Parliamentary Socialism, by Milliband

[p022] Parliamentary Socialism: A Study in the Politics of Labour. By Ralph Miliband, Allen and Unwin, 30s. This is an important book, as was sensed by R. H. S. Crossman, once tive contribution. . Parliamentarians to 19 wrongly suspected of being a left- winger, in his review in the New Statesman. Miliband has _ upset Crossman and his type by discussing Labour politics in a way which brings in the organized working class and its power, particularly in indus- trial action. It is a notable step forward for a book of this type to refuse to treat the ‘political’ and ‘industrial’ wings of the movement as watertight compartments. He explodes the fairy-tale that Left trends - in the Labour Party since the war have been based on the ‘wild men’ of the Constituency Parties, opposed by the solid right-wing ranks of the trade unions. In fact, there has been a powerful left trend in the unions. It was restrained for years by re- actionary leaders like Deakin, Evans, Watson and others, and still is, but the real problem for Gaitskell and the Right is in the power of this Left trend in the unions. A book like Miliband’s is welcome, after the failufe of the Tribune Left to check the Gaitskellites since Scarborough. Miliband has made another posi-— Revolutionaries are usually asked to ‘prove’ the ‘need’ for any action in addition to parlia- mentary methods. But Miliband turns the tables by calling on the answer the charge of political bankruptcy, of having been incorporated into the capitalist system instead of fighting against it. A review of this book by Eric Hobsbawn in New Left Review was interesting in illustrating the inadequacy of Communist Party politics in this dilemma. Since 195}, the policy of the Communist Party has been ‘the parliamentary road to socialism’, and so a thoroughgoing criticism-of what Lenin called ‘parlia- mentary cretinism’ is out of season. After considering the main trends and events in the history of the Labour Party, stressing always. the relation between the workers organized in the unions and the con- duct of the parliamentary reformists and trade union bureaucratic leaders, Miliband seems to conclude that a - workers’ party can and should com- bine class methods of struggle, such as industrial action for political aims, with policies of ‘ broad alliance’ such as the Popular Front, with all kinds ’ of ‘progressives’: This is a weakness in his-, book.: -Certainly Miliband’s intention is the very opposite’ of

[p023] 20 Woodrow Wyatt’s, but there are hard objective facts about the interests of different. classes in society. Would not the combination of independent class action and ‘broad alliance’,. meet with the difficulties shown in experience in the past? Would not strikes be ‘discouraged’ on the grounds that all sorts of ‘progressive’ allies might be offended? The facts of such combinations amount to the political subordination of the work- ing class to those classes who are tied to capitalism. The policies of working class action and accommoda- tion to the ‘progressives’ of the other classes, in British politics yesterday and today, represent not just two ‘good ideas’ that can be combined, but opposite trends in the movement. One must establish its victory over the other. This book should be seriously studied in all sections of the youth and trade union movement. A serious discussion of its theme can clarify many of the issues that will have to be settled if the British labour movement is to take its opportunities in the next few years. P.B. Sovietology Soviet Society: A Book of Readings. Inkeles, A., and Geiger, K. (editors). Constable, 63s. Bulky books composed of pre- viously published articles and extracts from books are a feature of Ameri- can publishing. They serve a useful purpose in bringing together items which it would take many hours to track down even in a well-equipped library. This collection therefore has its value. Its limitations are no less obvious. It draws almost exclusively on the work of American and British ‘sovietologists’ of the last decade or two, with a few extracts from the _ Soviet press or Khrushchev’s speeches thrown in to give a little local colour. There is nothing from continental sources, nor from the work of pro- Soviet writers. The work of Marxist critics of Soviet policy and practice, with the exception of Deutscher, is referred to but not represented. The general result, then, is a representative selection of scholarly work in the field from Anglo-Saxon, and con- formist, sources; it would have re- LABOUR REVIEW—Spring, 1962 ceived the imprimatur of the State Department with no difficulty. The present state of Soviet Studies of this kind, despite the greatly in- creased volume of work now being done, suffers from inevitable draw- backs. The very nature of the Stalin- Khrushchev regime prevents Soviet scholars from turning the searchlight on their own society and producing original work, or even primary data, of real worth. As a result, Western scholars, with all the prejudices and pre-suppositions of their kind, are reduced to mere compilation or exegesis—-which reaches its peak in “Kremlinology’— or. to speculative hypotheses which too frequently, as in this collection, masquerade as objective scholarship. A perusal of this volume enables the student to become acquainted with some essential facts. In, for example, the articles of Kennan, Berlin or Bell ~ he will encounter brilliance, if not profoundity, and will be able to adjudge the value of work which, undoubtedly, has played a role in shaping educated public opinion, and perhaps government policy, towards the USSR. If Soviet sociology is almost non- existent, that of the Western experts cannot transcend its own. limitations and disabilities. The full appraisal of Russian social development in Marxist terms has yet to be made. One day it will be undertaken by a fresh generation of Soviet scholars freed from the shackles imposed by the present-day rulers, able to roam through the archives without chal- lenge and in an objective spirit which even the best Western “scholarship cannot aspire to. T.K. The tread mill