Marxism: An End to Revolution (Marxism in Modern France, by George Lichtheim)
Hoffman, Robert L.
MARXISM IN MODERN FRANCE, by George Lichtheim. New York and London: Columbia University Press. 212 pp. $6.75. In the late nineteenth century, Marxism was superimposed on an already...
...Where he does indicate such associations, it most often is in footnotes citing relevant publications...
...Alternatively, they can retain their traditional loyalty to the labor movement while no longer seeking the "conquest of power...
...In the late nineteenth century, Marxism was superimposed on an already formidable revolutionary movement in France...
...Lichtheim believes that the lessons of the past demonstrate that the longsought conquest of political power by the working class is impossible...
...He develops a coherent and compelling series of arguments, but does not regularly associate them with any particular philosophers...
...This ambivalence seriously weakened them, both within the movement and in the nation...
...Though his sympathy for non-Marxist ideas and attitudes is limited, Lichtheim has a sharp perception of the conflicting strains of the French tradition which entered the Marxist movement, often without being fully recognized by the Marxists themselves...
...The first part of the book examines this interplay through about 1948...
...In turn, this dis trust was to undermine the revolution ary potential of the Communist party and trade unions...
...The latter course, trial planning, hardly tolerating the while more satisfying to the militant, economic liberalism of which it was is rendered dubious by the bucreauonce the instrument...
...The reformist wing, as led until 1914 by Jean Jaures and after him by Leon Blum, incorporated Marxism into traditional French republicanism and idealist moralism, shying away from the prospect of revolutionary violence and trying to make Marxism a way of extending democracy without prior introduction of fundamental structural change...
...Thus the French CP built up its vote before World War II without strengthening its revolutionary potential...
...Here appear the conclusions of what may best be called "neo-Marxism," compounded in France of humanist philosophy, new economic and sociological science, and selected remnants of classical Marxism...
...Marxism claimed the faith of proletarians and revolutionary intellectuals alike, as the union of theory and practice which the movement required but would not find in France's own intellectual and revolutionary past...
...This division was aggravated by deep-seated proletarian distrust of politicians in general, a distrust further reflected in anarcho-syndicalism, and in the continuing reluctance of trade unions to associate themselves with political parties...
...Even though it may not be possible to introduce fundamental and deliberate structural change into the new society and the power structure seems immune to disruption, this end to revolution suggests only that the patterns of future "revolution" are not yet foreseen...
...the world is not to be made new...
...Society has be- cratization of the labor movement itcome a technocracy run by the plan- self...
...Lichtheim has little use for the Communist party now or in the past, regarding its orthodoxy as sterile and as a revolutionary ideology in a nonrevolutionary situation...
...Although he does not admit it, what he actually asserts is an end to history...
...A new twentieth-century industrial revolution has left control of the means of production in the hands of a technocratic elite, while ordinary capitalists remain privileged but on the sidelines...
...Democratic socialism remained largely moribund during the period 19201940...
...Moreover, the classic notion of necessity in social relationships, inherent in Lichtheim's over-all fatalism and in the technocracy concept itself, does not seem to me justifiable when there are so many opportunities for indeterminate or random connections in this complex web of society...
...In this light classical Marxism should be understood as the theory only of bourgeois revolution and the industrial society this revolution produced...
...Contemporary socialists can work with and upon the technical intelligentsia, employing the insights of revised Marxism to shape the directing of society...
...The remainder he devotes primarily to French revisions in Marxist theory made in recent years, his analysis relying on the judgments developed earlier in the book...
...Yet neither workers still anarcho-syndicalist at heart nor undisciplined intellectuals could be confined to the LeninistStalinist Party mold...
...The Party was caught up in the paradoxical position of being "an antidemocratic movement forced to pursue democratic policies," particularly in the Popular Front era...
...Not only had it lost many of its supporters to the CP, but it failed to recognize what Lichtheim believes were profound changes in the economy and society...
...Much of Lichthelm's discussion of neo-Marxism appears to be a presentation of his own ideas, without their being distinguished from those of others...
...Sometimes he seems too facile, but on the whole this is not obtrusive, and the book is excellent...
...While attempting to reduce class tensions and to make parliamentary democracy a truly popular democracy—and continuing to do so even when, after World War I, parliamentary democracy was not functioning effectively—and moderate socialism was losing its mass support...
...Parliamentary reformism did not suit the chiliastic temperament of a trade union rank and file, used to the radical approach of their syndicalist leadership...
...Though persuasive in suggesting why society has not become what Marxism predicted, the technocratic concept is not very useful in comprehending what to expect—or do —next...
...ceased to be a distant aim and assumed the character of a constructive response to a challenge affecting the whole of society...
...Since World War II the State has become the directing agency of indus ners and experts, the managers and engineers...
...For most of these apostates, Marxism initially remained an eschatological vision of proletarian conquest of power...
...The disenchantment reflected by Lichtheim is presented more negatively than I think warranted: "...Marxist doctrine . . . has turned into the critical contemplation of an eternal and seemingly unchangeable present...
...Revived by the stimulus of the Resistance and the challenge of the postwar reconstruction, "Socialism at long last became synonymous with structural change...
...Proudhonist anarchism reinforced orthodox Marxism's hostility to the bourgeois state, resulting in a paralyz ing ambivalence among reformist So cialists about whether to join coalition governments, especially before 1914...
...Instead, the labor movement could remain in opposition to the technocracy, fighting for its interests within a basically unalterable system...
...New York and London: Columbia University Press...
...However, his study of the interplay of Marxist theory and practice in France serves to reveal remarkably well the essential development of each...
...ROBERT L. HOFFMAN...
...In the fluid situation after the Liberation, the Party again had hopes of revolutionary victory, but since 1948 Communism in developed industrial societies has been "irrelevant, save as a permanent opposition movement...
...even the Popular Front did not give it vigorous new life...
...The new society remains divided and the masses controlled and exploited, but the inherent conflicts cannot be resolved by revolution...
...Thus, Blanquist elitism fitted well with Leninism in the formation of the French Communist party, and it contributed to a chronic, grave division between the leadership and the masses in all Marxist parties and trade unions...
...The bourgeoisie has been displaced, not by the proletariat but by a new class of technical intelligentsia to whose conscious will the toilers are now subject...
...In consequence, his work is not a balanced representation of contemporary currents in French Marxism, but a thesis drawn from these currents...
...Proletarian sentiment remained syndicalist and revolutionary, Lichtheim suggests, although by 1914 syndicalism had collapsed as a political movement because it was unable to accomplish its great revolutionary general strike...
...To me the whole concept of technocracy seems too easy, a pat hand drawn from the obvious features of modern society and the readily applicable canons of available doctrines...
...Marxism, suitably revised, can continue to provide the basic framework for understanding the contemporary world, but its eschatology must, at least in Western society, be abandoned...
...thus the support of most of them eventually was transferred to the French Communist party after its formation in 1920...
...The Bolshevik Revolution was commonly viewed by revolutionary intellectuals and workers as a true proletarian revolution...
...The revolutionary formulae which Marxism gave to the workers' movement were based on a past experience of revolution which was hardly germane to the proletarian future, according to Lichtheim...
...In his Marxism in Modern France, George Lichtheim denies that French Marxism even attained this union...
...The web of social relationships is so intricate, and the channels through which power and influence are directed so manifold, that such abstractions as "technocracy" and "power struc ture," like "bourgeoisie" and "proletariat," are too simplistic to represent the new world adequately...
...This is not a secondary or a temporary phenomenon, but a major historical change comparable in importance to the bourgeois revolution itself...
...The CP could not become a revolutionary army, and many intellectuals sooner or later left the Party, to develop Marxist thought independently...
...While Communism can be a substitute for capitalism in pre-industrial areas, he thinks that the objective conditions in advanced Western society have long been quite different from those identified by classical Marxism in constructing its theory of revolution...
Vol. 13 • November 1966 • No. 6
