|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Marxism in Britain
| Article
# : |
12659 |
|
|
Section : |
Modern Thought
|
| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1987 |
3,752 Words |
| Author
: |
James McNamara and Dennis J. O'Keeffe
James McNamara is a freelance writer and broadcaster. Dennis
J.O 'Keeffe is senior lecturer in the sociology of education
at Polytechnic of North London. |
Marxism constitutes the most grandiose scheme the modern age ha produced for the unification of mankind. France acted as its intellectual powerhouse and Soviet Russia its principal laboratory. This combination of intellectual gravamen and imperial power secured favorable export terms for the doctrine. By a variety of persuasions and impositions, Marxist ideas captured whole countries and penetrated the key institutions of others. Marxism proves a most tenacious product, modifying and adapting itself according to taste and disguising itself in a host of local colors where necessary. The vital text, Das Kapital, though written in German, was composed in the demise of British capitalism and the future of world socialism.
British Marxism consists of a curious amalgam. Middle-class intellectuals given to speculative theories predominate, but they are rooted in a nostalgia that reaches back to the social problems of the first Industrial Revolution. However, the intellectual component is informal and unsystematic by the standards of continental Marxism. None of the famous names in twentieth-century Marxism are British. Moreover the British movement, much to its chagrin, has never managed to gain mass support among the working class, unlike the communist parties in Spain, France, Italy, or Greece. In Britain proletarian support of the communist movement is confined to fringe areas of industrial decay, such as South Wales, the northeast of England (Newcastle on Tyne), and Clyeside in Scotland (Glasgow and its environs). Though Marxists made some inroads in large English cities recently, riding on the coattails of welfare administration and the poverty trap, Marxism's grip on the working-class imagination remains as precarious as always. In Europe only Greece maintains a potentially "revolutionary" working class; Britain has simply never had one.
The number of avowed believers in Britain is small. The Communist party is now reduced to some twelve thousand members who are hopelessly split between its pro-Moscow and Eurocommunist wings. It is not even clear at present what faction controls the official newspaper, the Morning Star. Nor is there any end in sight to the annual hemorrhage of members.
Admittedly, a whole kaleidoscope of other, ever dissolving and reforming Marxist and Trotskyite groups exchange personnel every few years. But taken together, the whole lot makes no more than a few thousand souls, and many are students. Considering their small numbers, these countries have achieved quite a few successes in the politics of British higher education. They often prevent either resident staff or visiting speakers from voicing
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
