A new journal, Historical Materialism, has been launched. It aims to provide a forum for the critical reconstruction of the classical Marxist tradition which underpins all the major work of Luxemburg, Lenin, Gramsci and Trotsky.
Scott Meikle, a philosopher on the Historical Materialism
Editorial Advisory board, describes in broad theoretical terms the principal elements of Marx’s work: “First, his dialectical method; second, his theory of history which is the application of dialectics to human society; and third, his analysis of the value-form in history, which culminates in his systematisation of the laws of capitalist economy.”
The understanding of the world which these elements generate has long been a threat to the bourgeoisie. But for much of this century the workers’ movement has suffered the catastrophe of domination by social-democratic and Stalinist movements. Both movements, by subduing the revolutionary class struggle, have obscured and revised Marx’s work in order to “legitimise” their politics.
Their success in claiming for themselves the “Marxist” tradition, combined with the historic defeats of the working class they engendered have produced a poisoned inheritance in the realm of theory for subsequent generations of socialists. The theoretical work in which revolutionaries engage today will be similar to Lenin’s experience of ploughing through the revisions and vulgarisations of Bernstein and Kautsky to get at the real Marx.
The research programme of this new journal could not be more ambitious. Its determination to respect the contributions of different traditions in Marxism (and the constructive contributions of non-Marxists) suggests a healthy pluralism of debate.
The content of the first issue carries the imprint of Ellen Meiksin Wood. Next to Marx, she appears to be the most cited author. Her erudition and insights are certainly admirable. She represents a rare breed amongst the left intelligentsia in that she has not collapsed into the various post-modernist fantasies that swept social science and humanities departments in the ’80s and ’90s.
A majority of the contributions consider important economic issues. Tony Smith on Marxist theories of technology seemed quite rigorous, Fred Moseley on the American economy less so: “... it is extremely unlikely that capitalism will be able to provide a return to prosperity and improving living standards for the vast majority of the world’s population” — “return” suggests it once did this!
The article on alienation by John Holloway is weak in its inability to situate the concept either historically or scientifically. However, Esther Leslie’s article on Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project is a brilliant reclaiming of a major Marxist cultural thinker from the clutches of the post-modernist camp.
This is a strong first edition and represents the beginnings of a classical Marxist voice being heard once again in the academic world.
Paul Cooper
- Historical Materialism £7.99 from Historical Materialism, c/o London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2. e-mail Cheques Payable to “Historical Materialism”.
