The Use of the Word Socialism
Thomas, Norman & Clement, Travers & Franck, Sebastian
The following brief articles comment upon a letter from M. Rubel which appeared in the first issue of DISSENT. A distinguished French student of Marxism, M. Rubel, raised the question whether...
...How can one know whether Lukacs's words are more "sincere" than theirs...
...A distinguished French student of Marxism, M. Rubel, raised the question whether the word "socialism" has become so contaminated and vulgarized in recent years as tb preclude its usage by those who desire a socialist transformation of society...
...I was, of course, interested in the question raised by M. Rubel...
...Marx once wrote: "One must above all avoid setting up `the society' as an abstraction opposed to the individual...
...M. Rubel has touched upon a vexing problem...
...I can imagine a fairly large area of harmony among socialists in repudiating certain interpretations given to socialism by large and important groups...
...However, what seems more important even than the abuse of this word is the general misuse of language to which Rubel also points...
...And it can be pointed out that even the Stalin and Hitler dictatorships were unable to achieve a "unanimously accepted definition, which allows of no equivocation among those who employ the word...
...Summer 1954 • DISSENT • 289...
...There is no word today which conveys unambiguous concepts...
...Or capitalist in the theoretical sense...
...Indeed, the term "socialism" which used to convey ideas about a definite set of values has been sadly abused...
...More than that, there has been in the long socialist tradition, despite our differences, the unifying concept of a possible better world of freedom from poverty and exploitation, a world attainable by the lowly, the toilers, the workers, through common effort and cooperation in opposition to special privilege and private ownership of natural resources and monopolistic industries...
...The following brief articles comment upon a letter from M. Rubel which appeared in the first issue of DISSENT...
...Even if we should assume that the term socialism is understood in its original sense, we may still want to use it with a different emphasis today, if only because the structure of society and the social climate have changed greatly since the days in which the socialist idea was first conceived...
...And there is, alas, no recipe for overcoming the depreciation of words...
...May I add one more thought, though it is not directly connected with Rubel's letter...
...And even if they were, what difference would it make inside Russia...
...Christianity is a case in point...
...One could fill pages with similar quotations from Stalin and other Russian dignitaries praising freedom and the critical spirit, condemning bureaucracy and its methods...
...How easy would it be to get the editors of DISSENT, the New Leader, The Socialist Call, and, let's say, Partisan Review, to agree on a positive definition...
...In a world, however, in which all thought and all words have been distorted the writer who wants to reveal rather than conceal social facts must try, at least, to avoid slogans and cliches...
...Take the following sentence: "It is generally known that science can neither be developed nor make progress without a struggle of opinions, Summer 1954 -@ DISSENT * 287 without freedom to criticize...
...Hence the best that we can do, at least in the present stage of public opinion and practical organization, is to define ourselves as democratic socialists in opposition to totalitarians...
...In effect, that is what has been fairly well done in many European countries where socialism is strong...
...Indeed, the courageous stand taken by individuals—rooted, of course, in a community of values—may be the very way in which the meaning of words can again be established...
...Rugged individualism" once referred to the drive for private gain...
...Finally, one may ask, if we are to surrender terms to the usurpers, just where do we stop...
...In some ways, I have myself had an easier time as an avowed democratic socialist than some liberals of my acquaintance who protest that they are not socialist but only liberals...
...The expression of his life...
...The term in the radical vocabulary most compromised by the events of the last several decades is "communist" not "socialist," as an analysis of the propaganda shifts of the various CP splinter groups will bear witness...
...The problems confronting the movement and the confusions within it are much too profound to yield to semantic treatment...
...In the second place, if we should agree, we should be hounded unmercifully by all those whose stock in trade is denunciation of socialism on the ground that we were trying to hide something, that we had become Summer 1954 • DISSENT • 285 crypto-socialists and, hence, more dangerous...
...It may today be used as an expression connoting a necessary form of resistance against conformism and the power of the managerial machine...
...Nevertheless, on reflection, I haven't believed it wise or perhaps possible in the world in which we live for any considerable number of democratic socialists to get together and say: "From henceforth we are using a newer and more precise term to describe ourselves in order to purge ourselves of the taint of the misuse of our old name, not only by communists and national socialists but by various heretics with whom we do not agree...
...Today, because of the dissolution of society into atomized individuals, the managerial machinery has become overwhelming, and it therefore becomes important, first of all, to defend the individual...
...How does the mind of the Russian reader function...
...Suitable words are not easily invented, nor can ambiguous ones be rejected at will...
...Certain "true believers" will welcome the continued use of the term but only on condition that it be used in exactly the way that suits the special needs of their belief...
...I have recently been reading some Russian short stories which seemed to me the most bitter satires on Stalin and his regime, but they wiere obviously not intended as such at all...
...A strong authoritarian tradition which has its roots in the very origins of socialist thought has compromised the word, but instead of trying to assume a new identity and go on playing the virgin, it is up to socialists to face the implications of this and deal with the issues and problems it has created...
...M. Rubel's approach is not as simple as this, but it seems to me almost equally naive...
...Even those who cling to the original meaning of the term "socialism" are not always aware that the defense of the individual is included in this meaning...
...Also it does not seem to me that the word "socialism" is as discredited as M. Rubel assumes...
...The individual is the social entity...
...Names, words like "socialism," grow out of spontaneous processes and they survive even if they are no longer wanted...
...The proposal to take the content of socialism and give it a new name free from all embarrassing connotations is an old one...
...By the way, who is going to define that word...
...I myself have thought for some years and, indeed, have said both in speech and writing that I wished we could have a new vocabulary which would correctly define various ideologies and movements...
...Nor is the abuse of language the only problem...
...In the past it has been advanced primarily with the argument that millions of nonsocialists were eager to embrace socialist theory, principles and practice, but, confused and misled by reactionary propaganda, were repelled by the 286 • DISSENT • Summer 1954 label...
...That may indeed be true...
...Thus far the task has been left too much in the hands of the guilt-ridden, breastbeating "exes" so steeped in the authoritarian trend in socialist thought that their confessions rarely contain even a hint that any other tradition exists...
...The use of "socialism" as a term provokes, at best, an image the origin of which lies in different social conditions from those under which we live...
...is therefore an expression and verification of the life of society...
...The result, as Erich Fromm has put it, is either cynicism with regard to anything written on paper or belief in anything voiced by persons in authority...
...Socialism has claimed for itself so great a history rooted, or partially rooted, so far back in the past that for us to repudiate, or abandon, the name as imprecise would in effect cut ourselves off from our roots and deprive our movement of historical inspiration which it is entitled to claim...
...It is the very multiplication of words itself that is so confusing, the sheer torrent of language...
...Whenever an experiment was tried along these lines, and there have been many of them, the millions never seemed to show up...
...I have been in countries where socialism, vaguely and often erroneously understood, is nevertheless a word which means to the masses a road to plenty, peace and freedom...
...Nor can symbols be defended against misuse...
...It was then necessary to raise the flag of the many against the interest of the few...
...He then went on to propose a comparison between "the conceptual content of the word `socialism,' as it was formed in a number of Western mnids more than a century ago, with the significance that this term has taken on throughout the whole world beginning with the First World War...
...It is a matter of record that the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in Canada had a better time after it accepted a description of itself as democratic socialist than in its early years when it tried hard to avoid that fate...
...He assumes this is bad because it is confusing...
...Hence the purges...
...Such a confrontation might succeed in reaching a dramatic conclusion as to the scope and legitimacy of the use of the world `socialism...
...Many may identify socialism with the totalitarian regime of Russia, and the term may, on the other hand, serve to turn away the skeptical...
...The socialist idea arose when capitalist entrepreneurs crushed the social structure of the ancien regime and when egoistic behavior threatened to destroy and did destroy the life of many...
...Sincere groping thought has to be expressed in sober terms and with sober patience...
...MORE IMPORTANT, HOWEVER, THAN THESE PRACTICAL considerations, is the historical truth that great movements are never wholly consistent, wholly pure, and that the channels in which they move ideologically and practically have never been marked out precisely by logical definition...
...The barrage of words which pours out of the printing presses, radios, television and movies makes it almost impossible for a critical voice, a voice of dissent, to break through...
...This we cherish...
...UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES A MAGAZINE founded to defend socialist values and to criticize a society lacking in values will not only have difficulties in surviving but even in making itself understood...
...This is the kind of confusion we can thank our lucky stars for, because it is precisely what enables independent socialists to bring new meaning to the term and inject new vitality into the movement...
...M. Rubel points out that the word "socialist" is an extremely flexible one...
...The sentence happens to come, however, from Stalin's article on linguistics...
...And since Stalin's death, official spokesmen in Russia and the satellite countries have been extremely eloquent about the rule of law...
...it may therefore act as a barrier against the recognition of the new aspects this idea will have to assume today...
...Development and clarification of political terms, in fact, emerge out of just such a process...
...And often enough, both responses go together...
...I find it harder to imagine an equal harmony today on the definition of a positive belief which might unite them...
...Shall we also give up "liberty," "equality," "fraternity," "peace," "freedom," and all the rest...
...It seems, therefore, that a discussion on the use of words will in itself bring little result, language being a sphere in which decisions can hardly be decisive...
...What then could one tell a Russian that he has not already been told by his present masters...
...Let me begin with a practical difficulty...
...In life that kind of feeling cannot be utterly rejected for the sake of logical precision without great loss in power, a fact which I deplore but must accept...
...288 • DISSENT • Summer 1954 Yet not only a party or movement, but even a loose community of ideas can hardly exist without a name, and can hardly communicate ideas without symbolizing them...
...Recently a German social scientist, a socialist refugee from the Eastern zone, published a pamphlet to prove that the philosopher Georg Lukacs, who has been living for decades in Russia and its satellites, retains a flavor of critical spirit in his writings and that the content of these writings is incompatible with the ideology of the Russian regime...
...Who could disagree...
...The back benches were still empty and the front ones presented the same old faces...
...And this holds true, with obvious differences of kind and degree, for both totalitarian and non-totalitarian regimes...
...In the East and in the West too we are confronted with a manipulated system of communication which, being wholly a one-way affair, allows no possibility of reply...
...but similar "critical" ideas have been expressed by the leaders of this regime themselves...
...Democracy" has been misused at least as frequently, and in as many ways, as "socialism...
Vol. 1 • July 1954 • No. 3
