In defence of Anglo-Marxism

In his latest blog Dave Osler raises the question as to why there has never been a "substantial Marxist movement" in the Anglosphere (Britain, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand). "Is there," he asks, "something specific about Anglo-Saxon political culture that makes it impervious to dialectical materialism?"

The question that immediately arises is that of what is to count as a "Marxist" movement? Presumably, as far as he is concerned, any movement that claims to be Marxist. And it is true that there has never been any "substantial" movement in the Anglosphere that has claimed to be Marxist.

But his question could be put the other way round: why were there substantial parties in the countries of Europe which claimed to be Marxist? Why did parties which were essentially the equivalent of the British Labour Party there, i.e. out merely to obtain social and democratic reforms favourable to the working class within capitalism, claim to be Marxist? What was it in their "political cultures" that made them adopt Marxism as their ideology?

Because it was just an ideology. The German Social Democratic Party was never a revolutionary socialist party in the Marxian sense. The SPD embraced Marxism as its ideology when it adopted a new programme at its Congress in Erfurt in 1891. This programme had been drafted by Kautsky who was directly influenced by Engels and it became a model for similar parties in the rest of Europe.

But the Erfurt programme contained two parts. A maximum programme of political and social revolution to replace capitalism by socialism and a minimum programme of democratic and social reforms to be achieved within capitalism. As Germany at that time was not a political democracy the SPD attracted the support not just of workers concerned to improve their lot within capitalism (in the same sort of way as did the Labour Party in Britain) but also of those who wanted political democracy. It was on this basis that its "substantial" support was built up. In other words, it was an essentially reformist party with a Marxist ideology. Although some of its leaders and a minority of its members were revolutionary socialists the majority weren't. This was bound to lead to tension sooner or later. And it did, at the turn of the century when Bernstein started the "revisionist" controversy by pointing out that the revolutionary emperor had no clothes and calling for the party to recognise itself for what it was: a reformist party of gradual social and democratic reform.

The Austrian party was similar to the German one. In France the attraction of Marxism was both its commitment to revolution (misunderstood as fighting on the barricades) and to materialism, both of which fitted into the French Left's political culture and tradition. But the French equivalent of the German SPD was not entirely Marxist even nominally. It's leader, Jean Jaurès, didn't claim to be a Marxist. It was essentially a radical, anti-clerical party.

The same sort of thing could be said about the Spanish and Italian parties. As to the parties in Holland and the Scandinavian countries, they, like Labour in Britain, were essentially the political expression of the trade union movement. This was the case in Belgium too, where the Belgian Labour Party was, apart from its anti-clericalism, very similar to the British one and in fact never adopted Marxism as its ideology.

In Eastern Europe and Russia Marxism was popular as a theory of the revolutionary overthrow of the autocratic regimes there and in fact became the ideology of the latter-day equivalent of the bourgeois revolutionaries of the French Revolution.

So, in the end, there were probably no more Marxian revolutionary socialists in the countries of Europe than there were in the English-speaking countries.

In a debate we once had with the Trotskyist Sean Matgamna, the leading member of what is now the Alliance for Workers Liberty, he said we were "Anglo-Marxists". Actually, within limits it's not such a bad term as there could be said to be a distinction tradition of English-speaking Marxism.

Anglo-Marxism approached the problem of reform and revolution from a different perspective from Continental Marxism. On the continent Marxism was adopted as an ideology by parties that already enjoyed some support on the basis of their programmes of democratic and social reforms. This inclined them to justify on theoretical grounds their "minimum programme" of reforms and in practice to concentrate on this rather than their "maximum programme" of socialism. The Anglo-Marxist parties didn't have to carry this baggage, at least not to the same extent, and were able to propose that a revolutionary socialist party should only have the maximum programme. A conclusion reached independently, by William Morris and the Socialist League in the 1880s, by De Leon and the Socialist Labor Party at the turn of the century, by the Socialist Party of British Colombia (later the Socialist Party of Canada) and by the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Elements within the Socialist Party of America took up a similar position.

So, the situation in the Anglosphere in fact allowed Marxists there to gain a clearer understanding of what needed to be done than the more substantial "Marxist" parties of Europe. True, we never attracted substantial support but our contribution to Marxist theory is not to be dismissed.

ALB

Further reading:

Review of Meghnad Desai's 'Marx's Revenge: the Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of State Socialism' (from the November 2002 Socialist Standard)