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BEIJING, July 2 (Xinhua) -- The Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on Friday held a group study session on opening up new frontiers in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times. Presiding over the session, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, stressed that it is the solemn historical responsibility of today's Chinese Communists to open up new frontiers in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times. The report to the 20th CPC National Congress, while summarizing historical experience, put forward and expounded scientific methods such as "two integrates" and "six musts" that have promoted theoretical innovation, providing fundamental guides for the Party to further theoretical innovation. We should adhere to the guides and put them to good use, he said.

Li Wentang, vice president of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance) gave a lecture on this topic and proposed suggestions. Members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee listened to the lecture carefully and had a discussion thereafter.

Xi made an important speech after listening to the lecture and the discussion. He noted that the CPC's history of struggle over the past century shows that a good command of the scientific theory of Marxism has fundamentally explained why the CPC has been able to make great achievements in revolution, construction and reforms, and to lead the Chinese people in accomplishing arduous tasks that no other political forces in China could accomplish. It is also because the CPC has been able to constantly innovate its theories in light of new realities, thus making major theoretical achievements as Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the Theory of Three Represents, the Scientific Outlook on Development and the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. It is also because the CPC has kept emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts, keeping up with the times and being realistic and pragmatic, injecting vitality into Marxism in China and thus equipping itself with strong power of truth. We owe the success of our Party and socialism with Chinese characteristics, at the fundamental level, to the fact the Marxism works, particularly when it is adapted to the Chinese context and the needs of the times. This is a conclusion that has stood the test of time. We must continuously further our understanding of the Party's theoretical innovation, and make greater achievements in this regard on the new journey in the new era.

Xi stressed that the important subject of adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of the times decides that we shall never abandon the soul of Marxism and the root of fine traditional Chinese culture. Upholding such soul and root is the basis and prerequisite for theoretical innovation. To achieve theoretical innovation, we will definitely have different discourse. But we should never cease to draw on our fine traditional culture. Disowning Marxism and our own traditional culture means cutting off the soul and root, which will lead to the catastrophic mistake of losing both. We must adhere to Marxism, on which the development and prosperity of our Party and our country are based. We must continuously develop Marxism on the basis of our own rich culture that has evolved in our long history. We should have greater confidence in our history and culture, and stick to the principle of making the past serve the present and putting forth new ideas. We must follow the guidance of Marxism to comprehensively explore the rich Chinese civilization that has a history of more than 5,000 years, and use Marxism to activate the good factors of great vitality in China's fine traditional culture and imbue them with new life. We should inject the great spirit and profound wisdom of the Chinese nation into Marxism, and effectively combine the quintessence of Marxism with that of fine traditional Chinese culture to develop new theoretical strength, so as to scale new heights in thought. We need to broaden our visions in development of theories, be open-minded and learn and draw inspiration from all outstanding achievements of human civilizations. We should absorb the good theories and cultural resources from "the whole human knowledge" to innovate and develop the Party's theories, so as to create an atmosphere in which we can draw strengths from all cultures.

Xi noted that it is important to seek answers for new issues of the times in a timely and scientific way. The era is the mother of thought, and practice the fount of theory. All epoch-making theories are the results of the needs of the times. The theory for observing, understanding, and steering the trends of the times must represent the voice of the times, and should not be detached from the reality of its times. We must draw on past experience to generate the theoretical essence of the times. Xi stressed that advancing theoretical innovation must be based on practical experience but never daydream in an ivory tower. We must discover and develop truth in practice, and realize truth and test truth in practice.

In an era when the overall strategy for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the momentous changes unseen in a century are progressing rapidly and interacting with each other, humanity faces many urgent and common problems that need to be solved. Various fronts in China, such as reform, development, stability, domestic and foreign affairs, national defense, and governance of the Party, the country and the military, are also facing a raft of new major issues. The questions posed by China, the world, the people, and the times are more complex and difficult than in the past. It is urgent for us to provide answers by combining theory and practice.

It is important to have a broad view of history and grasp the trajectory and correct direction of world development with a broader perspective and a more far-sighted vision. It is imperative to understand the major logic and trends of China's social development and humanity's development, and grasp the historical evolution and practical requirements of Chinese modernization. We should deepen our understanding of promoting high-quality development and building a new development paradigm in the context of a new round of technological revolution, the global economic development landscape, and the stage-specific characteristics of China's development. We also need to deepen our understanding of the strategic thinking of the Party's self-reform, based on comparison with the fates of Marxist political parties in the world and on the practical tests facing our Party in its long-term governance. We need to put forward sound concepts and effective solutions in a comprehensive and systematic manner to solve practical problems, so as to let Marxism of contemporary China and of the 21st century showcase stronger and more persuasive power of truth.

Xi stressed that making theories systematic and academic is an intrinsic requirement and an important avenue for theoretical innovation. The reason why Marxism has a profound influence is that it reveals the truths of the development of human society with profound rationale and verifies its theories with complete systems. The development of the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era is a process featuring constant enrichment, expansion, systematization and rationalization. The project to study and develop Marxist theory should keep strengthening theoretical research and interpretation, with a focus on the original theoretical achievements from the new concepts and judgments put forward by the CPC, and grasp their inner relationship, so as to educate and guide the whole Party and the whole country to better study and understand the theoretical system of the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

Xi noted that importance must be attached to drawing wisdom for theoretical innovation from what has been created by the people. Marxism is a theory that creates ideas for the people and speaks on behalf of the people. It is meant to change people's destiny. It has been enriched and developed in the practice of people's struggle for liberation. The people's creative practices are the inexhaustible source of theoretical innovations in Marxism. People, as creators of history, are not only creators of material wealth but also creators of spiritual wealth. The achievements in adapting Marxism to the Chinese context and the needs of our times encapsulate the practical experience and collective wisdom of our Party and the people. Whether it is Mao Zedong Thought, the theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, or the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, they all come from the wisdom of the people, the explorations by the people, and the creation of the people. To continuously advance the Party's theoretical innovation, we must firmly follow the mass line and avoid working behind closed doors, and must act, not just talk or indulge in daydreaming. It is imperative to respect the pioneering spirit of the people, attach importance to summarizing fresh experience from their creative practices, transform it into rational knowledge, make new theoretical achievements, and strive to make the Party's innovative theories thoroughly understood by hundreds of millions of people. By doing so, these theories can correspond to people's desire, gather the wisdom of the people, meet people's will and win the support of the people.

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Xi calls for more innovations in Party's theories - Xinhua

A vindication for campaigners and another nail in the coffin of the Metropolitan Police. That is the takeaway from the interim report of the Mitting Inquiry into undercover policing, published on 29th June. The report concludes that the infiltration of left-wing groups in the 1970s and early 1980s was not justified, that undercover police gathered what Mitting called a remarkable amount of information on activists who were not threatening public order, and that the Special Demonstration Squad should have been rapidly disbanded after its formation to deal with anti-Vietnam war demos in 1968, rather than continuing for decades.

The inquiry was initiated 8 years ago by then prime minister Theresa May, in response to a growing number of scandals about the SDS. No wonder the undercover police have a bad name. They stole the identities of dead children to carry out their deceit; they embarked on sexual relationships with women activists they worked with, in some cases fathering children with partners who had no idea they were police; they spied on and helped victimise trade unionists who were blacklisted as a result and couldnt find work.

They damaged the lives of many thousands of people, hoovering up details of names and bank accounts of those involved in left wing campaigns, militant trade unions and socialist organisations. They behaved in the most appalling way to the women they deceived into having affairs. The contempt in which they held women or black people is evident from the language of their reports.

I was a core participant in the first tranche of the Mitting inquiry, giving evidence of my activities and seeing the extensive spying which involved surveillance of me and many comrades then in the SWP, for which I was an organiser and editor in the late 1970s and 80s. The scale of the infiltration is shocking: people that I worked with, organised a campaign with, and regarded as friends and comrades, turned out to be police spies, finding out both practical details of political activity but also personal information which could be used against us.

The key reason for this surveillance was allegedly to preserve public order. In reality it was about infiltration and political information about the left. The late 70s was a time when the fascist National Front was a growing force, bent on marching through black and Asian areas and engaged in violent thuggery against ethnic minorities and the left. The Anti Nazi League was formed in 1977, on the initiative of the SWP, to build a broad movement against the Nazis, which it did successfully in the ensuing years, both through campaigning with meetings and Rock against Racism events, and by directly confronting the Nazis on the streets when they tried to march.

Incredibly, the SDS and Metropolitan police did not infiltrate the NF or other fascist groups. According to Mittings concluding remarks, this was not because of political bias to the fascists but because such infiltration would have been too dangerous! In reality, the police all too often protected the fascists on demonstrations where they were outnumbered by local communities and left campaigners. Two anti fascists Kevin Gately in Red Lion Square in 1974, and Blair Peach in Southall in 1979 were killed on demonstrations at the hands of the police.

The truth is the Metropolitan Police were hostile to left wing campaigns and many individuals shared some of the racist ideas of the fascists. Those blacklisted and spied on were people who wanted a better world, fought injustice, build strikes and factory occupations, campaigned against apartheid, for womens liberation, and were socialists. This was regarded as enough to make them dangerous even though many of the ideas fought for then are widely accepted today.

The inquiry will continue for several more years and even more police surveillance will be revealed. Campaigners are demanding full disclosure and openness, the names of all the spycops, and the end of police spying. The Met already has an appalling reputation for misogyny and valence against women, homophobia, and racism. This interim report shows that the organisation is simply not fit for purpose and should be disbanded.

I did not suffer in the way that some have, who had relationships with spycops, or who lost their jobs. But I feel this is an infringement on my right to organise, to my supposed freedom within a democracy to express my views, and on my civil liberties. It is also an attack on all those campaigning for socialism, for greater democratic accountability, against oppression and in support of rights at work. Stopping surveillance and disbanding the Met would go some of the way to restore justice.

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In his two most famous novels, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, the lifelong socialist George Orwell cautioned his readers, chiefly conceived to be the British leftists, about the dangers of totalitarianism they had to take into account if they wanted to secure a more just and equal future for the working classes. In her new book, George Orwell and Russia, Masha Karp an Orwell scholar and Russian Features Editor at the BBC World Service explores in depth George Orwells political views, the Russian roots of his novels, and the way Orwell himself had been drawn into the propaganda struggle between Britain and the Soviets when he found himself composing the controversial Orwells list of 1949. Owen Boynton reviews Masha Karps book, finding a great deal to admire, but taking issue with parts of the authors moral argument about Orwell.

Whatever ups and downs his reputation may have undergone, George Orwell has never gone out of fashion. It isnt just Nineteen Eighty-Four that persists in our cultural imagination. Orwells essays (Politics and the English Language and Shooting an Elephant especially) are mainstays of curricula in the English-speaking world. Animal Farm is taught in English classes even as the Russian Revolution that inspired it has been pushed aside in the history classroom. The brisk clarity of Orwells style and his independence of mind, cocky in argument and humble in self-awareness, are exemplary as a measure of sound English prose. His rules of thumb for sane and honest writing remain exceedingly helpful for any writer, difficult as they might be to follow in practice.

This continued appeal is somewhat surprising, given how topical much of Orwells writing is: its local skirmishes, cultural reference points, and political urgency are often matters of distant history to todays reader. Still, Orwell had the talent for rooting out what really matters; he had a nose for the nub of things. And when those things have a habit of sticking around, Orwells words and his sense of those things also stick.

Unfortunately, as Masha Karps new book George Orwell and Russia argues, one of the persistent phenomena that has recently made Orwell relevant anew is autocracy. Sustained by the old totalitarian habits, it has resurfaced and spread in Putins Russia. The title of Karps book refers to what Russia meant to Orwell over the course of his life, what Orwell meant to Russia during and after his life, and how Orwell matters if we are to understand what is happening in Russia now. It is probably a book for readers who have some familiarity with Orwells work; but if they dont, the last two chapters, on Orwell and Russia under Putin, will lead the reader back to his words.

Given that Orwells two most famous novels, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, are directly inspired by Soviet Russia, and totalitarian Stalinist Russia especially, the subject of Karps book is obvious. At the same time, because Orwell lived and wrote in the shadow of Soviet Russia, it is challenging to decide where the Soviet presence matters, and where it doesnt: its so diffuse as to be elusive. Karp might have painted her study in broad brushstrokes, drawing conclusions from readings of essays and paraphrases of Orwells statements. Instead, she relishes the details of exactly how, when, and what Orwell would have learned about Soviet Russia, and how his attitudes towards Russia changed over time, especially in relation to his continued belief in the ideals of socialism. Sometimes, she focuses on the political history around Orwell, sometimes on biography, and sometimes on tracing his ideas and art.Though at times the forest is lost for the trees, her book is most impressive on account of how judiciously she selects her material, erring on the side of factual accuracy and abundance.

Born Eric Blair in 1903 (he would only adopt the pen name George Orwell in the early 1930s), Orwell attended Eton from 1917 to 1921. With the Russian Revolution half a world away, we have records of his joining his Eton peers in celebrating the revolutionaries. Karps story, though, takes as its true beginning Orwells stay with his Aunt Nellie in Paris, in the late 1920s.

Nellie was devoted to the cause of Esperanto, the artificial language constructed in the late 19th century in hopes of unifying humankind through a common tongue not attached to any historic nation. Looking back on the intensity of Esperantos advocates in the 1920s is both humbling and bewildering: they couldnt have known how irrelevant their aim would be to the changes they helped bring about. Because of their global ambitions, many Esperantists participated in the global socialist movement. Some of them traveled to Russia in the 1920s, eager to see what the Revolution had wrought. The Esperantist leader Eugne Lanti was one such traveler. He was also Aunt Nellies future husband, and was already her partner during Orwells stay. Its hard to believe, Karp writes, that Orwell would not have heard rumblings and grumbling about the state of affairs in Russia in conversations around Nellies Parisian apartment, since Lanti had been in Russia a few years prior and was in contact with associates still there.

By the early 1930s, Orwell was living in Britain, his Aunt Nellies friend Mynfawny Westrope both his landlady and occasional employer. Like Nellie, she was a committed socialist, and in her circles, which included the leading British Trotskyite Reg Groves, Orwell listened and joined into the debates of the British Left. Westrope was friends with more people like Lanti and his fellows, who had suffered first-hand disillusionment in Soviet Russia. It was here that Orwell saw a set within the British Left insisting on the validity of its ideas about what ought to be the case, rather than looking squarely at the available testimonies of what the situation in Russia was actually like. He did not speak out, or publish, much of what he was revolving in his head during the first half of the 1930s. The release, when it came, took the form of his wanting to see for himself not the Soviet tragedy, but the lives of the working classes in Britain. His time in the North of England led him to come to terms with Socialism, as a necessary promise and potential threat.

But it was in Spain that Orwell experienced first-hand the reach and feel of Soviet power, and it turned him against Communism for the rest of his life. Although his habit of mind was to question all things relentlessly, he did not question that language ought to be a trustworthy, if imperfect, instrument. He was horrified by those who degraded it by eviscerating its meanings and social functions. The Soviet regime under Stalin depended on such degradation, like any totalitarian or autocratic state, along with the simultaneous degradation of the individual spirit. Karps chapter on the Spanish Civil War seemed to me a bit gummy with details about what was admittedly an extraordinarily complicated conflict, involving, importantly for Orwell, clashes between different leftist groups. By describing the political machinations Orwell faced in Spain, Karp prepares to justify the claim that Orwells understanding of the fear a human being feels when faced with a huge, ruthless, inhuman power was born in Spain, where he suddenly found himself under the arbitrary rules of an oppressive regime.

Upon his return from Spain, Orwell read and reviewed widely. Karp superbly draws attention to two authors whose writings mattered greatly to Orwell, especially in the years when Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four were germinating: Franz Borkenau and Arthur Koestler. The former wrote about the Spanish Civil War and about the rise of the totalitarian state from the perspective of a social scientist, with moorings in the Frankfurt School. Koestlers Darkness at Noon was the only novel about Russia that Orwell reviewed. Karp shows how both of them deepened his understanding and imagination. One of the most conspicuous features of all Orwells writings about Borkenau, she observes, is his almost subconscious translation of Borkenaus sociological concepts into images and then developing these images.

Though consistently sympathetic to socialism, Orwell came to be considered suspect in some quarters of the British Left as his opposition to Stalin and the Soviet state grew in volume and intensity. Then, as Europe lurched into a Second World War, Orwells anti-Soviet position became suddenly popular when Nazi-Soviet pact was struck in 1939, only to veer into new extremes of unpopularity when the Soviets joined the British in opposing the Nazis. Even during the war, Orwell remained suspicious of Soviet propaganda, now bolstered by successes on the battlefield and acts of courage that he himself admired as much as anyone else.

In 1943 and 1944, Nineteen Eighty-Four was germinating in notes and Animal Farm was being sent around for publication. Orwells sense for the rotten odors on the breeze was as keen as ever. Animal Farm would prove especially difficult to publish. It was opposed by a highly-placed Soviet agent, Peter Smollett, whooversaw the Soviet Relations Division at the British Ministry of Information while in active communication with the Cambridge spies Kim Philby and Guy Burgess. Nevertheless, in 1945, Orwells novel was finally published. Though it was selling well and receiving praise, even critics friendly to Orwell scolded the book for taking aim at the Soviets, or else suggested that the books targets were things of the past. Like many great allegories, it exceeded its occasion: the Soviet figures on which its characters are based seem themselves to be examples of the larger types that it creates. In her pages on Orwells most enduring and memorable novels, Karp is at her best, leading us nimbly through the worlds of publishing and politics.

She is also superb on the genesis of Nineteen Eighty-Four, tracing its debt to the Russian author Yevgeny Zamyatin. Orwell had begun planning his novel before reading and reviewing Zamyatins We, but his encounter with that 1923 dystopian fantasy sharpened his understanding of what he was trying to accomplish in his own novel. Unlike Zamyatin, who had to imagine totalitarian horrors not yet made real in history, Orwell had events in Russia on which to draw. In the post-war years, more and more of the British were waking up to the realities of Soviet totalitarianism, and Orwell found some real success in consolidating a coalition of writers, communist and otherwise, to oppose it. Karp quietly takes on those who, nowadays, are quick to dismiss such coalitions as stooges for American interests and the CIA, who would eventually fund their activity. Doing so, she argues, underestimates their freedom of mind and unfairly ignores their diversity of political hopes. Orwell, for instance, returned repeatedly to a dream of a United Socialist States of Europe.

Karps book is divided into two parts. Though the reason for the division is not especially clear,the second part is more argumentative and polemical than the first. One section is worth exploring in some detail, since it shows a limitation of Karps admiration for her subject.

In 1949, Orwell wrote to his friend Celia Kirwan, employed at the British Information Research Department, founded in 1948 to counter Soviet propaganda; in his letter, he named 38 British intellectuals he believed to harbor pro-Soviet sentiments that would make them unreliable to help the IRD. Karp explains that Orwell thought the threat was real, did not want (as he explained) to have someone like Peter Smollett in a position of power, and felt that in general the British intelligentsia remained hoodwinked by the Soviet state. They could not or would not see what was happening, and he didnt want Kirwan to be in the same position. At the time, Orwell wrote of his list of names, It isnt very sensational and I dont suppose it will tell your friends anything they dont know. But the names were not all: Orwell identified individuals on the list with labels (including Jewish and occasionally Homosexual) as well as assessments of their individual probity.

The existence of the lists and some of the names were revealed in 1991, and then, in 1996, as more came to light, there was a public (posthumous, obviously) outcry. Some accused Orwell of betrayal, others of hypocrisy. There is even now a Wikipedia article on Orwells list. Orwells editor Peter Davidson has suggested that the labels may have been Orwells attempt at identifying potential facts about individuals that might have been exploited by Soviet agents. It might even, he speculates, have been motivated by Orwells abiding interest in psychology and politics.

Karp approves Davidsons theory. Considered in this light, she writes,

Orwells comments in the list stop being smears applied by him to different people but become private pointers for the writer, who honestly, humanely and without prejudice tried to see their motives and predict their behavior.

This language exonerates recklessly. After all, if the labels really are smears, then they obviously do betray prejudice and bigotry, and if they are not (as Jewish and occasionally Homosexual are not), then it seems a distraction to raise an accusation that isnt to the point.

Admittedly, the list was written in a private journal; all we can do is speculate. But uncertainty forbids the strong defense that Karp attempts to mount and which comes across as decidedly peculiar. Im not sure how we can say the list reflects Orwells honesty at all, when we dont know what Orwell even thought he was doing. We cant say he wrote it humanely unless we think it is humane for Orwell, the stalwart defender of individual judgment, to decide that he paternalistically needs to keep tabs on his fellow citizens. Without prejudice is strangest of all: if Karp and Davidson are correct that Orwell wrote the list as part of a study in psychology and politics, then it must have been written with a great deal of thought about prejudice, and the terms themselves offer no diagnosis of that prejudice, but depend upon implying a great deal of it. Finally, why would Orwell have thought, even if he did believe there was a threat posed either to or from those on his list, that it was his place to work against it by amassing short-hand files on potential enemy agents? At best, the list raises questions that cannot be satisfactorily answered; it certainly doesnt warrant exorbitant praise. Orwell deserves to be stood up to; his distrust of saints warrants our refusing to impute righteousness to all that he did himself.

More often, Karp embraces and enters into the contradictions and conflicts in Orwells own mind. In his views of socialism, the subject of her seventh chapter, he was perpetually perplexed. In a passage that deserves extensive quotation, Karp writes:

The way Orwell dealt with his hesitations about socialism does speak to our time. He remained split because he could not abandon either his hope for a better future of mankind, which his time had taught him to call socialism, or his capacity to see things as they are. Nobody could call him cynical and yet he refused to be deluded himself and tried to warn others against their delusions by depicting horrifying consequences of socialist dreams.

He did not abandon the promise of those dreams. When looking for a publisher and translator for Animal Farm, he explained that he hoped the novel could be essential for a revival of the socialist movement. Though he never found out, he would have been disappointed that the first Slavic edition, a Ukrainian translation, was published by those who had no sympathy for the motivations behind the Russian Revolution.

Karps book benefits from being many things, from chapter to chapter, and even from paragraph to paragraph. Beyond politics, literary history, and biography, there is (in the eighth chapter) detective work on the Russian publication history of Nineteen Eighty-Four, which went through several editions from 1956. Fascinatingly, a 1959 edition of the novel was translated and prepared for the upper echelons of the Soviet government, supervised by the KGB, to keep them abreast of what they recognized as a potentially devastating piece of propaganda. Only in the past few years has one of the two translators been identified. An entire network of publishers covertly distributed foreign editions of Orwells novels into Russia from abroad during the 1960s and 1970s; others translated, copied, and disseminated them once they were in the country.

In 1988, both Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four were officially published in Russia for the first time. Writing on Henry Millers Tropic of Cancer in his essay Inside the Whale, George Orwell described the feeling of reading a book that opens up a new world not by revealing what is strange but by revealing what is familiar. Karps ninth chapter explores what this meant for generations of Russian readers holding Nineteen Eighty-Four in their hands, recollecting the Great Terror, the betrayal of parents by children, the routines of surveillance, and the fragility of human life under totalitarianism.

But her book does not end there; instead, it culminates in a final chapter that argues that it has been a terrible mistake to think Orwells warnings against totalitarian Soviet state a relic of the 20th century. Orwell coined the phrase the Russian myth to name the fantasy about Stalin and Soviet Russia to which many British liberals acquiesced. Karp suggests a new Russian myth, to which this generation of European and American intellectuals has been subject, arose in the 1990s, following the fall of the USSR. In that myth, Russia had completed its transformation into a liberal capitalist democracy.Now, in 2023, Karp argues, we see that totalitarian statecraft was neither eviscerated nor entirely left behind. With Putins war in Ukraine, his erasure of the past, and his punishment of dissident voices, Orwell is sadly familiar once more. Characteristically, he never lost sight of us.

Owen Boynton is director of strategic initiatives and an English teacher at Collegiate School in New York City. His articles and reviews have appeared in Essays in Criticism, Victorian Poetry, Romanticism, Literary Imagination, and The Chaucer Review. More of his literary criticism can be found on his website, Critical Provisions.

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Between socialist promise and totalitarian threat - Meduza

Review of The Invention of Marxism: How an Idea Changed Everything by Christina Morina, translated by Elizabeth Janik (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Christina Morinas The Invention of Marxism contains a wealth of material on nine socialist intellectuals who Morina characterizes as key figures in the foundation of Marxism. The most recent trends in historical method inform the book, and it is based on considerable research in a wealth of printed sources in several languages as well as the archival treasures of the International Institute of Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam if there is a heaven for historians of socialism, it is the IISH.

The book is also highly readable and accessible, perhaps surprisingly so for a work that started life as a German professorial dissertation (credit also to the translator, Elizabeth Janik). The books German edition originally appeared in 2017.

Morina has selected nine individuals from four countries: Germany, Austria (or rather the Austro-Hungarian Empire), France, and Russia. The socialist intellectuals whose lives and pathways to embracing Marxism she reconstructs are Karl Kautsky, Eduard Bernstein, Rosa Luxemburg, Victor Adler, Jean Jaurs, Jules Guesde, Georgi Plekhanov, Vladimir Lenin, and Peter Struve.

The book takes as its point of departure reflections by the late Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm in his essay on Intellectuals and the Class Struggle, published in 1971 when the New Left and radical student movements were still a live force in Western societies. Hobsbawm asked: Why do men and women become revolutionaries? Part of his answer to the question was this: In the first instance mostly because they believe that what they want subjectively from life cannot be got without a fundamental change in all society.

Morina proceeds to construct links between the socialization and life experiences of her protagonists, as she calls her selected Marxist founding figures, and their reception and transmission of Marxs ideas. She draws on recent developments in historical writing such as the history of emotions to present the history of ideas (in this case Marxism) as connected to the life cycles and subjective experiences of the people who espouse them. She deliberately sets out to break with older intellectual histories of the development of Marxism, which she sees as self-referential, and to embed her account in the current mainstream of historical method.

In principle, there should be no objection to the project of historicizing Marxism as a set of ideas. After all, Marxist historians such as Hobsbawm and Benedict Anderson have illuminated how widely held ideas such as nationalism have been historically constructed. They have also shown how cultural traditions that people usually assume to be ancient have been subject to conscious and deliberate processes of invention in modern times. Marxism itself should thus be fair game for historicization.

Nor should one object to an attempt to integrate the history of the diffusion of Marxs ideas among late-nineteenth-century intellectuals and activists into the mainstream of the historiography of the period. Yet the question remains: How useful is Morinas collective-biography approach to understanding the emergence of Marxism as a coherent body of thought after Karl Marxs death in 1883, and what are the limitations of her account?

One might ask how Morina arrived at her selection of nine formative figures in the history of Marxism. Some (Kautsky, Lenin, Luxemburg) more or less pick themselves. But if Guesde is to be included, why not also the cofounder of French Marxism, Marxs own son-in-law Paul Lafargue? If activists qualify as well as theoreticians, why not August Bebel or Wilhelm Liebknecht, key founders and leaders of German Social Democracy?

Does Struve, whose links with Marxism only persisted for several years in the 1890s before he moved to liberalism and gradually more to the right, really deserve to be included here? What about Dutch exponents of Marxism such as Henriette Roland Holst, Herman Gorter, and Anton Pannekoek, or Italians like Antonio Labriola? Did Leon Trotsky arrive too late on the scene to be considered here? (He makes only a fleeting appearance late in the book, in the chapter on the 1905 Russian Revolution.) That said, some process of selection is perhaps inevitable in a work of this kind.

The book is fairly lengthy just over four hundred pages with seventy pages of endnotes testifying to the authors substantial research efforts. Covering nine significant individuals in the compass of one volume nonetheless inevitably involves some compromise. Specialists in German Social Democracy may not find much that is novel in the treatment of, say, Kautsky or Bernstein, nor will scholars of the Russian Revolution find too much that is new about Lenin. But Morina has unearthed some lesser-known material about the early lives, education, and pathways to involvement in Marxism of her protagonists, and most readers will learn something new about some of these figures.

At first, the payoff of Morinas approach is not immediately evident. It is hard to fit the life experiences of the protagonists into simple generalizations. A couple were from modest backgrounds (Bernstein and Guesde), while others were from more economically comfortable origins. Some broke with their families when they became politically active, others did not. Three of the nine were Jewish, three were immigrants (although the definition of immigrants is a little elastic in the case of citizens of the multinational Austro-Hungarian empire). Most of them experienced periods of exile, and all were multilingual.

One point that Morina puts particular stress on is that all of these figures grew up in homes in which education and books were valued and showed above-average academic aptitude. Lenin even aced his final school exams at the very time that his brother was being executed for trying to assassinate the tsar displaying an impressive if slightly scary capacity for laser-like focus at an early age.

Morina suggests that these school experiences carry enormous explanatory potential. . . . Most of the protagonists seem to have been outstanding students. Perhaps it should not be surprising that individuals who gained prominence as exponents of a demanding body of political and economic theory were able students. But at this point, Marxism starts to look like the revolt of the nerds.

Similarly, Morina searches for biographical explanations for divergent currents within Marxism. For example, she poses the question of whether Lenins path toward a career as a professional revolutionary might be explained by the ambivalent influences of his family legacy. Ultimately, however, the sources on Lenins inner life during his youth arent sufficient for us to answer that question.

Morina argues that we know too little about Bernsteins transformation from having been a revolutionary follower of Marx during the period in which the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) was outlawed and immediately afterward, when Bernstein himself was exiled from Germany. She suggests that such factors as exhaustion, homesickness, or growing older . . . might explain his suddenly pointed commentary on SPD tactics and his emphasis on the idea of a political homeland.

So revisionism was a form of midlife crisis? Yet exile and the onset of middle age did not mellow some of the other revolutionaries who appear in this book.

Perhaps the least satisfying chapter for this reader was the one dealing with Rosa Luxemburg. Morina criticizes tendencies toward hagiography and sentimentalism in depictions of Luxemburg, pointing to the contrast between the tender expressions of emotion in her private correspondence and her tough-minded, often biting and acerbic, political writing.

However, while Morina searches for evidence of Luxemburgs subjective life experience in the available sources about her early life, she provides little sense of how Luxemburg became such a significant figure in the German and European labor movement or of the nature of her achievements as a thinker. The way in which Luxemburg quickly achieved prominence among the leading figures of Germanys SPD despite her outsider status as a woman and a Polish Jew testifies both to her formidable intellectual gifts and to a relatively open party culture at that point in time.

Morina quotes Luxemburgs expressions of distaste for unsavory circumstances and aversion to overcrowded cities, depicting her as having distanced herself from too much contact with the masses. Morina stresses the distance of her protagonists from the actual proletariat, with the exception of Bernstein and Guesde. Yet like Bernstein and unlike Kautsky, for example Luxemburg was a frequent and effective speaker in workers meetings. Morinas own account only devotes a chapter to the working class as viewed through the prism of the writings of her protagonists.

There are plenty of references to the political and social context of the time, but these are a little brief and unsystematic. While Morina acknowledges the explanatory power of Marxs ideas for the labor movement by the late 1870s, she seems to deplore the politicization of the quest for bread (citing Hannah Arendt on this point). There is little discussion of the imperialism of this era, which Morinas protagonists sharply criticized I could find only one direct reference to imperialism.

Nor is there any discussion of the socialist critique of the pervasive militarism of societies like Imperial Germany. Luxemburg, for example, was sentenced to jail for exhorting German workers not to fire on their French brothers in the event of war. On the eve of World War I, she was also put on trial for speaking out against the abuse of army recruits in Germany. Criticisms of the tone and language of the revolutionary left in this era need to be viewed in the context of the extreme economic inequality and repressive state structures against which socialists were struggling.

Morina provides an interesting last chapter (before her conclusion) on the revolution of 19056 in the Russian Empire as a case study of how early Marxists responded to the challenge of an actual revolution. She seems surprised at the diversity of their reactions, given that all belonged to the same discursive community of politically like-minded activists who felt responsible to Marxism. In view of the vigorous internal debates, not to say polemics, within the Second International, this diversity should not really come as a surprise.

Perhaps this surprise derives from Morinas conception of Marxism as a worldview that is ultimately hermetic. Given her own method of drawing on life experience to help explain intellectual trajectories, it may be worth noting that Morina was born in East Germany in 1976, and this may have influenced her view of Marxism as leading to state socialism and totalitarian oppression.

She views Marxism as simultaneously a product of political romanticism a controversial concept taken from Carl Schmitt and as the product of a science-obsessed age. There is more that could be said about Marxisms lineage from the Enlightenment, but that might require a more conventional history-of-ideas analysis than is given here.

Had Morina continued her collective biographical account past 19056 to consider responses to the 1917 Russian Revolution, even greater divergences within the Marxist tradition would have become apparent. Beyond 1917, the Marxist tradition diversified further, with one line ossifying under Stalinism (helping to form the likes of East German leaders Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker, among others). But there were many other, anti-Stalinist strands of Marxist thought as well, some of which even remained active within post-1945 social democratic parties, at least for a time.

In Hobsbawms 1971 essay, which was reprinted in his book Revolutionaries, he went on to add the following thoughts after the sentences quoted by Morina. For Hobsbawm, in addition to the subjective discontents of individual revolutionaries, there was of course that substratum of idealism, or if we prefer the term utopianism. This went not just for individuals, but for whole societies at occasional historical moments. Hobsbawm also pointed to other dimensions of the history of revolutionary movements, including an emancipatory impulse and drive for political freedom, that get rather short shrift in Morinas account.

Readers interested in the history of the European left and the early years of Marxism will find much useful and interesting material in Morinas book. Many will no doubt be provoked to disagree with some of her arguments. If that stimulates some to engage in further research into these thinkers, that can only be a good thing.

See the rest here:
Marxism Is the Product of a Struggle for Political Freedom - Jacobin magazine

Socialist Appeals Are you a communist? campaign our recruitment drive to reach the 1000 membership mark in Britain is well underway. And it is clear already that it is finding a fantastic echo and gaining a tremendous response, with hundreds of radical workers and youth reaching out to get organised and join the fight for revolution.

In the space of just seven days recently, for example, 191 people wrote into our website asking to join. Over the past month, 380 self-proclaimed communists have written in on the back of our campaign. This completely dwarfs our previous record of 109 write-ins over the course of one month.

New comrades are joining the organisation every day on the back of this. In the last week alone, we have had reports of new members in Ipswich, Brighton, Bristol, Canterbury, Sheffield, and Cambridge.

This coincided with a week where our Cambridge comrades sold 139 copies of the Socialist Appeal paper, showing the thirst for Marxist ideas out there.

And these numbers are continuing to grow every day, as recruitment posters and stickers go up on streets around the country.

Socialist Appeal the British section of the International Marxist Tendency is well and truly painting Britain red!

The revolutionary mood in society is palpable. And no doubt the establishments grotesque carnival surrounding the recent coronation has only provoked further anger and indignation.

The things that people have said when writing in to join reveal a snapshot of this mood:

Im 18. The horrors of capitalism are monumental. That is why Im passionate about creating a society that is equal, where workers have control, and where our planet and people are not exploited by the elite. Revolution is needed now more than ever. It appears to be the only solution.

I wish to join this cause because Im tired of being oppressed by the corporate elites and the destructive cycle of capitalism. Capitalism has ruined this country. I believe its my duty to overthrow the capitalist demons that are plaguing society, and give power to the people.

I hate seeing poor people suffer on the streets, while huge corporations make massive profits. Watching the government benefit the wealthiest while leaving the rest of us to freeze is sickening. I want to see change!

I am fed up with the way this country is being run. Everything is for the rich. And the workers are the ones who are constantly belittled and told there is no money for pay rises, while the elite sit in their mansions counting their money. Im fuming at the disrespect workers are shown in this country, and believe there should be a revolution!

I can no longer stand capitalism. Its a rotten system that has f**ked our world. Theres a long road ahead of us, but this campaign gives us hope. Get organised resonates in the best way possible.

This radical mood was also evident at the May Day demonstrations that Socialist Appeal comrades took part in recently. In towns and cities across the country, our activists formed revolutionary blocs, where we put forward bold slogans and appealed on workers and youth to join the Marxists!

In London, for example, over 100 comrades and supporters marched together behind our banners, with a sea of red flags proudly held high, after gathering at the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell Green.

Our slogans included: No wage losses, expropriate the bosses! and Nationalise the banks; seize their wealth; spend it on the National Health! These demands attracted passers-by and others on the demonstration, with some actively joining our bloc.

After the march, comrades headed for a celebratory social, where Rob Sewell, editor of Socialist Appeal, gave a rousing speech on the significance of May Day, the intensifying class struggle, and the historic tasks that stand in front of us.

As Rob emphasised, the most urgent task is to build a strong Marxist leadership, in Britain and internationally. That is why we are running this bold campaign, recruiting for revolution.

Socialist Appeal will be running online meetings every two weeks for those interested in joining our ranks: outlining what we do; explaining what being a member entails; and answering any political questions about Marxism or communism.

If you would like to join these meetings, please get in touch at contact@socialist.net.

On the basis of the response so far, and the mood that exists across society, there is no reason why we cant reach the major milestone of 1000 members of the International Marxist Tendency in Britain in the coming months.

To achieve this would be a huge step forward for the forces of Marxism; for the building of a genuine revolutionary organisation; and for the fight for socialism.

So why wait? If youre a communist, get organised and join Socialist Appeal today!

Continue reading here:
Recruiting for revolution: Painting Britain red - Socialist Appeal