Book Reviews

[p038] Book Reviews (iii) By implication, the ‘con- tradictions of capitalism’ can be overcome through economic Management or social engineer- - ing (e.g. p. 184, p. 223); (iv) The rate of profit has shown no discernible tendency to decline in practice (see below); (v) Economic crises have not become progressively more severe; (vi) ‘Social legislation, trade union activity and State inter- vention’ (p. 125) can produce a tolerable capitalism (though with the saving phrase—‘it is clearly not enough’). * All this adds up to a remarkable apology for present-day revisionism (complete with the pressure of ‘the socialist sector of the world’ on capitalism) and a surrender of Marxist combativity to a reconcilia- tion with ‘ideology-free economics’. It is a long time since Professor Meek, in writing about Keynes in the original version of the essay now reprinted, concluded with the words ‘The controversy over the place of Keynes in the history of economic thought will not be finally settled in the study and the lecture room. The issues at stake will be . fought out, as part of a broader struggle, in a much less comfort- able environment’, From the heights of his professorial chair he is now able to claim that ‘We are living in an age in which the whole nature and function of economics is undergoing a profound revolu- tion’. He means by this that it is becoming at once more objective and more competent to deal with problems of policy formerly ruled by autonomous processes desig- nated in the Meekian terminology ‘the economic machine’. The con- clusion to the revised article marks the revolution in his own thought: ‘By making interference with the operation of the machine respect- able, and putting it on something like a scientific basis, Keynes helped to pave the way for a new type of economic thinking which may well transcend all previous economic systems including his own’. It is into this refurbished bourgeois economics that the valid bits and pieces of the Marxian method and analysis will be fed by Professor Meek, who will be able to claim, at the same time, that he remains some kind of a Marxist while he assists those of his colleagues still in the grip of ‘neo-Classicism’ to- wards the light. To fathom out the real depths of this profound thinker has required a piecing together of remarks, asides, footnotes, ‘inarticulate major premises’, revealing omissions and changes made in his essays as well as hard and explicit conclusions to which he has signed his name. It is only in this way, of course, that the ideological loading in theoretical writing which purports to be scientific can be measured. So just as Professor Meek modestly claims to be using Marx’s method to show up the ideological content in his own ‘laws’, so we have done no more than to turn the Marxist . method upon Professor Meek him- self. If he feels this has been un- fairly done, that ideas have been attributed to him that he does not hold, and especially if he genuinely desires to make a contribution to Marxist theory and not to map out a reconciliation between his version of Marxist economics and that de- veloped by the ‘hired prize-fighters of the bourgeoisie’, the columns of this journal are open to him to reply in his own way and at what- ever length he chooses. It is evi- dent enough that Professor Meek is extremely learned in Marxism, on political economy, and that he brings to the history of economic thought, because of his training in historical materialism, a more vital grasp of the relationship of econo- mic thinkers to the social and class structures of their time than is usual in the case of writers not so trained. No doubt much is to be learned by a perusal of these essays as well as of Professor Meek’s earlier writings, even those written in line with the needs of the Com- munist Party. In his own way he is one of those few economists competent to speak from real know- ledge of Marx’s writings who can meet the growing interest in Marx- 33

[p039] ist economics in evidence today. Many may indeed take Professor Meek for an authoritative Marxist, though we are sure that he makes no such pretension. All the more reason, therefore, to deal critically with what he has to say, because so much of it is dangerous and mis- leading if taken to be in any sense in accord with even the method of Marxism properly understood. Marx, in Meek’s hands, is con- verted into a harmless precursor of the more enlightened members of the economics profession today. As a sophisticated professional Meek indulges in what, after all, remains a process of collating and compar- ing texts, exegesis and commentary- writing which is Talmudic in nature, just as sterile as the Stalinism he has put behind him and the new theories he appears to have em- braced. Finding that capitalism has not confirmed, by some automatic process of the working out of eternal laws, the ‘predictions’ which Marx is alleged to have made, he really abandons Marxism as having any creative application to the prob- lems of world capitalism today. To base himself on a few surface phenomena over 4a relatively short historical period is to run away from the problems which Marx posed, beginning with the point that capitalism is not eternal but prepares the way for its own de- struction and replacement. There: is lacking in Meek any sense of a real confrontation be- tween Marxism and rival theories: on the contrary, he is seeking all the time for points of similarity and reconciliation. That is why, ‘ideolo- gically’, it is necessary to assume (because it is never really proved or even argued convincingly) that a non-ideological economics is appear- ing, however difficult it may be. At the most he admits that differences represent conflicting political ideo- logies—by which is obviously meant those of the bourgeoisie and those of the Soviet bureaucracy. He is reluctant, despite his talk about ‘social relations of production’, to introduce the question of class and discuss whether, under conditions of modern capitalism, a non- ideological, non-class theory is at 34 all possible. Nor does he discuss the social roots of the Stalinist economic theory of which he was once a persuasive propagandist. It is fair, then, to enquire about the social basis of Professor Meek’s ideology, as has been implicit in what has been written here. What section of society, in other words, ignores class-determined differences where they exist and, in a class- divided society seeks salvation in a theory which rises above classes? Only, if course, that which occu- pies an intermediate position and fails to see, or avoids, the choices which are open to it. To place Professor Meek with the petty bourgeois intelligentsia would, we feel sure, give him no offence; as an erstwhile ‘Marxist’ the fact can- not have failed to draw itself to his attention. In fact, in itself, it is not a matter of great signifi- cance if it did not also define Pro- fessor Meek’s ideological position— and we would add that it was just as true of him and his co-thinkers in the Stalinist phase as it it is now. Two possible courses would, it seem, lay before Professor Meek. Either he erects a full-scale in- tellectual defence of the position which he has chosen, or has been forced into by the circumstances in which he has lived these past thirty years, and forward to real effort to de- velop his method and apply his analysis to the development of present-day capitalism. For moment the first of these options would seem the most likely as there are ample indications that, at least unconsciously, the direction has already been taken. * In fact it seems that Professor Meek has a perverse desire not to understand Marx. He has read all the books, he knows all the quota- tions and all the arguments and yet he comes up with positions which he gives ample reasons of his own for not taking; instead he adopts a position which will not ' give offence to his bourgeois col- leagues and can just as well be held by any common-or-garden Marx- detractor. Thus he holds that Marx or he goes back to Marx the did have a ‘doctrine of increasing misery’. that it meant a long-run tendency for the general conditions of the working class to get worse, that it was a definite ‘prediction’ and that it has been falsified by facts. On the other hand, he agrees that there is absolutely no evi- dence in his economic writings— at any rate in those of his maturity —of a belief that real wages per head would show a long-run ten- dency to decline’: What he claims is, then, that real wages have risen more than Marx would have ex- pected and that ‘the average worker in the advanced countries today (is) getting a real wage substan- tially higher than the value of his labour power’ (p. 119). There is no attempt to substantiate this statis- tically or to show how substan- tially wages have eaten into sur- plus value. And if they have, then it is difficult at the same time to hold that there has been a relative deterioration in wages compared with other (property) incomes. He gives scant attention to the view that wages contain an important social or historical element and dis- misses one argument of this nature in a few lines. Yet it is a recurrent point made by Marx in his dis- cussion of wages. The labour-power of workers in modern advanced capitalist societies is of a different and higher average quality than that available when Marx was writ- ing Capital. Its value is actually higher, not because the worker gets a higher proportion of the product but because the conditions of modern industry require a labourer who is better educated, better fed and has more time to recuperate from the strains and tensions of work performed under modern technological conditions. It is ob- vious enough and it probably occurred to Professor Meek: why, therefore, does he pile up the evi- dence for Marx holding to increasing misery as an inflexible law and not point out that what has happened both to the real wages and to other elements in the workers’ living standards is fully compatible with Marx’s model of capitalist repro- duction? No attempt is made, in any case, to see where, how long Fourth International, February 1968

[p040] or under what conditions. workers have enjoyed the generally higher standards which he assumes. Many items would surely have to be thrown into the balance sheet before the extent, if any, of the workers’ improvement gauged. Those of a non-material nature, arising from insecurity, nervous strain, the risk of war or the actual effects of wars are diffi- cult to assess. To speak of them is to indicate merely that capitalism has by no means had a history of smooth uninterrupted progress even in the advanced countries and that to base a generalization for a whole historical period on the past two decades is, to say the least, to allow ideological considerations to outweigh a respect for historical truth. It would, of course, be equally fallacious to argue for the supposed law of pauperization in the form in which it has been put forward by Communist Party theor- ists in the USSR and elsewhere who have definitely specified a deteriora- tion in actual material conditions at a given time compared with the past. For instance, in the 1950s Maurice Thorez and the French Communist Party maintained, in the face of evidence to the contrary, that the material conditions of French workers were worse than they had been (presumably in the 1930s, during or just after the war). Meek seems to have been able to stomach this when he was a member of the Communist Party and to be relieving himself now by really assuming that Marx held in- flexibly to the theory in the form in which Communist Party dogma- tists maintained he did. What Meek ought to have shown is how the tendencies of which Marx spoke, many of them, in in- teraction, have given certain re- sults. In fact Marx as well as Meek believed that workers would not permit the tendency for wages to be driven down to operate if they could help it—the difference is Book Reviews can be that Marx used it as a basis for the development of working-class con- sciousness to struggle against capitalism while Meek. takes it as an argument for reformism, that is that state intervention has succeeded in making capitalism yield a higher real wage than Marx’ would have expected. * Of course, Meek is also well aware that if he _ splits Marx’s analysis of capitalism up into dis- crete bits separated from the whole and then demolishes them one by one nothing much is going to remain. Every Marx-critic does this, and at one time Meek would have been the first to point it out. Now he makes it a professional duty to do likewise—in this volume with pauperization and the declining rate of profit. Having written a whole book on the Labour Theory of Value he can hardly throw that out too—although he makes in passing a reference to his ‘more heretical moods’ when he comes near to doing. that (p. 108). But if the theory of pauperization plays such a key role in Marx’s system, and the falling rate of profit (also open to revision) does the same, when these have been disposed of as no longer being in accord with the actual development of capital- ism one may ask why Meek sees anything worth conserving in the ‘method and analysis’ of a thinker who had been so wrong about these vital matters. And yet Meek is in- sistent that Marx has a great deal to offer — to the bourgeois economist. Weakness or inconsistency? A half-way house towards abandoning Marxism altogether? It is impos- sible to say when Marxism, in Meek’s hands, has been reduced to such an innocuous concoction of truisms and platitudes. For instance, the discussion of the declining rate of profit also partly’ answers its own objections to Marx’s presentation of the law. Meek deals with those critics who argued that Marx overlooked the effect of the increasing organic com- position of capital upon the pro- ductivity of labour and took the rate of surplus value to be con- stant. What he conspicuously fails to do is to understand the method with which Marx was operating; instead he takes the law out of its context and even apart from the counteracting influences as though it is separable from all the laws and counter-tendencies operating with- in the model capitalism which he was building up in Capital. The fact that the law may not have re- vealed itself in an observable ten- dency for the rate of profit to fall over the long period (if this is indeed the case) has to be seen in the light of all the tendencies oper- ating in the history of capitalism. The drive to monopoly, imperialism, the uneven development of different areas participating in the world market, state intervention and militarization, the destruction of values in slumps and wars would have to be seen, at least in part, as the result of efforts by the capital- ists to evade the operation of this law which, far from being an ab- straction, presses upon them as a daily and dangerous fact of exist- ence. To keep capitalism going means, in a sense, to have been able to ward off the operation of the declining rate of profit, to prevent the self-destruction of the system: but, although Professor Meek has not yet got round to theories of economic breakdown (though he refers to crises not having become more violent) no automatic collapse of capitalism, such as he appears to have been looking for in the past, can be read off from Marx either. No doubt, however, he will some day show that Marx did have such a theory—which he will duly reject on the grounds that he is still writing under capitalism! T.K. 35

[p041] The Doctrine of Bertram Wolfe Marxism. One Hundred Years in the Life of a Doctrine by Bertram D. Wolfe. Chapman & Hall, 1967. 45s. WHILE THE one-time leader of the Communist Party USA, Jay Love- stone, has become, in his old age, a go-between with the ‘free’ trade unions in different parts of the world, his one-time supporter Bertram Wolfe is now a skilled denigrator of Marxism aiming at the intellectuals. Both, of course, were always firmly anti-Trotskyist. Bertram Wolfe is already widely known for his book Three Who Made a Revolution which, amongst other deformations, pays Stalin the unwarranted and unhistorical com- plement of including him, along with Lenin and Trotsky, in its title. The present book is entirely in character. Well-informed and familiar with the relevant litera- ture, provided with facilitiies and finance by research institutes in the USA, Wolfe dredges through it to find whatever might be con- sidered contradictory, inconsistent or discreditable in the writings, ac- tions and policies of Marx, Engels and Lenin. By judicious choice of quotations he sets Engels against Marx, Lenin against Engels and Marx against himself. Anyone who develops scientific socialism in rela- tion to experience and changing reality is considered to be a ‘revi- sionist’, Needless to say, for Wolfe, the Stalinists are considered, as they like to believe, the legitimate heirs of Marx and the crimes of Stalin are regarded as an inevitable out- come of Bolshevism, if not of Marx’s own policies. After all, did not Marx drive the anarchists out of the First International? Confronted by such an array of misrepresentation and unhistorical appraisal a reviewer can do no more than point to a few of the 36 more blatant flaws in Wolfe’s method. Such a_ one-sided and thoroughly prejudiced treatment of Marxism cannot be regarded as a serious critique and the matter is only made worse by the fact that Mr. Wolfe is well aware of what he is doing. For instance, as though the validity of a theory depends upon its propounders being saints, he dwells on passages in the per- sonal correspondence of Marx and Engels in which they deal rather harshly with some of their contem- poraries and fellow-workers in the movement. Does it matter that Marx was at times bad-tempered or that, in a letter he once referred to Lassalle as a ‘Jew Nigger’? In the latter case, for example, it is well- known that despite their serious differences with the German socialist leader they greatly esteemed his talents and his devotion. Even where Wolfe raises interest- ing questions he does.so in a man- ner which prevents a real historical appraisal. For example, he makes a great. deal of Marx’s position on foreign policy, particularly his hos- tility towards Russia, his alleged German nationalism and opposition to the national claims of the Slav peoples and various statements about war, nationality and colonial- ism which appear to be in contra- diction to the generally accepted Marxist view of these questions. In the Stalin era, and even today in the Soviet Union, frank and full discussion of some of these matters has, it is true, been im- possible. But there is, in fact, no reason why a present-day Marxist has to defend, say, Marx’s support for England and France in the Crimean War. At least his stand- point has to be understood in its historical context and in the light of Marx’s position that such ques- tions require an estimation of how the cause of the working class as an international force can best be advanced. This meant that, in the nineteenth century, Marx took sides in wars to create nation-states and in wars between states. Already in the later years of Engels’ life, and more definitely as the world moved into the epoch of imperialism, it became clear that this position was being outpaced by events. Consis- tently with Marx’s principles, there- fore, Lenin and other Marxists developed a new position on war, positions which were to be put to the test in 1914. Wolfe’s own position, which throws light on the way in which he considers the history of Marx- ism, is revealed by one of his chapter headings: ‘The Workman rejects his “Mission”. Here, while handing to Capital’ a few conde- scending compliments, he claims that capitalism has not behaved as Marx expected. Instead we have the usual picture of a society in which workers have acquired status, social security and material im- provement, in other words an apology for reformism. The changes introduced into the ‘free market’ economy by the state have ren- dered Marx’s projections obsolete. Marx was ‘Utopian’ because many of the characteristics which he thought were specific to capitalism and which produced ‘alienation’ are, claims Wolfe, inevitable in any in- dustrial society. To deal with these and similar simplifications and dis- tortions would require nothing less than a book. All that needs to be said really is that Mr. Wolfe, from being a supporter of Bukharin in the 1920s, has become an _ apolo- gist for capitalism. Not surprisingly he still retains a little sympathy for those Soviet economists who, whether they recognize it or not, are in the Bukharinite tradition. Why, if capitalism has been proved successful while, in the Soviet Union, the ‘command economy’ heads for crisis, does Marxism survive? According to Wolfe, only because it ‘is a creed Fourth International, February 1968

[p042] to be clung to when the intellect questions and rejects’. For him it is an emotional faith which has lost contact with science. Of course, in the Soviet Union Marxism has _ hardened into a dogmatic ideology: in doing so, however, it has ceased to be the Marxism of Marx, Engels and Lenin. It is because Wolfe identifies Marxism with Stalinism that he is able to write it off with such facile phrases and with quo- tations from Albert Camus and Norman Cohn. It is appropriate and ironic that he should conclude his argument that Marxism is nihilistic, dogmatic and immoral with a quota- tion from Their Morals and Ours. Readers who seek a clue to Mr. Wolfe’s position and its implica- tions would be well advised to read the whole of that pamphlet. In conclusion it must be said that Mr. Wolfe is not devoid of literary ability and polemical skill. His book will no doubt serve well the cause he now serves. As an early American adherent of the Twelve jurors, twelve judges Lenin, the Man, the Theorist, the Leader. A Re-appraisal Edited by Leonard Schapiro and Peter Reddaway Pall Mall Press, London 1967. 45s. AS THE Russian Revolution recedes further into the past and its histori- cal significance becomes clearer the stature of Lenin increases and bour- geois scholarship is obliged to come to terms with his personality and his ideas. The shelf of bio- graphies extends year by year, and specialized studies, once almost non-existent, are being added to at a rapid rate. The twelve scholars whose seminar papers make up this volume. try to avoid the polemical tone which inspires some recent biographies but remain distinctly critical and in some cases hostile towards their subject. Many of the points made against Lenin have been heard before and are presented here only in a more sophisticated guise. Schapiro, it is true, sets the tone by an ostensible impartiality, but it is impartiality with a sting. ‘Lenin’s complete dedi- cation to revolution’ was balanced by his undeveloped tastes in art and literature. Evidently he was not the complete man of bourgeois mytho- logy. His kindliness was coupled with ruthlessness, his ‘complete lack of personal vanity and ambition’ ‘number of human lives with ‘an unwavering conviction that he alone was capable of leading his party; and that in any matter in dispute he alone had the right answer’. The verdict of Schapiro, as of Keep, is that Lenin was not ‘a statesman’. It is true that there was nothing in common between Lenin and the ‘statesmen’ who led their countries into the first great blood- letting of the twentieth century and, at Versailles, sowed the seeds for the second. Lenin was, of course, a successful revolutionary leader who opposed these men and the system which they represented, believing that all means were good which rid humanity of exploitation, mass slaughter and oppression. Placed in his time and compared with his contemporaries Lenin appears as humane, cultured and even scholarly. There is nothing to write about Lloyd George’s contri- bution to philosophy or Clemen- ceau’s to economics and if the involved is totted up Lenin’s use of violence was moderate compared with that of the great ‘statesmen’ of his time. It is difficult to forgive Lenin Marxism and Stalinism in Britain (Part Il) Communist movement in the United States he, and many other talented and enthusiastic young men anxious at first to serve the working class, were used and destroyed by Stalin- ism; repelled by its ugliness and oppression they joined the enemy camp. It is not least among the crimes of Stalinism that such people now use their abilities to denigrate Marxism, to serve, con- sciously or unconsciously, the same purposes as the Central Intelli- gence Agency. for having led a revolution which those who opposed him then and still do regarded as doing violence to Marxism as well as to history. The animus survives in Schapiro’s defence of the Mensheviks and his imputation that Lenin’s attacks on them in 1922 were ‘hysterical’ and may have been the ‘symptom of an insane obsession’. It remains to Katkov to imply that Lenin was insane in an essay on philosophy which treats Lenin with contempt. The other contributors are, on the whole, more balanced and at times enlightening but a number of them cannot resist the temptation to apply a little amateur psychology. Thus Frank speaks of Lenin’s choleric disposition ({i.e., he did not suffer fools gladly) and puts this down to the fact that ‘the great love, religious in its origin though secular in appearance’ which animated the Russian intelligentsia ‘degenerated in Lenin’s mind into hatred and lust for power and destruction’. Reddaway suggests that Lenin sup- pressed his own literary and artistic inclinations and that from his ‘self- castigation’ came an_ intolerant, fanatical attitude towards literature and the arts. Mercifully, most of the other contributors, though hardly less critical of Lenin, are able to make their point without accusa- tions of hysteria, fanaticism or men- tal disorder. Although the approach to Lenin varies from one chapter to another, producing different, not to say mutually incompatible judgements, none of the authors make a genuine attempt to understand Lenin’s position. Some write with evident distaste for their subject, 37

[p043] others make a more reasonable as- sessment but feel obliged in one way or another to present him in an unfavourable light. Even in the fairer treatments, such as that by Rees, Lenin is counterposed to Marx and to what is taken to be classical Marxism, to his detriment. Obvious- ly here vital questions of the inter- pretation of Marxism are involved which would have to be examined at length.. In Keep’s chapter on. Lenin’s tac- tics we find the sort of criticism to be expected from one who has no sympathy for his aims or achieve- ments. His main thesis is that Lenin knew how to win power but not how to use it. Lenin’s. problems after 1917 arose precisely from the fact that the other leaders of the Second International had aban- doned the struggle for power even before 1914 and new leaders were not. developed in time to seize the opportunities presented by the war and the post-war crisis of capitalism. Of course, ‘October had not sparked off the international social- ist revolution’, which Keep seems to blame Lenin for not recognizing. The point is that revolutions, and proletarian revolutions in particular, if they are to be successful, have to be made and for this task a leadership and a party is the indis- pensable pre-requisite. Lenin’s very real contempt for ‘mensheviks’ (a term he sometimes applied generally to the Social Democrats of the Second International) arose from their deep-rooted opposition to such a party. The whole question of Lenin’s tactics, his role in the building of the Bolshevik Party, his interven- tion in April 1917 and his struggle against those tendencies in the party. Two Mensheviks Martov, a Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat by Israel Getzler Oxford University Press. 70s. Eva Broido: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Translated and edited by Vera Broido Cambridge University Press. 25s. BOURGEOIS historians have studied at great length (if rarely in depth) the history of Bolshevism, while Menshevism has been almost totally ignored. Dr. Getzler’s bio- graphy of Martov, while limited in scope, and intended for the reader with a basic knowledge of the history of the CPSU, is a welcome contribution to our knowledge of Menshevism. Trotsky’s characterization of Martov as the Hamlet of Russian social democracy is brilliant and accurate. Martov was the eternal centrist, limited on one side by his refusal to revise his conception of Marxism, and on the other by his inability to break away from a con- ception of ethics which ran counter to his class understanding of society. Like most Russian Marx- 38 ists of his generation he moved towards Marxism from Populism as the industrial boom of the 1890’s put Russian capitalism on the map and made it clear that in Russia, as in Western Europe, the prole- tariat was the only revolutionary © class. With Lenin and Plekhanov he fought in Iskra for the establish- ment of a revolutionary workers’ party, against the ‘Economists’, who considered that the political educa- tion of the working class could be achieved only when their conscious- ness had been developed organi- cally by a period of pure trade- unionism. While Iskra united the party on questions of tactics, the Second Congress, where its line was formally adopted, split on the question of party organization. Martov, at this period the outstand- which rejected in practice the tasks of revolutionary leadership requires study from an angle which the con- tributors to this volume could not adopt. If they do something to ex- pose the absurdities of Soviet hagiography—against which they are, after all, mainly arguing—their own reappraisal remains, as it must in view of their political and philo- sophical premises, equally one- sided, prejudiced and at _ times absurd. That is not to dismiss this volume as useless; it is simply that an unbiased historical verdict can- not be expected from a dozen such jurors. The material they present and the views which they express should be taken into account by the serious student:of Lenin and the bibliographical information is of value. A full-scale portrait and a Marxist assessment of Lenin, his personality and role in history, is surely overdue. ing leader of the congress minority (Mensheviks) saw the split largely in ethical terms. Dr. Getzler makes this point clearly, but he fails to understand Lenin’s position, which was that the minority were trying to continue the movement in circle- like organizations, and were substi- tuting a petty bourgeois fear of discipline for the proletarian prin- ciple of organization. The 1905 revolution saw the detailed re-working of abstract con- ceptions of revolution in the light of real political developments, and it was in this period that the theoretical differences between Bol- shevism and Menshevism were elaborated. Lenin, basing himself on the weakness and cowardice of bourgeois liberalism, took the line of a revolutionary-democratic dic- tatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry as the only form of power which could overthrow Tsarism and open the way for a socialist revolu- tion. With this perspective he fought for the practical preparation of an insurrection, Martov and the © Mensheviks, clinging to the formal proposition that a bourgeois revolu- tion must precede a socialist one, expected a classic transfer of power to the bourgeoisie, and limited themselves to support for the liber- Fourth International, February 1968

[p044] - als, and a wide proletarian move- ment to assist them and to press the interests of the proletariat in the anticipated bourgeois state. Even after the defeat of the revo- lutionary upsurge, Martov clung to the hope that the minimal conces- sions offered to liberalism by the Tsar’s -October Manifesto would open the way to a compromise form of bourgeois state and, while he did not support the extreme liquidationist trend in Menshevism, favoured the development of forms of legal trade union and educational work at the expense of the under- ground party. In the years of war and revolution, Martov repeatedly took a centrist line—for pacifism against defencism and revolutionary defeatism; against the moves of Dan and Tsereteli for coalition with. the liberals, but also against a de- cisive seizure of power by the pro- letariat. After the October Revolu- tion he defended it against counter- revolutionary moves, while pressing for a coalition government of all socialist parties, and the replace- ment of the Soviet electoral system, weighted to ensure the pre- dominance of the proletariat over unstable petty-bourgeois elements in the peasantry, by universal suf- frage. He was correct in seeing, in the early 20’s, the bureaucratiza- tion of the Soviet system: but both before and especially after the col- lapse of the revolutionary upsurge in Western Europe, his solution to: this problem was not proletarian democracy but the restoration of capitalism in Russia. . Dr. Getzler’s book, while not Marxist work, is an interesting and scholarly study, illuminating areas of party history. Eva _ Broido’s Memoirs, by contrast, are the account of the work of an indivi- dual revolutionary, and while she provides an insight into the life of exiles in Siberia, and the 1905 revo- lution in the Caucasus, her almost total disregard of Menshevik theory and relations with the Bolsheviks is disappointing, especially since she was one of the leaders of Men- shevik practical work, and a mem- ber of the 1912 Organizing Com- mission (the Menshevik Central Committee). The book is neverthe- less interesting both to students and to the general reader, as an account of the heroic life of one of thousands of Russian revolu- tionaries. Two pamphlets by Leon Trotsky Through what stage are we passing? This is the text of a speeca made by L. D. Trotsky to the 5th All-Union Congress of Medical and Veterinary Workevs in the summer of 1924. Of particular interest to our readers in view of the specific references to Britain and metropolitan Europe. Price: Two shillings NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS LTD. Book Reviews passing ad é The Intelligentsia and Socialism A review written for the St. Petersburg review Sovremenny Mir in 1910, of Der Sozialismus und die Intellektuellen, by Max Adler : published in Vienna in the Price: One shilling 186a CLAPHAM HIGH STREET, Intell same year. LONDON SW4 39

[p045] Price: I2s. 6d. ANTHOLOGY Available from New Park Publications Ltd., 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4. NOW AVAILABLE: The real history of how Stalin and the present-day Stalinists in the Soviet Union have betrayed the Revolution. Hard back 30s. Soft cover 12s. 6d. Available from: New Park Publications 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. 40 r BETRAYED WHAT IS THE SOVIET UNION AND WHERE IS 1T GOING? TROTSKY Fourth International, February 1968 REVOLUTION

[p046] MOSCOW TRIALS x e Available from New Park Publications Ltd., Price: 12s. 6d. 186a Clapham High Street, London, SW4. NOW AVAILABLE: The real history of how Stalin and the present-day Stalinists in the Soviet Union have betrayed the Revolution. Hard back 30s. Soft cover 12s. 6d. Available from: New Park Publications 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4. BETRAYED WHAT IS THE SOVIET UNION AND WHERE IS IT GOING? 40 Fourth International, February 1968

[p047] LIMITED PUBLICATIONS PARK NEW London, MACaulay 7029 S.W.4 Street, High Clapham 186A List Book Free Write for Essential Marxist Reading The New Course By Leon Trotsky A collection of articles written in 1923 during the lull before the great storm of persecution which was later to overwhelm Russian Bolshevism. Here Trotsky analyses the incipient stages of the degeneration of the Communist Party, uncovers its causes and proposes measures for combating its further decline. He here analyses the party in a historical, that is dialectical way, the relationships between generations, social strata, groups, factional forma- tions, tradition and the multitude of factors that go to make a revolutionary party. 111 pages, 3/6 Most timely reading for British socialists, this book places the development of British politics in correct historic perspective. Here Trotsky, writing on the eve _ of the General Strike of 1926, employs his great revolutionary experience to analyse and explain the ideological and moral concepts of the ruling classes and have their servants in the Labour bureaucracy. 136 pages, 7/6 Fathuel git ivan im The Draft Programme of the Communist International by Leon Trotsky This is part of the author’s criticism of the draft programme submitted by the Executive Committee of the Third (Communist) International to the 6th Congress of the Comintern which was held in July 1928. The manuscript of that criticism was written by Trotsky during his exile in Alma-Ata (Central Asia). It was sent to the Congress in Moscow together with an appeal for reinstatement into the party from which he had been expelled a few months before by the Stalinist faction in 1927. Stalin and his supporters had invented the theory of ‘Socialism in one country’, which was made party policy in 1925 and converted into an article of faith to be defended by the world institutions of Stalinism. It is this theory which Trotsky criticises in these pages. 64 pages, 1/- This document is a landmark in the development of 20th century Marxism. It sums up the experience of an entire period of struggle against the Soviet bureaucracy. This Platform also represents the highest point in the fortunes of the Joint Opposition (Trotskyist-Zinovievite) to Stalin. It is the programme of the last of the Bolshevik-Leninists who insisted that they remained communists despite all the per- secution, jailings, violence and slander inflicted on them. But this document also represents a watershed—the end of one phase and the beginning of another—in the evolution of Trotskyist politics. 112 pages, 5/- This is a polemic against Radek in 1928. Trotsky examines the arguments against his pre-war theory of the permanent revolution (as expounded in Results and Prospects) and takes up the history of his differences with Lenin before 1917, of which Stalin and his henchmen made so much. Trotsky shows that it was Lenin's criticisms of his attitude to the centralised Marxist party. which he afterwards understood and accepted, that kept them apart. and not their differences on the permanent revolution. 254 pages, 15/- soft cover, 25/- hard cover Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (T.U.), r/o 180 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4

[p048] Subscribe to Fourth International FourTH INTERNATIONAL is the theoretical journal of the International Committee of the Fourth Inter- national. FOURTH INTERNATIONAL continues the work of LasouR REVIEW which concluded its 12th year of publication with its issue of Summer 1963, the fifth number of volume 7. FourRTH INTERNATIONAL continues the work and traditions of Revolutionary Communism since the death of Lenin. FouRTH INTERNATIONAL represents the unbroken chain of theoretical journals in the Bolshevik tradition, whose continuators were the Left Opposition led and inspired by Leon Trotsky. FourTH INTERNATIONAL follows in the traditions of that Opposition and in the traditions of the Fourth International of Leon Trotsky. FouRTH INTERNATIONAL is the product of decades of continuous struggle of Marxists in the Inter- national Labour movement against Stalinism, Reformism and Revisionism. FouRTH INTERNATIONAL represents the successful fusion of Marxist trends in this International Labour movement, from Trotskyist to Com- munist, Social-Democratic and Trade Union movements. FouRTH INTERNATIONAL, With this issue, commences a new period of activity in the International Labour movement and simultaneously prepares and equips the Marxist movement for its future intervention in the battles of the working class which promise to eclipse and transcend all pre- vious struggles both in their depth and scope. To: New Park Publications Ltd., 186a Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4 [I enclose cheque/postal order/money order/draft for £ Ss. i of FourTH INTERNATIONAL. Volume.... No..... Price 4/- (postage 6d. per issue) ee er 7 d. to pay for issues. Some writings by Leon Trotsky The First Five Years of the Communist International Vol. 2 (soft cover) 12s. 6d. (hard cover) 18s. Od. The New Course 3s. 6d. The Permanent Revolution (soft cover) 15s. Od (hard cover) 25s. Od. Draft Programme of the Communist International A Criticism of Fundamentals, 1928 Is. Od. Where is Britain Going? 7s. 6d. Whither France? 5s. Od. Stalinism and Trotskyism in the USA Is. 6d. Stalinism and Bolshevism 6d. Radio, Science, Technique and Society Is. Od. I Stake My Life! (Dewey report of the Moscow Trials) 6a, The Russian Revolution (The Copenhagen Speech) 4d. Culture and Socialism and Art and Revolution 2s. 6d. Death Agony of Capitalism (Transitional Programme) 1/- The Intelligentsia and Socialism Is. Od. In Defence of Marxism (soft cover) 10s. 6d. (hard cover) 21s. Od. Platform of the Left Opposition 5s. Od. Through What Stage Are We Passing? 2s. Od. Young People Study Politics ls. 9d. The Struggle for State Power (1917) 2s. Od. To: New Park Publications Ltd., 186A Clapham High St., London, S.W.4. I enclose cheque/postal order/money order/ draft for £ S. d. to pay for Distributed By: BULLETIN of International Socialismt \ (Room 8) 243 E. 10th St. N.Y. €. 10003 Cece meee Seo eE eee see Ore Teese EoEEasreresensenesesese Pew mecccesccnsercescorssaveseseressseesereseseseese