Bevanism versus Marxism

[p009] BEVANISM VERSUS MARXISM Aneurin Bevan pays tribute to what he has learned from the Marxist school of political thought which “put into. the hands of the working class movement of the late nine- teenth and the first part of the twentieth centuries the most’ complete blueprint for political action the world has ever seen.” (p. 17). In this favourable attitude towards Marxism Mr. Bevan differs from most other leading figures of the Labour Party whose incapacity to learn from their own experiences is matched only by their refusal to learn from the great European revolutionary socialists. At the same time Mr. Bevan expresses fundamental disagreements with Marx, Engels and Lenin, and counter- poses his views to the “classic principles of Marxism,” especially on the question of parliamentary democracy. Lenin, following Marx and Engels, taught the workers that the state in capitalist society is not an institution that flies above the classes like a disembodied spirit. The state serves as “the executive committee of the ruling class.” This holds true even of the most democratic republics in which the capitalist class retains their property and power, and especially of the imperialist powers. Such a state cannot be neutral or impartial in the conflicts between capital and labour; it does not enforce a code of ideal justice by mere persuasion or peaceful means. It is “an agency of coercion,” employing such means of compulsion as armies, police, lawcourts, prisons, etc. The “classic Marxists” further taught that class antagonisms will flare into raging conflicts so long as the main means of production are controlled by the capitalists and the mass of labourers on the land and in industry are dispossessed. These recurrent conflicts are bound to 7

[p010] culminate in a showdown. for power in which fanatical defenders of the old order‘will fight to the death to preserve. their privileged status and- wealth. In the course of these struggles, the workers will be compelled to do more than reform the old machinery of the state. They will be called upon by the needs of the struggle itself to demolish and scrap it.* In its place they will have to create new organs of action and institutions of their rule which will enable the workers, to overwhelm the resistance of the old ruling _ Classes and clinch supreme power. In this way the false and restricted democracy allowed by the capitalist system will give way to the full and free democracy of the revolu- tionary working class and its allies. Mr. Bevan is familiar with these propositions of classic Marxism. But they do not, in his opinion, apply to Great Britain today. Certain exceptional conditions prevail in our country which invalidate these guiding rules of scientific socialism, he believes. What are these extra- ordinary circumstances? 1. The government of Great Britain and its state machinery have to some extent already been, and can be, completely transformed from a coercive instrument of the imperialists, capitalists and Tories into an instrument of the working class. In fact, such has been the basic trend of political development in the 20th century. Democracy opens the possibility for this capitalist regime to be made over into the chief agency for transferring political and economic power to the working masses. 2. The indispensable instrument for bringing about this “revolution by consent” is Parliament. Parliament “is a * The Puritans understood that the old autocratic and aristocratic ~ Government of Charlies I could not simply be taken over and - adapted to the needs of the revolution but had to be broken up and renovated, as Macaulay points out. “That the ancient con- stitution and the public opinion of England were directly ' opposed to regicide made regicide seem strangely fascinating to -a party bent on effecting a complete political and social revolu- _ tion, In order to accomplish their purpose, it was necessary that they should first break in pieces every part of the machinery of government; and this necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them.”—History of England, chap, 1.

[p011] weapon. and the most formidable weapon of all, in the struggle.” (p. 29). - 3. Such an orderly transformation of society by easy stages, by peaceful means and democratic techniques is the only alternative to catastrophic conflicts and disorderly upheavals, which will lead either to a Fascist or a Com- munist dictatorship. 4. This road to socialism is almost exclusively British. Other countries, even including the United States, do not have the special conditions, at least to the same degree, since Parliament does not have an equally eminent place in their political life and national traditions. But it is especially suited to the psychology, habits and desires of the British people and the working class. This is the gist of Mr. Bevan’s case for dynamic Par- liamentarism. He submits this philosophy as the alternative to the Marxist prescriptions for conducting the class struggle ‘to workers’ power and socialism.