In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Chris
Burford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
>I think there is also reasonable circumstantial evidence that the present
>New Labour cabinet was significantly influenced by Marxism Today in the
>1980's. Under Martin Jacques this was a banner of a radical Gramscian
>agenda to rewin ideological hegemony, even at the expense of thinking the
>unthinkable, including that there might be reasons for Mrs Thatcher's
>popularity.
I read the above shortly after reading the following letter, in today's
(Sun) issue of the Observer (UK):
Succumbing to the China syndrome
There is a weirdly déjà vu quality to Martin Jacques' defence of the so-
called People's Republic of China (24 October). He mentions its vast
population, he cites a statistic for 'economic growth'; yes - he intones
- Tiananmen Square was wrong, but there have been worse. Where have we
heard this before? We have heard it in the apologies for the USSR from
the Stalinist tradition out of which Jacques emerged.
He was, of course, part of the process which transformed the rhetoric of
that tradition from pseudo-Marxism into liberal progressivism. But the
political function of these rhetorics is the same: to conceal the fact
that what is benignly called economic 'progress' in the USSR and in the
CPR is actually the process of extracting surplus labour from a working
class denied rights to organise in defence of wages and working
conditions.
For those of us from the Marxist tradition which has always regarded
Leninism-Stalinism as a new class dictatorship there is some bitter
satisfaction in seeing the destination which its last generation of
hacks has arrived at. Yet even given the intellectual banality of this
destination, it is shocking that Jacques fails to consider the
possibility that the CPR may instantiate the nightmare of classical
Marxism - namely, that there could be a stable post-capitalist order
which is not communist. That this should be an order with a free economy
and a despotic state (the formula by which Jacques in his Marxism Today
incarnation characterised Thatcherism) is an irony as beyond words as
the classical Chinese notion of the 'Tao'.
David Murray
London NW6
>The theory that the intelligence services kept the CPGB in existence fails
>to understand the fact that this would have been quite normal. The USA
>funded many bodies in the Soviet sphere of influence. So did the USSR where
>it could in other countries. The problem with the CPGB was that it had got
>stuck in an economist rut in old sections of the trades union movement, and
>caught in the two party system merely trying to nudge Labour an inch or two
>to the left.
I do not think it is "quite normal" for the British intelligence
services to protect political parties, especially those claiming to be
Marxist or standing for the interests of the working class. It must all
depend on the function a political party can provide for them. That the
British intelligence services did look after the CPGB is evident from
the revelations concerning the smuggling in of Moscow gold. That alone
should have alerted Jacques and others to the true purpose of the CPGB.
But of course it didn't. Frankly, I don't know how they sleep at night.
--
Lew
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