Marx Variously Interpreted
Marxism. By. J. Middleton Murry, John Macmurray, N. A. Holdaway, and G. D. H. Cole. (Chapman and Hall. 5s.) Tins book consists of matter originally delivered in the form of lectures under the auspices of the Adclphi magazine and subsequently amplified. It cannot be said that it presents a unified and a consistent picture of Marxism as a whole. It is not, for example, a book which one would naturally give to a person wishing to know what Marx originally thought and how his thought has subsequently been developed, with the recommendation, " Here is a book which, although written by four different people who deliberately address themselves to different aspects of Marx's thought, one, Professor Mac- murray, to ' The New Materialism,' another, Mr. Middleton Murry, to ' Marxism and the Individual' ; another, Mr. N. A. Holdaway, to ' The Analysis of Capitalism ' and "rhe End of Capitalism,' and a fourth, Mr. G. D. H. Cole, to ' Marxism and the World Situation Today,' nevertheless constitutes an authoritative -pronouncement covering the whole field of Marxist thought by men who, before writing their separate articles, took the trouble to reach a general measure of agree- ment as to the interpretation of Marx and the significance of what they were interpreting. " He would, I am afraid, find that Mr. Murry's highly personal contributions gave him more inforination about Mr. Murry than about Marx. They are good reading, but they are too good Murry to be good Marx.
Mr. Cole's, although the shortest, is the solidest chapter. While the other contributions give the impression of lectures expanded to make a book, and suffer occasionally from flabbiness through padding, his is as spare and workmanlike as the parts of a machine. He begins with an admirable summary of the central Marxist thesis, that the movement of history, as of Hegel's Dialectic, proceeds by the opposition of contraries, with the technique of production taking the place of the Hegelian ideas as the motive force of the process. This outline skethh could not be bettered. It is the work of a man who, by dint of years of lecturing and writing, has become so master of his subject, that his exposition has come to have something of the quality of a work of art. Effortlessly the parts fall into their places, as they are presented in logical inter-relation to one another and to the whole. Mr. Cole's exposition is only preliminary to an estimate of the present position of Marxism and its relevance to the contemporary world situation. Why did Marxism, to the shocked dismay of the orthodox high-priests of the cult—had not Marx said that Communism followed upon the last stage of an over-ripe Capitalism ?—come first to fruition in unripe Russia ? Mainly, Mr. Cole says, because there was in Russia no powerful middle class to act as a buffer between capitalist and proletarian: Of the Russian situation, in fact, the crude Marxist diagnosis was in' essence correct.
Or Russia, but not of Western Europe. In Western European countries there is a strongly organized middle-clais comprising' the most talented and enterprising section of the community. Its reaction to the difficulties of Capitalism is not 'to identify itself with the interests of the proletarians but to " band together for the 'defence of its privileges in a determined effort to uproot Socialism and destroy the entire working-class movement." Hence Capitalism in ertremis is' far more likely to provoke a violent defensive on the part of an alarmed middle Class, than a violent offensive on the part of a revolutionary working class. What follows ? First, the policy of moderate Socialism makes the worst of all world& Its real object is to make the best of Capitalism in the interests of the workers ; in fact, however, it " so hobbles Capitalism that it can no longer work at all." Its professed object is the transformation of. Capitalism with a view to the inauguration of Socialism ; but this is impracticable without the help of the middle classes, which it is bound to lose, as soon as the " measures of social reform which it is under the necessity of doling out begin to imperil the capitalist system." Nor does its moderation win it respect. On the contrary the bleating of the kid excites the tiger, and moderation on the part of a Socialist Government is " taken for what it Is—a sign of conscious weakness and irresolution."
Is a non-moderate Socialism' likely 'to succeed where a moderate fails ? If by non-moderate SoCialism we mean Marxism, Mr. Cole thinks not. For it is not merely in respect of its middle classes that England differs from Russia : of the workers of England it is emphatically not true that they " have nothing to lose but their chains." On the contrary, Capitalism penetrates increasingly right down the social scale, plants its little capitalists in working-class homes and enlists their interest in its own stability. But while Marxism, which demands new instruments of government, is impracticable, and moderate Socialism, whiebwould use the old parliamentary instrument in the old way, illogical, there may be .a middle course which, constructive without being moderate, will use the old instruments in a new way. Thus, Mr. Cole passes to what is, in effect, a statement of the policy of the Socialist League, a policy which, he seems to claim, is Marxism adapted to the terms of the English situation.
For, he insists, Marxism is a dialectic and not a dogma, " a guide and stimulus to action " not a monument of eternal truth. " It is not Marxism but ostrichism to learn off the Mandan gospel by rote, and expect devoutness to give absolu- tion from the duty of further thought." Professor Mac- murray agrees. In an exciting contribution—Professor Macmurray has the knack of investing everything he writes with a certain excitement—on the nature of philosophy, he points out how Marx's teaching, original and creative, empirical and elastic, has become petrified by his disciples. As in the case of so .many of the world's great thinkers, the flow of living inspiration has been congealed within the hard crust of dogma by small men who, devoid of the master's vision and insensi- tive to his spirit, cling to the letter of the law and make verbal orthodoxy an excuse for intellectual inertia. Professor Macmurray shows that, if the dialectical foundation of Marx's teaching is to be taken seriously, it involves the corollary that the teaching must itself change, or rather be consciously changed to fit the changing circumstances it seeks to interpret. It is one of the ironies of philosophy that, while no thinker has been more anxious to eradicate the notion of absolute truth than Marx, no modern thinker has had disciples who were so anxious to claim absolute truth for his teaching.
C. E. M. JoAD.
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