and subversives then live such a cushy life that they quietly drop Trotskyism.

From my experiences in Finland in the 1970s, there were two rival factions of the youth movement of the Communist Party of that country. Amongst the Swedish-speaking minority especially, you had the young redshirts, who were what you might term normal, slightly woolly-jumperite Communists. The blueshirts, however, were the so-called Stalinist hardliners who were very idealist and thought they were thinking for themselves, but were in fact being nicely manipulated from Moscow. Much of the "revolution" occurred at various seats of learning. The comical thing was that some of the leading members of the Stalinist faction were from some of the poshest homes in Helsinki, with a "von" in their surname, or dead rich parents. I'm reading a fascinating book on the subject right now.

So the "Le Monde" article, as originally mentioned, certainly touches the Zeitgeist of Communist revival. I wonder whether the recession will turn more upper-middle-class kids into ardent armchair revolutionaries.