This book is a most welcome and needed introduction to Marxists politics from a revolutionary viewpoint. It is very useful both as a reader for students and activists, and as a guide for further lectures. Paul Le Blanc has brought together some of the key texts by Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky, and Gramsci, providing them with a substantial historical introduction. Of course, this choice is not accidental: it is based on the premise that these authors represent, in spite of their differences, a relatively consistent common orientation, both in theory and practice - an orientation referred to by Le Blanc as revolutionary Marxism and opposed by him both to the Marxist orthodoxy of the Second International (Plekhanov, Kautsky) and to the Stalinist version of Marxism-Leninism.
One can regret the absence of some texts - like Marx’s historical writings on class struggle in France in 1848-52 or 1870-71 or Rosa Luxemburg’s piece on the Russian revolution (1918) - but each selection is inevitably constrained by a given number of pages.
The reader is limited to the period 1848-1938, i.e. from the communist Manifesto to Trotsky’s Transitional Program, and to European authors. American or Third World figures (such as Jose Carlos Mariategui) are not included. The so-called Western Marxists are also left out, on the ground - argued by Perry Anderson - that they remained “secluded in universities.” In fact, some of the most important Western Marxists mentioned by Anderson, such as Georg Lukacs and Antonio Gramsci, were active and committed revolutionists, and had little to do with academia. Fortunately enough, in the case of Gramsci, Le Blanc ignored Anderson’s somewhat artificial classification and resolutely included him in the revolutionary Marxist framework. He could also have added Lukacs’s writings from the 1920s (before his reconciliation with Stalinism): extracts from the more directly political sections of History and Class Consciousness (1923) or of his Lenin (1924) book, which undoubtedly belong to the same orientation. But on the whole, his choice is a quite persuasive one - within the limits of the selected geographical area and historical period.
Of course, Le Blanc does not ignore the very significant differences among these authors. But he believes that these differences add up to a powerfully coherent whole, a cogent theoretical practical paradigm. One of the most interesting aspects of his historical introductions is precisely the attempt to highlight - against the usual interpretations - the similarities between, say, Lenin’s and Luxemburg’s views on “the organization question,” or between Trotsky’s and Gramsci’s critique of bureaucratic centralism. Specific strategic contributions, such as Gramsci’s concept of hegemony or Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution are analyzed as elaborations and developments of certain aspects of the common revolutionary Marxist framework rather than shifts away from it. This approach, which inspires both the introduction and the reader himself, is Le Blanc’s most original contribution to the debate on the Marxist heritage, overcoming many old barriers inside the leftist culture.
The introduction is not a chronological overview of the historical evolution of revolutionary Marxist theory, but rather an attempt to briefly systematize its contribution in four decisive areas: capitalist development, the labor movement, revolutionary strategy, and the transition to socialism. Contemporary contributions to the interpretation of Marx (Theodor Shanin), Luxemburg (Norman Geras), Gramsci (Perry Anderson), or Trotsky (Ernest Mandel) are widely used. There is no real attempt to deal with post-1938 developments in Marxist theory, although brief references to Maoism, Cuban Marxism, British Marxist scholarship, and Monthly Review are offered.
Recent issues are taken up in the last chapter, “Does Revolutionary Marxism Have a Future?” Questions such as the destruction of the environment by the “growth of productive forces,” or the importance of non-class forms of oppression (race, gender, etc) are mentioned, but the challenge they represent to the traditional Marxist framework is not really discussed: this is, in my view, the main shortcoming of this conclusion.
The key issue raised by Le Blanc is the failure of revolutionary Marxism in the late 20th century: the goals advanced by Marx, Engels, and their revolutionary followers, i.e. the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a worker’s democracy, did not materialize. Worse than that, the partisans of revolutionary Marxism were reduced to a minority and to an often ineffectual presence in the socialist movement.
For Le Blanc, revolutionary Marxism provides the tools for understanding the Stalinist degeneration, and the ultimate disintegration of the Soviet state, as well as tools for resisting it, and for posing the alternative of a genuine socialist democracy. But, as he very honestly acknowledges, to use revolutionary Marxist concepts to explain why revolutionary Marxism failed to triumph in the 20th century “does not magically whisk away the fact that its project is in shambles.” The answer to the question - has this tradition a future? - cannot be deduced from theoretical considerations: it depends on new developments in working-class consciousness and action.
An excellent annotated bibliography completes the volume, helping to make it a most useful tool of political enlightenment.