Issue 223 of SOCIALIST REVIEW Published October 1998 Copyright © Socialist Review
It is said that bistro, the French word for a type of small café comes from the Allied occupation of France after the defeat of Napoleon. Russian
officers would shout in their own language 'Bistra! Bistra!, '(Faster! Faster!)
to chivvy the waiters of Paris. Whether this was the distinctively Russian
contribution to the fast food culture of the early 19th century remains
uncertain. One thing is sure: the Parisian waiters had the last laugh. For
among the Russian officers who returned home there were those who took
with them the ideas of the French Revolution. The Decembrist revolt of
1825 was inspired by such ideas. It was an ill conceived, clumsily executed
attempt at an officer led mutiny against Tsar Nicholas I, easily suppressed
and brutally repressed with hangings and exile. But it marked the beginning
of the revolutionary movement in Russia and electrified a generation of
idealistic young aristocrats. Among them was a 13 year old boy called
Alexander Herzen, who swore a secret oath with a friend to dedicate his life
to the ideals for which the Decembrists had suffered. This book, written by
one of the most eminent historians of modern Russia and first published in
1933, is about Herzen and his friends and the ideals they tried to live by.
Herzen was a contemporary of Karl Marx and drew on similar sources of
inspiration. The rising waves of revolutionary struggle in the 1820s, 1830s
and 1840s held out the promise of a glittering new world which seemed
almost within reach. The ideas of the German philosopher Hegel, in which the
statics of appearance are belied by the dialectics of change, were taken by
both men to constitute, in Herzen's useful phrase, 'the algebra of revolution'.
Both men spent much of their lives in exile, Marx in grinding poverty, Herzen
flitting restlessly with his entourage around the cultural and leisure centres of
Europe. Unlike Marx, Herzen proved incapable of progressing beyond the
romantic idealism of youth. Romanticism in those days was closely bound
up with the ideological legacy of the French Revolution: the essential nobility
of the human spirit and the freeing from the shackles of tradition of its
highest emotions--passion for justice, sympathy with the oppressed,
altruism in love. Noble sentiments, but vague and impractical. Expectations
were disappointed. The revolutions of 1848 did not usher in the promised
land (though defeated, they nevertheless prompted a renewed surge of
capitalist development). The religion of love foundered on the rocks of petty
self interest, dishonesty, unfaithfulness and egotistical self indulgence. The
young romantic went to his grave an embittered sceptic. Only one material
achievement remained to Herzen at the end: the enhancement of the
considerable fortune he had inherited from his father.
Herzen's own legacy to the Russian revolutionary movement was the
idealisation of the peasantry as a force which could bring about a uniquely
Russian kind of socialism without having to suffer the trials of
industrialisation. This became known as Russian Populism or Narodnikism,
from the word narod--the people term which could be used in a mystical or
semi-mystical way. Apart from a brief period during the 1917 revolution,
Narodnikism was never as popular among the peasants it espoused as it
was among the middle classes, including the lesser gentry landowners. This
might seem strange to us now. But it must be remembered that a working
class only began to take shape in Russia towards the end of the 19th
century and that it was still a minority of the population when it took power in
October 1917 at the head of the insurgent peasantry. The middle classes
had their own grievances against tsarism but they were too small and
insignificant to be able to apply much pressure on their own. As Trotsky put
it so graphically in the case of the writer Tolstoy: 'From the landlord's manor
there runs a short and narrow path straight to the hut of the peasant.' The
aristocratic Tolstoy saw the peasant as the agent of spiritual salvation, the
aristocratic Herzen as the raw material of political change.
Built into Narodnikism was the wavering uncertainty of the middle class
psyche, resentful of its masters, yet dependent on them for its relative
privilege, and not averse to posing as the champion of the dark masses
which it nevertheless feared enough to seek the protection of the local
barracks commander. Herzen himself had something of a predisposition to
throwing himself at the feet of the commander of all the barracks in Russia.
What EH Carr calls the culminating point of Herzen's public career came in
1861, when one of the key reforms for which he had been struggling, the
emancipation of the serfs, was enacted by the new tsar, Alexander II
(serfdom was a kind of rural slavery in which the peasants were tied to the
land and could be sold with it; emancipation came at the cost of huge
redemption payments which were only cancelled more than 40 years later as
a result of the 1905 Revolution). Carr continues the story: 'Alexander II had
nobly justified the hopes which they had rested on him. Herzen was filled
with joy and pride; and when, after some delay, the text of the proclamation
reached London, he was determined to hold a monster fête, at Orsett House,
to celebrate this cardinal event in the history of his country... Herzen had
nourished the secret intention of drinking to the health of the tsar at the
dinner--a gesture of reconciliation which would, he felt, make a sensation
throughout the Russian world. A few minutes before the guests arrived,
tragic news was brought in. A riot had broken out in Warsaw, and the
Russian troops were firing on the Polish mob... an atmosphere of gloom
descended on the festival... the occasion remained in Herzen's memory as
an embarrassing blend of jollification and mourning.'
This is, in fact, one of the relatively few occasions on which Carr
releases the reader from a claustrophobically minute examination of the
personal lives of Herzen and his circle. We get a blow by blow account of
how Herzen's wife deceived him--and herself--with the poet Georg Herwegh.
Of Herzen's political ideas, career as a publicist, activities as the editor of
the influential paper The Bell, there are only glimpses.
It is not Herzen's human failings which make him so attractive to Carr. It
is his political frailty. Herzen ultimately gave way to the prevailing mood of
demoralisation and pessimism, surrendered himself, gave in, gave up.
Isaiah Berlin, who, like Carr, was an admirer of Herzen and an
unsympathetic biographer of Marx (Carr's own work is subtitled A 'Study in
Fanaticism') remarked on Marx's unusual ability to keep going in the face
of triumphant reaction throughout Europe. Berlin makes it clear that this
was due to Marx's narrow mindedness and emotional insensitivity.
So Herzen, the tasteful, stylish failure, makes a more interesting
historical subject for Carr than Marx, with his political stamina.
Pete Glatter
Classes and Cultures: England 1918-1951
Ross McKibbin Oxford University Press £25
The past dozen years have
witnessed a terrible retreat on the
part of socialist historians. Key
insights have been relegated or
dropped. In their place we are told
that the purpose of left wing
history is simply to address
issues of identity, women's
history, the stories of culture,
race or sexuality. These are all
important tasks, but what has
been lost includes the notions that
the world is a totality, that class
matters or that society can be
changed.
Against the rightward drifting
stream, Ross McKibbin is one of
the few historians who still treats class as a
living reality. His last book,
ideologies of Class, was
profoundly sympathetic to the
concerns of ordinary people. It
opened up new ways of looking
at aspects of working class life
such as gambling and
unemployment. McKibbin
himself has also gone on record
with his strong criticism of the
rightward drift of Blair's New
Labour.
His new book, Classes and
Cultures, attempts to be a total
history of British society in the
years 1918-51. As the author
makes clear in his introduction,
this is not a book about
parliament of the governing
elites, but 'about the social and
ideological foundations of
English politics'. To some
extent, then, Ross McKibbin
accepts the Marxist argument
that it was changes in society
which shaped changes in its
politics, and it was the changing
character of British society
which decided how it was ruled.
As with any book of its kind, the
quality here is in the detail.
There is a fascinating account of
the growth of contraception,
which took place despite the
hostility of the churches and the
double standards of the ruling
class. Classes and Cultures is
very good at describing the
changing institutions of
working class social life, the
growth of cafés in the 1920s,
promenading, dances and the
cinema. It also vividly captures
the dislocation that the Second
World War brought to young
London workers forced to live
in the countryside: 'I missed
Sunday marches with the
Communist Party and will miss
the May Day celebrations in
Hyde Park next year... I miss the
buses and the heavy lorries
which passed my house at
home... I miss the careful
driving of the buses and cars in
London, they are reckless and
dangerous here. I have had
accidents in Cambridge which I
did not have in London...'
The chapters of the book are
thematic and not chronological,
there is no single argument or
story that holds the book
together. Instead, there are
sections on the aristocracy, the
middle class, workers,
education, religion, sexuality
and morality, sport, music,
cinema and language. Many
readers of Socialist Review will
be pleased to read an academic
history which openly describes
the capitalists as 'the ruling
class' and which also accepts
that for most people work was
not necessarily a positive
experience.
Despite the many strengths of
Classes and Cultures, there are
weaknesses in its method. It is
noticeable that the sections on
middle or ruling class life are
based on accounts written by
members of these classes, while
the sections on workers are
based on sources written by
social observers, sociologists,
philanthropists and other
middle class figures.
While bosses are allowed to
speak for themselves, workers
speak through the voice of
others. As a result, the book's
description of class itself is
sometimes static. Classes are
agreed to exist, but the point is
not made that they are based on
relationships of exploitation,
and as a result there is little
sense of the relationship
between different groups.
McKibbin notes that members of
the ruling class spent the early
1920s in fear of working class
revolt, but he never describes
the revolt itself, the strikes
which made it up, or the impact
of the Russian Revolution,
which helped to give the strikes
their force.
Despite these misgivings, I
would say that this remains a
detailed, thorough, well written
and full account, which treats its
subject fairly, and is well worth
reading for anyone interested in
the recent history of British
culture and society.
Dave Renton
Devil's Valley
André Brink Secker & Warburg £15.99
At first this novel appears to be
simply a weird fantasy. A 59 year
old burned out hack of a
journalist in South Africa, Flip
Lochner, descends into Devil's
Valley, where a community has
lived in isolation for
generations. Every previous
attempt by outsiders to infiltrate
the valley has ended in their
death or disappearance. Flip's
aim is to fulfil his lifelong
ambition to record the history of
the community.
From the moment he reaches the
edge of the valley, Flip is
confronted by magic and
mystical appearances. An old
man greets him. 'I been sitting
here, waiting for you,' he says.
Flip is surprised as no one
knew of his plans, and
completely flabbergasted when
it turns out that the man (the
community's founder) has been
dead for over 100 years.
The community Flip discovers is
strange indeed. Generations of
inbreeding by the original
settlers has produced a
multitude of distorted bodies
and minds. Some, such as the
beautiful nymph-like girl with
four breasts, appear and then
disappear like mirages. Was she
real, or just a figment of Flip's
overactive sexual imagination?
Later, as with many other
apparently magical phenomena,
he discovers at least the
possibility of a rational
explanation.
The people of the valley have
created their own history based
on myths and orthodox
Christianity. The community is
presented to Flip as an ideal
commune, based on equality
(there are no black servants) and
high moral principles, and
uncorrupted by modern life. As
Flip digs deeper, however, he
finds a much more sinister
world.
The Christianity is used to
terrorise and punish by painful
death all those who transgress
the strict codes. The racial
purity is maintained by
infanticide of babies who are
'throwbacks' to the 'black blood'
introduced by the founding
father whose second wife was
black (a secret not known by
most of the community). Women
suffer physical and mental
torture as a result of the
fanatically patriarchal system.
The more Flip discovers, the
more it seems to throw the
community into crisis, as if the
truth once spoken or
recognised must destroy the
evil. The distintegration is
symbolised by a drought, which
as each day passes increasingly
threatens the survival of the
people. At a crisis prayer
meeting, the crumbling ideology
of the people is summed up in a
sermon by Holy Lermiet: 'It
pleased God our Almighty
Father more than a century and
a half ago to lead a handful of
whites from the wilderness of
the outside world to this haven.
Under his guidance we have
laboured to maintain the purity
of Christianity and civilisation
in the face of all onslaughts.
Today we find ourselves before
an ordeal which may bring
about our end. Because where
can we turn to? We have taken
root in this place, we have
bought this small tract of earth
with the sweat of our brows and
the blood of our bodies, and
here we shall die if we must. For
it is better to perish in the land
the Lord has granted us than to
live abroad among the fleshpots
of Egypt.'
As the old certainties evaporate,
the community begins to
implode. People start
questioning the myths, and the
women in particular start
rebelling. When Jurg Water, one
of the community's most
respected men, batters his son
to death for disobedience and
tells his wife that she will learn
from her suffering, she shouts
back: What do you know about
it? The only thing that suffering
has taught me is the
uselessness of suffering. And
now I've had enough.'
By this point it has long
become clear that the novel is
much more than just a
phantasmagorical tale. It is a
powerful metaphor for apartheid
South Africa, in
particular the
more neanderthal elements who
fought for white supremacy to the
end.
The style of magic realism,
mastered by modern South
American writers such as Marquez,
is a difficult art and André Brink is
pretty good at it. There are some
flaws in this book, such as the
unnecessary overuse of
expletives and repetitive
descriptions of sexual
fantasies/experiences. In some
places there is also just a bit too
much magic. But overall, Devil's
Valley is a wonderful read and an
imaginative indictment of
apartheid, fundamental religion and
women's oppression.
Clare Fermont
The Contract of Mutual Indifference
Norman Geras Verso £15
'The road to Auschwitz was built
by hate but paved with
indifference.'
This is the terrifying proposition
at the heart of this book. Geras
argues that this indifference is
deeply rooted in our society. There
is a kind of undeclared and morally
unacceptable 'contract'
between people, which gives his book its
title. Individuals care far too little
for one another. Postwar liberal
political philosophy has failed to
recognise this. We need a new kind
of social and moral contract to
overcome this defect and Marxists
need to recognise what he calls the
'transhistorical' emotional roots of
the defect. The 'passive bystander'
in history *surely testifies to a
remarkable capacity in members of
our species to live comfortably
with the sufferings of others'.
Now there are obviously
problems with these arguments,
but a word of warning. What
gives his book some force is
knowledge of a vast Holocaust
literature (and the book is worth
reading for this alone). So
peculiar and unique is the horror
of the Holocaust that perhaps
the author is entitled, on behalf
of its victims, to ask the left not
be complacent about its
assumptions. To take one
example: Primo Levi was one of
the Holocaust's most eloquent
survivors, yet a cause of his
suicide, half a century later, may
have been his despair that
humanity had refused to learn its
lessons. But our response must
be to sharpen our arguments and
find the politics which mean that
'Never Again!' is more than just a
slogan.
One of the most evocative
images in the Holocaust literature
concerns a children's merry-go-
round just outside the Warsaw
Ghetto. It spins around as the
Ghetto burns and the uprising is
crushed. The children laugh, the
carousel music goes on playing.
Polish mothers smile. The Polish
poet Czeslaw Milosz used this
image to great effect. His poem
has become one of the great
reference points for some of the
Polish intelligentsia who want to
take responsibility for Poland's
failure to do more for its Jews.
Now there is nothing wrong with
this, but the story is incomplete.
Here is another witness as
the Ghetto burned, but one who
does not appear in this book:
'Even though the simple Pole
tended to be anti-Semitic, what
was happening in the ghetto
aroused extraordinary respect...
with my own eyes I saw
Poles crying, masses of Poles,
without a trace of spiteful
malice.'
The author of these lines is
Antek Zukerman, so appalled at
European anti-Semitism that it had
turned him into an ardent Zionist
(but does this not make his witness
statement more credible?), and the
Ghetto's chief liaison with the
Polish Underground. He was on the
Polish side of the wall as the
Ghetto burned. He has more to tell
us: 'the "Polish street" was
spontaneous and could go either
way. But it was the (Underground)
leadership who decided in cold
blood not to help.'
Why did the Polish
Underground leadership behave
like this? Why was it dominated
by the prewar nationalist right
when antiNazi underground
movements elsewhere in Europe
were led by the Communists?
Why did many Poles fear Stalin
as much as Hitler? To understand
the Polish 'passive bystander' you
have to answer these questions.
This raises a deeper question
entirely missing from this book.
The most important single event in
the 20th century is the failure of
the Russian Revolution. More
important than the Holocaust? Yes,
at least in the sense that its failure
helps explain the Holocaust.
Barbarism replaced socialism.
Norman Geras, in his last essay,
directs us to the one person who
can help us here.
He begins a fascinating
discussion about why Leon
Trotsky alone was able to predict,
as well as understand, the
Holocaust. He argues that Trotsky
had an intuitive grasp of those
'transhistorical' emotions which,
under the wrong social conditions,
can degenerate into hateful and
monstrous drives. In support, he
quotes passages from Trotsky's
1905 describing the mob, 'drunk
on the smell of blood', in an anti-
Semitic pogrom. It's a pity,
though, that he didn't complete
Trotsky's analysis and
counterpose the actions of the
Petrograd workers' soviet, which
sent out armed detachments to
challenge the mob. The dynamic
of the workers' movement
released deep emotional pressures
for solidarity with the oppressed.
In a more optimistic mood,
Norman Geras once recognised in
a previous book on Marx and
human nature that socialism would
free our natures from their
alienation. We would find our
common humanity. Among other
things, the power lust would
dissolve in a classless society.
He no longer seems so sure.
John Rose
Between Reform and Revolution
Ed: David E Barclay and Eric D Waitz Berghahn £55
Revolutionary song writer Franz
Josef Degenhardt describes the
course of German history like this:
'A street in one city, in less than a
century, has been renamed: Sedan
Street, Kaiser Wilhelm Street, Town
Hall Street, Adolf Hitler Street,
Main Street, Street of the 17 June
1953, John F. Kennedy Street.
What a history! What a country!'
Any history of German
socialism must ground itself firmly
in this turbulent framework. The
extent to which this collection of 23
essays, edited by David Barclay
and Eric Weitz, fails to do so is
impressive. In the closing essay
calling for a 'new new left', Weitz
himself makes clear how much he
detests mass self activity from
below: 'Both centuries of the
modern era have had their
moments of madness when popular
protests and popular movements
completely unexpectedly break
through the confines of every day
politics.'
Accordingly madness is
systematically removed from
history. Hanna Schisslier, for
example, in an otherwise
interesting contribution, accredits
all achievements in women's lives
to the SPD's changed politics
under Willy Brandt, not mentioning
1968 and the women's movement
of the 1970s.
William Mathews in 'The
Rise and Fall of Red Saxony'
describes the mass terror of the
pre-fascist Freikorps which killed
30,000 revolutionary workers and
was backed by an SPD led
government: 'Responsible for law,
order, and the public welfare in
despairing times of defeat, hunger
and unemployment, the Saxon
SPD confronted force with force in
an effort to stabilise the political
and economic disturbances
unleashed in the November
Revolution of 1918.'
On more than 500 pages
practically everything socialists
may find inspiring in German
history is either pushed to the
sidelines or omitted.
This fate is shared by every
person and theory connected to
these events. In Between
Reform and Revolution you find neither a
systematic discussion of the
revisionism debate in the SPD nor
a mention of Rosa Luxemburg's
work, Social Reform or Revolution.
Where a few sentences are
devoted to this issue, Ralf Roth
manages not to mention
Luxemburg, who was the
intellectual winner of this debate!
Here we have the construction of a
compact analysis of German
socialism from a Blairite
standpoint.
Nevertheless, reading this
book is extremely useful and
highly recommended for Marxists
familiar with German history, for
two reasons.
The first is that the book fails
to achieve its aim. For instance,
David Barclay's attempt to show
the lasting importance of SPD
economist Rudolf Hilferding's
theories amounts to a convincing
proof of the opposite.
Secondly, most of the authors
are honest historians. They try to
reach their ends by a one sided
interpretation and selection of
historical facts but despite this
they contain well researched,
extremely interesting historical
information, albeit followed by right
wing conclusions.
A few essays lack the annoying
Blairite characteristic of the
majority of the book. Beatrix
Herlemann, author of a very
instructive study on the KPD's
municipal policy in the Ruhr region,
contributes a brilliant analysis of
Communist resistance in the Third
Reich. Donna Harsch's look at the
'Iron Front', the Social Democrats'
military wing in the final Weimar
years, is tremendously exciting as
it shows how the pressure of
fascist terror pushed the SPD to
more militant forms of
organisation.
The best essay is Norman
Naimark's on the first years of
Soviet occupation. The KPD old
guard coming out of the prisons
and camps didn't understand at all
why the working class shouldn't
take power immediately: 'Even
when told by Soviet commandants
that they were not allowed to
establish "Soviet power" or the
"dictatorship of the proletariat--the
Communists answered, "Okay,
fine, we won't call it Soviet power,
but it will be Soviet power in any
case, it can't be anything else.'
Read the book critically,
integrate the information into the
full story of German socialism,
and it will be of great use and a
good training for debates with right
wing social democrats.
Florian Kirner
Cloudsplitter
Russell Banks Secker & Warburg £16.99
Cloudsplitter is a fictional
autobiography of the famous
American campaigner for the
abolition of slavery, John Brown. It
is narrated by Owen Brown, his son
and constant companion. Banks
gives us the story of political
events that marked John Brown's
life and also, through Owen, a
personal insight into his state of
mind.
Brown lived in 19th century
America, a time when slavery was
rife and backed by the federal
government. Brown's life was
dedicated to fighting a war against
slavery and the rich Southern
slave owners. He is shown as a
man of action who persistently
condemned the wealthy Northern
abolitionists, who were all talk and
no action.
The name of the book comes
from Brown's favourite mountain,
which overlooked the underground
railway, established to help slaves
escape from the South to Canada.
This was the first of many
ventures by Brown who fought to
make Kansas a slave free state
and who ultimately wanted a slave
insurrection.
His final battle in the war against
slavery was his attempt to take
over Harper's Ferry the federal
arms reserve. He called on his
black abolitionist comrades to
organise a slave army which he
would arm. This army would
liberate by force every slave in
the South and force the slave
owners, through economic
necessity, to hire people. The
attempt was a brave one, but
doomed from the beginning. The
black abolitionists had respect for
Brown but thought the plan lunacy.
The truth is that Brown had no
concept of class forces. His
obsession with the Old Testament
and his dogged belief in 'natural
justice' led to defeat and
execution. Brown trusted very few
people in his fight against slavery
and counted on the individual
morality and character of fellow
abolitionists. Throughout the book
Owen portrays his father's
mistrust of the majority of people.
He felt sympathy for the Irish
immigrants working for a pittance,
and saw wage slavery and slavery
both stemming from an immoral
source, however he never saw
those working people as being able
to confront prejudice and fight
against slavery.
Brown's views and obsessions
became his family's. Owen
recounts throughout the book the
pressure he felt from his father's
all consuming character. The
struggle between the personal and
political was a source of great
conflict for them both, however
Owen finds this the hardest. His
struggle with his own conscience,
and the fact that he was the only
survivor of the Harper's Ferry
battle, is the constant backdrop to
the story of John Brown. This
makes for hard reading
sometimes, but overall the book
encompasses a complex array of
human emotions with the story of
a real fighter. It's well worth a read.
Joe Cardwell
West Africans in Britain. 1900-1960
Hakim Adi Lawrence & Wishart £13.99
The British Empire often faced
resistance to its rule and as such
sought to incorporate some of its
colonial subjects into the lower
echelons of its administrative
machine, using them as a buffer
between the rulers and the ruled. A
handpicked few came to Britain
from West Africa to study. They
were expected to show gratitude
and become fervent loyalists of
empire. From the turn of the
century, those students formed
their own organisations to promote
their interests and welfare as well
as to discuss the politics of the
colonies. The colonisers' plan
backfired.
Those who came to Britain
expected to find an enlightened
society. Instead they found
widespread discrimination and
distrust and a colour bar which
prevented them finding
accommodation, work and an
environment where they could
socialise and relax. The Colonial
Office, whose responsibility the
students were, sometimes
sympathised but mostly shrugged
its shoulders. This remained the
case until the 1930s, when it
became clear that there were other
organisations in Britain who were
prepared to champion the rights of
black people--organisations that the
Colonial Office characterised as
subversive. Instead of coming to
Britain and returning to West
Africa as colonial loyalists many
instead came under the
influence of Marxism.
By the Second World War many
students supported organisations
which demanded some form of
home rule and were deeply critical
of British colonial policy.
Nevertheless, most saw fascism
in Europe as so serious a threat to
Africans that they were prepared
to back those who called for war.
This was especially true following
the Italian invasion of Ethiopia.
Millions of troops from the
colonies fought in a war which
was supposedly fought for
'freedom' and 'democracy'--the
very things the British denied to
them.
During this time Labour MPs
such as Reginald Sorensen were
the best weapons that the Colonial
Office had in its fight against
Communist influence. The MPs
sympathised with the students who
pointed to the hypocrisy at the
centre of the war and said that
only parliamentary socialism, not
Marxism, could win redress. This
would be proved when their day
came.
Labour's day did come.
Sorensen became an
undersecretary in the Colonial
Office and was soon doing some
very quick back-pedalling. The new
foreign secretary declared that
there would be 'no mucking about
with the British Empire'.
The disillusionment with Labour,
which failed both to grant any of
the growing independence
movement's demands and at the
same time felt unable to pass laws
to outlaw the colour bar, fed the
appetite of the students for
radical politics.
Many of those who had been
students in Britain had turned so
far away from the 'mother country'
that they now led resistance to
British rule in Africa and would go
on to be ministers in the first
postindependence governments.
Perhaps the best example of
this is Kwame Nkrumah who came
to study in Britain in 1945 just as a
general strike broke out in Nigeria.
The strike, which stemmed from
economic demands, quickly
assumed an anti-colonial character.
Nkrumah threw himself into a
propaganda campaign in support of
a strike which lasted for almost two
months and involved at least
200,000 workers. In 1948 unarmed
African ex-servicemen led a
demonstration in the Gold Coast
against economic insecurity. The
police fired on the marchers, killing
26 and injuring over 200. Nkrumah
was among those who were
arrested for organising this
resistance. But nothing could stop
the wave of protest. By 1951
Nkrumah headed the government
of the newly independent Gold
Coast.
Adi does not provide a thorough
political analysis of nationalism,
nor of how the Communist Party's
attitude to the colonial question
shifted according to the needs of
Russian foreign policy. Another
weakness is the lack of an
explanation as to why the newly
independent nations of Africa,
whose leaders often described
themselves as Marxists,
eventually failed the workers who
were central to the fight against the
British. Nevertheless, he has shed
light on a fascinating period in the
twilight years of empire.
Yuri Prasad
Britain on the Breadline
Keith Laybourn Sutton £14.99
The years between the two world
wars were among the toughest
this century for millions of
workers in Britain and around the
world. They also saw massive
political upheavals, from a wave
of revolutions to the barbarous
reaction of fascism.
Given the potential for
workers to draw inspiration from
those battles, a number of
historians have attempted to
show that the poverty and
unemployment was exaggerated
out of all proportion. 'Crisis, what
crisis!' they cry, arguing that
wages and conditions were
steadily improving.
Keith Laybourn's book aims to
challenge those writers by showing
a more complicated picture. He
argues that unemployment and
poverty dominated British politics,
and only the threat of fascism in
Europe in the mid to late 1930s
pushed those concerns off the top
of the agenda.
He concedes that life was
getting better for many workers,
like those in new car factories
based in the south and the
Midlands, but shows the cruel
contrast with areas, particularly
in the north, Wales and Scotland,
where heavy industries were
already in decline.
The response of governments,
was not to relieve poverty but to
balance budgets and put the
country back on the gold standard,
which linked money supplies to
bullion reserves. The 1929-31
Labour chancellor, Philip Snowden,
was accused of having an almost
ghoulish enthusiasm for this, a
stance that has obvious echoes in
New Labour.
Laybourn charts fightbacks like
the hunger marches and activities
of the Communist influenced
National Unemployed Workers'
Movement. Whilst criticising
government inaction, the book
argues that the influence of the
NUWM was marginal and
restricted, held at arm's length as
it was by Labour and the TUC
because of its Communist links.
On the 1926 General Strike,
when the TUC called workers out
to support miners against cuts,
the book argues that despite the
TUC's capitulation and way the
miners were starved back to
work, the effect on the union
movement was not disastrous. It
claims that the strike put down a
marker to employers that unions
were determined to resist wage
cuts.
Where the book really falls
down is in its underestimation of
the threat posed by Oswald
Mosley's British Union of
Fascists. Laybourn believes
Labour was right to ignore a
'political fringe group' so as not to
exaggerate its importance. Even
leaving aside the alarming thought
that there were 350 members at
the time in Sheffield alone, 50 of
them in uniform, Laybourn does
not understand as Trotsky (or
Hitler, for that matter) did, that we
cannot wait complacently until the
Nazis become a formidable force
before we fight them.
The book undermines its
argument by reporting that the
invasion by 500 Communists of a
BUF mass meeting in Olympia
London, in 1934 and the horrific
beatings they took from the
Blackshirt thugs exposed the BUF
to public outrage. Even the Daily
Mail was forced to retreat from its
'Hurrah for the Blackshirts' position
as a result.
Another chapter charts the
working class response to the
Spanish Civil War by attacking the
writer George Orwell's bitter
assessment that 'for two and a
half years they watched their
comrades in Spain slowly
strangled, and never aided even
with a single strike.'
The book recalls the outpouring
of sympathy for the Republican
government fighting off Franco's
forces, providing money to buy
many shiploads of humanitarian
aid. Laybourn says the Labour
Party's response was firmly
limited to raising aid
and that the party was confused about the
issue, slow to change and hostile
to any united action with anti-
fascist groups, particularly the
Communist Party.
This book contains a wealth of
information on poverty in the
interwar years. It also seeks to
rebut those revisionist historians
who attempt to deny that Britain
was a class ridden society beset
by social ills with a great deal of
success.
Julia Armstrong