hokum of New Times In Race and Class, Volume 31, Number 3 January-March 1990 By A Sivanandan
Review by David Grant "New Times is a mirror image of Thatcherism passing for socialism. New Times is Thatcherism in drag.
Challenging the pernicious influence of Marxism Today, and its New Times agenda, is one of the most pressing of contemporry tasks facing the marxist left. To take on the self-appointed saviours of Labour's electoral fortunes, to confront them directly on their own terrain, may well be an onerous and difficult task. But it is nonetheless necessary and increasingly urgent.
In this light, Sivanandan's withering critique is timely. With the media crowing triumphantly about the "historic failure" of Marxism-Leninism, crumbling along with the Berlin Wall, Sivanandan reminds us that it is not just East European stalinist marxism that has failed to stand up to the onslaught of capitalist ideology-
Our home grown variety, itself of course a not-so-distant relative of that in the cast, has been struggling for years to accomodate itself to the right-wing libertarianism of Thatcherism. In this dubious task it has been entirely successful.
Of course, every form of refuge has its price. Theorising the drift to the New Realist right, giving it a left cover, sticking marxist labels it, seems fine when Thatcherism is rampant. But with the decline of the Tories' standing in the polls, the forward march of Labour no longer seems quite as stalled.
Not surprisingly, the tune has changed. Indeed, there seems to be an element of former fellow travellers falling out as Sivanan-
dan dedicates his article to "those
Page 32
REVIEWS friends with whom, out of a different loyalty, I must now openly disagree."
Sivanandan doesn't mince his words. The theoretical practitioners of New Times and their forays into philosophy, linguisties, semiotics, psychoanalysis, post-structuralism and deconstruction, are slammed. They have given us, he says, merely, "the consummate and conclusive finding that reality itself (is) a matter of interpretation, construction, presentation - of words, ideas, images. "Philosophers", they might have said with a nod to Marx, 'have interpreted the world; our task is to change the interpretation.'*
Sivanandan's savaging of the preposterous "marxism" that New Times offers, would no doubt be applauded by many on the left. But then there is more to political criticism that making a rather small number of people smile,
For despite re-asserting that "the economic" does determine "the political" in the last instance, a welcome and well argued point, he accepts one of the fundamentals of the New Times agenda. That is the view that capital has somehow emancipated itself from labour. He seems to accept the validity of the post-Fordist industrial/social model but baulks at the conclusions that the proponents of New Times wish to draw from it.
For if it is true that the industrial working class has been nullified as the agent of historical change through the effects of the technological revolution, that capital has indeed freed itself from labour, what will take its place? Where are the social forces with nothing to lose but their chains, the social weight and objective interest in revolutionising society?
The theoreticians of New Times put forward the 'new" (what else?!) political movements based on race, sex, gender,
and more recently peace and ecol ogy. Sivanadan begs to differ. But what would he put in the gap that remains, once the proletariat disappears from the scene ?
This question is never entirely answered. He seems to prefer an alliance of the dispossessed, the have-nots, those outside of the systems of choice and consumerism so beloved of Marxism Today. But, alas, just as there is no reason why an amalgam of the oppressed should necessarily be objectively anti-capitalist, outside of an alliance with the working class, neither is there any reason put forward by Sivanandan as to why an alliance of the dispossessed should or could be. At the end of his article, it seems to come down (in the last instance?), despite his insistence, not to the economic, but to a question of - wait for it - choice.
Sivanandan prefers the integrity of the poor and dispossessed to the new social movements, which, he suggests, may be 'corrupting of socialism", so self-obsessed and pre-occupied are they with their own oppression. In making this latter point, he ascribes to these social movements the narrow motives and interests assumed by the New Timers. This one-sided interpretation downplays the positive impact of these movements and the insights they have brought to the wider struggle for socialist change.
But we never find out the how and why of the role of the poor and dispossessed as a replacement for the organised
working class as the agent of historical change within the Marxist
system. In this, Sivanandan has
KILL APARTHEID NOT DETAINEE more in common with the thinking of the New Timers than he might imagine.
Indeed, much in common also with catholic liberation theology, an organising force among the third world's poor and dispossessed, who, like Sivanandan, make a moral choice to be "for" the poor and disspossesed. Not that there is anything wrong with this in itself. But it hardly solves the theoretical problems of dispensing with the historic role of the proletariat in negating capitalism.
Has capital really emancipated itself from labour? The last ten years in Britain might lead you to imagine so. But marxism has, since the beginning of this century, been arguing for a global starting point for any analysis of trends within capitalist society. Part of Sivanandan's critique of the inward looking, self-obsessed theoretical meanderings of Marxism Today is precisely that they ignore much of what is actually happening in the world.
How does the development of the Brazilian labour movement, which last year organised the largest ever industrial general strike in history, fit into the postFordist model which Sivanandan accepts? Where does the development of the South African trade union movement, the power behind so much of the recent change in South Africa, find a place, after Henry?
These are issues that the left. needs to continue to debate. Sivanandan's contribution, witty and concise as it is, tends to indicate that we have some way to go yet. SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 22, March 1990
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK
Wrong on Azerbaijan
We agree with the title and much of the contents of the editorial on Azerbaijan in SO 21, but it is ambiguous and inaccurate on three important questions.
First, it is quite wrong to state that the invasion was "certainly intended to stop the bru tal. ethnic slaughter..." It is absolutely clear from the Kremlin's statements, and from those of the military commander of the invasion, that it had only one purpose: to crush the Azeri nationalist movement. Frankly, any claim to the contrary is an excuse - and has the unfortunate effect of prettifying Moscow's brutal and criminal recourse to repression in Azerbaijan.
Second, to assert that "a more enlightened policy towards the nationalities issue" has been an "essential comerstone of glasnost" is factually untrue. Gorbachev's new thinking on relations between the republics did not see the light of day until eighteen months into his leadership - and then only as a response to the development of the mass movements. One must look not only at the Soviet leadership's rhetoric but also at its practice, which has not exactly been "enlightened" (remember Tbilisi, the repression in the aftermath of the Armenian earthquake and so on).
Finally, we cannot agree that socialists should call for "maintaining sufficient state SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 22, March 1990
REVIEWS/ LETTERS forces to prevent further pogroms". Available evidence suggests that the initial pogroms were orchestrated and carried out by forces linked to the Azeri Communist party (see The Guardian, 15.2.90). Before the invasion it was forces within the Azeri Popular Front which organised workers' patrols to defend Armenians against the pogroms, at a time when the state forces were doing nothing at all to defend them. After the invasion, it was precisely the role of the troops to back up the bureaucratic leaders in Azerbaijan and smash the Popular Front! Defence of Armenians doesn't come into it.
It is therefore wrong to give any concession to the notion that the presence of the troops is in any way progressive of justified. On the contrary, it serves to exacerbate the tensions that could lead to further inter-ethnic conflict. The editorial is right to argue that a precondition for the resolution of such con flicts is the establishment of genuine nationaldemocratic rights in the various republics. But this means that socialists should make absolutely no concessions to the type of brutal repression which is the legacy of the Stalinist policy on the national question.
Patrick Baker David Shepherd
Hackney
History repeating itself?
Despite being six feet under, that old renegade Gerry Healy laughed to himself when he read SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no.21. But it wasn't because Alan Thornett failed to nail down the coffin lid in his obituary.
And Healy didn't chuckle at Emest Mandel's speech: Pablo was right, except that he was 37 years ahead of his time in announc ing the historic defeat of Stalinism.
No, Healy found the real ghost of Pablo in the editorial: "Azerbaijan: End the military occupation". Good enough title but you can't have your cake and eat it! Since when have the armed forces of the Soviet state played a progressive role in relation to the national question?
You call for an end to the military occupation 'while maintaining sufficiewnt state forces to prevent further pogroms". You consider this minimum presence justified because "The Armenians ... called on Moscow to intervene': but didn't this also happen in Afghanistan?
fail to understand that Moscow created the situation which then "demanded" their intervention. The question is not: is this an isolated mistake by Gorbachev? but "should the masses of Transcaucasia determine their own future?' We must answer this by demanding:
NO SOVIET TROOPS IN AZERBALAN AND ARMENIA WHATSOEVER!
comradely.
Roy Wall London NW2 We welcome letters on any
subject: but please keep
them brief! Letters over 400
Swords will be cut.
Send to Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London N4 2UU
Page 33
Labour Focus on An independent magazine which provides comprehensive analysis of trends and events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from a socialist perspective from Berg Publishers Ltd, 150 Cowley Rd, Oxford OX4 1JJ Socialist Outlook every month As regular readers will have noticed we increased the price of individual copies of the magazine some months ago. Now unfortunately subscriptions are having to follow suit. 1 year subscription (ten issues) for £10 (inland), £15 (Europe), £20 (outside Europe, surface), E25 (outside Europe,
Read airmail). Multi-reader institutions £20 inland, £30 overseas Type of subscription.. Name Subscription to start from issue number Please return to Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109 London N4 2UU
SUBSCRIBE TO EASTERN EUROPE Subscription rates: three issues per annum UK and Europe: £12 (individuals) £25 (institutions) Overseas (airmail): £15 £29.50 (institutions) Address