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why has marxism had only limited influence in Britain?

Account for the limited influence of Marxism in Britain

Before examining the extent of the influence of Marxism in the British Labour
movement it is worth defining what is meant by Marxism. There are many
possible definitions, but for the purposes of this essay only two will be employed;
firstly, at its simplest level Marxism is an attempt to provide a materialist
explanation of history, showing how human society has developed alongside the
development of productive forces, and how the struggle between the classes act
as the motor of history, and as a deconstruction and critique of the industrial
capitalism which Marx considered as the latest, and last, form of class society.
British Marxist organisations were from the first, educators and disseminators of
this form of Marxism.

The second definition of Marxism is as a panoptic political movement, which


aimed to embrace its members in a movement that would provide for them every
aspect of their lives while the party itself would subsume and eventually replace
the state itself. The template for this form of Marxism was the mighty German
SPD.

The pre war Marxist sects and parties of Britain always remained numerically
small but their membership was in constant flux; the rapid turnover of members
meant that there were always a far greater proportion of Marxist educated
workers at large in the British Labour movement than can be gleaned through
exclusive attention to the subs lists of individual branches.

It is thus an understandable mistake to see the difference in size between


organised Marxism in Britain, whether in its pre Bolshevik, or later communist
incarnations, and the mass Social Democratic and Communist Parties of the
continent as an indication that Marxism has had only limited influence inside the
British Labour Movement. Size, as they say, doesn’t (always) matter. The British
Marxists were an integral part of the British labour movement which even if it
didn’t always agree with them or even found them uncomfortable bedfellows
recognised them as a part of the larger whole.

The nature of the Marxism that was taught within British Marxist groups should
also be examined; the pejorative “crude” is almost universally applied when
considering the Marxism of the Social Democratic Federation and its splits and
successors, but this is an unfair one justified only by the Leninist conviction that
their extension of Marxism as an overarching world view, makes it more
sophisticated. In reality the pretention that Marxism can provide the answers to
every question of Human existence transforms it into a quasi- religion, with its
own priesthood and readymade sets of anathema, witch hunts and heretics.

Hyndman’s role, as founder of the SDF, is a major part of the argument for the
crudity of early British Marxism, while it is true that he often allowed his old Tory
prejudices to colour his interpretation of socialism Hyndman was not ‘the’ SDF
and was often challenged and overturned from within the federation. Debates
within the SDF often came to conclusions that pre-empted the debates within the
wider socialist International, but were often ignored and others would be become
associated with the concepts; notably, the bitter arguments that took place after
the outbreak of the Boer war, in which Hyndman’s attempts to oppose the war
within a overall pro- imperial standpoint led him to assess it nakedly anti Semitic
terms whilst his opponents developed an internationalist approach which directly
associated the Boers with the interests of the working class, and pre-empted
later development of the theory of imperialism undertaken by the Second
International and even Lenin’s evocation of ‘revolutionary defeatism’<!--[if !
supportFootnotes]-->[1]<!--[endif]-->
.

The vitality of pre war socialism is often overlooked; Ken Weller describes how in
one borough of North London no fewer than a dozen different groups and
organisations were operating, with their own public meetings, literature and
educational classes<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[2]<!--[endif]-->.

The British Labour movement predates all others in the world, it was born in the
‘blood and filth’ of Industrial capitalism’s own birth and its formative years, well
described by Thompson<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[3]<!--[endif]-->, were tumultuous and violent
as Capital attempted to impose ‘the tyranny of measured time’ and the factory
system on the new proletariat. The new working class built its organisation
without benefit of the advice of Marxist Intellectual and ‘professional
revolutionary’.

Marx and, especially Engels took a rather dim view of the proletariat of their
adopted country. After the waning of the Chartist movement both Marx and
Engels became increasingly critical of the ‘conservative’ nature of the British
Trades unionists. The unions gained strength in the conditions of the long boom
in British industry and were able to win for their highly skilled membership real
material advantages, which ran counter to Marx’s insistence that Capitalist
development would inevitably result in the immiserization of the proletariat.
These unionists found that in the conditions of economic growth there was real
advantage in supporting free trade economics and freedom in collective
bargaining, but found it necessary to seek international solidarity in order to
defend their members’ conditions<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[4]<!--[endif]-->. Even as the same
trades’ unionists were creating the International Working men’s Association
which would provide Marx with a political platform from which to propagate his
views, Engels was condemning them as labour aristocrats<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[5]<!--
[endif]-->
. After Marx had destroyed the International to prevent it falling into the
hands of his Bakuninite opponents, their interest in the British working class dried
up altogether, to the extent of not even bothering to have their writings
published in English.

The publication of England for all annoyed Marx for not acknowledging him by
name, and instilled a lifelong animosity for Hyndman in Engels, who extended
this enmity to the SDF, encouraging the Socialist League’s split<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--
>[6]<!--[endif]-->
, and exulting at the mistaken prospect that the split would destroy the
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[7]<!--[endif]-->
federation and in the last years of his life providing
support to the foundation of the ILP. Kendall argues that Engels’ hostility to the
SDF, in isolating Engels from the British socialist movement, prevented Marxism
from taking proper root in the labour movement<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[8]<!--[endif]-->. This is
rather overplaying the influence of one individual, even if that individual is
Engels, but Kendall is undoubtedly correct in arguing that by precipitately
splitting from the federation the Socialist League left Hyndman and his
supporters in complete control, and that the democratic and federal composition
of the SDF, meant that a split was unnecessary and set an example which
became common for oppositions, and ensured that Hyndman’s control continued
till the Great War<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[9]<!--[endif]-->.
Notwithstanding Hyndman, British Marxism developed in a peculiarly working
class fashion, a part of, and extension of, the self improvement and autodidactic
impulse which has been such a feature of British working class life. Within
Socialist education classes Marxism was taught not as a totality but as a part of
gaining a wider understanding of the society in which they lived and was studied
alongside sciences, literature and history. In 1909 Marxist education became
more organised and expanded with the formation of the Central Labour College
and the Plebs’ League. Formed following a dispute between the working class
students and the traditionalist tutors of Ruskin College the League brought
together tutors and students from across the Labour movement, teaching an
explicitly Marxist and socialist curriculum.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[10]<!--[endif]--> The Plebs’
League produced educational material of an extremely high quality, some of
which are still of value today.<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[11]<!--[endif]-->

It is interesting to note the similarity between these circles of autodidactic


workers in Britain and the early Russian workers study circles that were so
disliked by Lenin for their habit of knowing more about Marxism than the young
revolutionary intellectuals who sought to use them as “cannon fodder”<!--[if !
supportFootnotes]-->[12]<!--[endif]-->
.

It is clear that there was an enormous gulf between this Marxism; “ultra
democratic, opposed to leadership in principle (and) opposed to professionalism
of the Labour movement almost as an article of faith.”<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[13]<!--[endif]-->
And the all encompassing European movements: While the British labour
movement, in both industrial and political forms had been largely the creation of
workers themselves, who were suspicious in the extreme of those few
Intellectuals and other members of the middle classes who supported the cause
of the workers, across Europe the later industrialisation meant that the
intellectuals were, more often than not, the instigators of the socialist parties and
the unions were the creation of the parties. The European intelligencia; educated
and trained for the role of managing a Industrialised Capitalist society but
excluded from any say in the running of that state, they adopted Marxism as an
ideology for a highly state centred and bureaucratised Socialism, in which the
Educated and managerial Classes would take their rightful place as rulers<!--[if !
supportFootnotes]-->[14]<!--[endif]-->
. The German SPD formed the most fully formed of these
parties, creating a parallel society of clubs, unions, papers entertainment and
education for its members, and a parallel bureaucracy to run that parallel society,
while at the top of the party Marxist intellectuals adorned the party like a crown,
with Kautsky, the “Pope of Marxism”, as their chief jewel. Kautsky and the other
Intellectuals produced Marxist literature which promised much for the coming
socialist Nirvana, whilst simultaneously preaching passivity and the inevitability
of socialism. Among Kautsky’s many international disciples Lenin was the most
devoted and committed in applying Kautsky’s Marxism<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[15]<!--[endif]--
>
.

In Britain the democratic reforms of the nineteenth century and the needs of
Imperial administration provided for the emerging educated and managerial class
opportunities for both representation within the established political system and
employment and advancement across the globe. There was no major
involvement by the educated managerial class in the British Labour and socialist
movement until the 1950s as the needs of the Welfarist state led to the rapid
growth of highly educated people who were expected to fit into increasingly
limited and frustratingly mundane roles.
The Russian Revolution galvanised and united the bulk of British Marxism into the
new communist party around support for Lenin’s very different version of
Marxism, however the CPGB unlike it’s continental sister parties was not born of
a bitter, and all too often, blood soaked, split, but instead from the unification of
most of the old ‘revolutionary’ parties, an aspiration which had long existed
within the British left. British communism’s relationship with the wider British left
also did not change markedly; Local activists were still the same, whether as
members of the BSP or CPGB, and the Party remained essentially within the wider
labour fold; Harry Wickes in his autobiography described the early years of the
communist party in Battersea where the close cooperation between Communist
and Labour was extemporised by the election of Indian communist ‘Sak’
Saklatvala as the Labour MP in 1922<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[16]<!--[endif]-->. The efforts of the
Communist International to ‘Bolshevise’ the party, whether organisationally,
educationally and, finally, through the hothouse education of a new cadre of
leaders in the Lenin school in Moscow, and the parallel efforts of the Labour
leadership to proscribe the Communists and the Minority Movement inside the
Labour Party that supported them, largely failed to breach the continuity of
relationships between Communists and Labour.

On aspect of the Communist International attempts to break the CPGB’s peculiar


relationship with the larger movement was in its approach to Marxist Education.
Wicks described the nature and breadth of the Plebs’ classes in the early 1920’s;

“Bill Ryder a foundation member of the communist party introduced us to Marx’s


Capital...

Frank Horrabin on Economic geography made use of maps to bring alive how
continents were divided in the search for markets and raw materials. ...

Raymond Postgate attracted a wide audience with his series of 12 lectures on


revolution from 1789 to 1905. His class was held at the lavender hill labour club
and coincided with the attack by Morrison and Macdonald on the presence of
communists in the labour party. Its central issue- parliamentary road or
revolutionary road? - was then live...

Those classes were widely attended and enjoyed by young and old- apprentices,
skilled workers, Cooperative Guildswomen. From there emerged a group of
people who became the backbone of the left wing of the Labour party. Historical
materialism, Industrial unionism and elements of Daniel Deleon constituted the
Marxism in that period of Plebs’ education in the 1920s...”

This eclecticism could not be allowed to stand for the recently Bolshevised CPGB
and from 1922 onwards attempts were made to take over the movement and
impose a curriculum with the intention of; “correcting defective (non communist)
understandings of Marxism and turning the plebs league and labour colleges into
adjuncts of party activity”<!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->[17]<!--[endif]-->

This failed takeover led to a exodus of some of the CPGBs most able and talented
educators, Raymond Postgate, Frank Horrabin, Mark Starr and Morgan Philips-
Price all left the party and a great deal of damage was done to its standing.

The final breach between organised Marxism and the Labour movement was the
Third Period; This was a new revolutionary offensive decreed from Moscow, in
which the only force that was holding back the revolutionary impulses of the
workers was the reformist parties and unions, who it was claimed, had become as
firm supporters of reaction as the fascists, and should be therefore denounced as
social fascists, shattered the relationship between the Marxists and the wider
labour movement, that organic continuity was lost and never again regained.
When the communists again looked for unity, in the cause of the popular front, it
was as an outside organisation, appealing or condemning in turn the leadership
of the Labour Party and trades unions, moreover, the assumption that the
Communists and the wider movement had the same interests, and the same
loyalties could never again be made.

As an integral part of the Labour movement, Britain’s Marxists gained a wide


audience, however this was a very different form of Marxism than that pursued
by the mass socialist parties of the continent. The introduction of such politics
after 1917 caused the steady collapse of the influence of British Marxism.

The Development of the British Working Class, A Debate:


Part II
Mar 24, 2000 - © Joseph Sramek

Eric Hobsbawm, Labouring Men, (London: Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, 1964),


"Methodism and the Threat of Revolution in England."

Ross McKibben, "Why Was There No Marxism in Great Britain?" English Historical
Review, (Vol. XCIX (April 1984), No. 391), pp. 297-331.

E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, (NY: Vintage Books, 1966, 2nd
ed.).

F.M.L. Thompson, The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain,
1830-1900, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988).

Yet both historians (E.P. Thompson and F.M.L. Thompson) have left unanswered another
crucially important question. While all may argue that there was a revolutionary atmosphere
during the first half of the nineteenth century, why did it suddenly vanish afterwards? Some
historians have suggested that organized religion, Marxism's traditional enemy in attracting
working-class support, prevented Marxism or any other comparable revolutionary mass
movement from gaining mass support in Britain. In particular, the belief that "Methodism
prevent[ed] revolution, or the development of a revolutionary movement in Britain" remained
strong when Eric Hobsbawm wrote his essay in 1957.

Yet, as Hobsbawm argues, this view is largely false. Though Wesleyan Methodism was
"hostile to..." a revolution or a revolutionary mass movement forming, Hobsbawm points out
it was not strong enough to have much political impact. [1] It was "not a serious force [in the
South]..." and was only sporadically a serious force in the northern, industrialized areas.
Moreover, "a great deal of the radical and revolutionary uprest of the period took place in
areas in which... [Methodism]... [and] organized religion of such was weak..." [2] He
concludes that it is likely that workers were attracted to both Methodism and Radicalism, yet
the former "had no more chance of preventing large numbers of them from being rebellious
than had the Archbishop of Canterbury..." [3]

Though it may be true that religion did not play much of a role in restraining revolution
during the first half of the nineteenth century, it is clear, Ross McKibben argues, that it was an
important limiting factor on the possible development of Marxism during the second half. A
common "Religious affiliation threw working-class churchgoers into the company of the
middle classes and encouraged an egalitarian bonhomie..." In addition, it conditioned
members of the working-class: "Its structures helped to familiarize the working classes... with
'political' behavior and gave an acceptable-though utterly conventional-ethical force to
working-class politics." [4]

Yet, another, more important, reason was the growing acceptance by the middle and upper
classes of a working-class role in the economic and political spheres by the third quarter of
the nineteenth century. Though working class consciousness may have been originally
defined by a long period of class conflict or by the divisive effects of such laws as the Great
Reform Bill, by the 1880s, it was being drastically redefined by moderation and compromise.
Once the "vulgarized ideological precepts [such as that of the] 'free born Englishman'..." were
accepted by all classes, and the "stereotypes of the upstanding and no-nonsense British
workingman..." were "absorbed into the larger stereotype of the nation, the state was more or
less compelled to withdraw from the sphere of industrial relations..." [5] As a result,
McKibben exclaims, "The British unions were given a freedom of action unique in Europe
and (as far as I know) in the world, unencumbered by law or opinion." [6] Possessing the
ability to control at least part of their lives, many members of the working class did not feel
the need to actively participate in politics or class struggles like their counterparts in Europe
may have felt. As long as the State was not seen as an enemy, and as long as the workers did
not feel that they were politically powerless, the ability of revolution to crop in Britain
remained non-existent.

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