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No.40 JUNE-JULY 1956 NINEPENCE

FORUMubscriptions: 12 Montbs 10/6, 6 months 5/3. Chequesand P.O's. should be made payable to E. Lake, S.P.G.B.SOCIALIST DISCUSSION JOURNALTOWARDS BETTER UNDERSTANDING

Do We Need the Dialectic?The subject of dialectics has not receiveda great deal of attention in the SocialistParty. It may be thought it is of not muchconcern to us. Nevertheless, all sorts ofideas on the subject have flitted through the

Party from time to time. We may not acceptEngels's "Dialectics of Nature" or "Anti-Duhring" but at least we have neverrejected them. The following article andlater ones are an attempt to stimulatediscussion on these lines. They may not bethe whole truth or even truth at all, but theymay serve to clarify issues that are badly inneed of clarification.One of Engels's jobs was to dust andpolish the objets d'art of the Marx collection.Unfortunately, he broke some valuablethings in the pro:::ess and mislaid others.This is not to deny that we are indebted tohis genial insight-viz., his brilliant Peasant

War in Germany, Condition of the WorkingClass in England in 1844, etc. But, alas, hebequeated a dubious estate in Anti-Duhringand The Dialectics of Nature-an estatewhich the Communists have not only claimedas their own but have philosophicallyextended to a vast ramshackle empire-dialectical materialism.To-day Engels plays an Aristotelian rolein Russia. It is his writings in the mainwhich constitute the sacred texts for MoscowMarxism. The wheel has turned an ironic

IN THIS ISSUEMARXISM AND LITERATURE.Concluding Article.

SOCIALISM AND RELIGION.Reviews of two books.

HOW TO STUDY.Education Class Notes.

CARSON McCULLERS.An American Writer.

ELECTIONS IN AUSTRIA.The opinions expressed in FORUM are those

of the individual writers, and are not to betaken as the Socialist Party's official views.

2-The ~ase of Engelsfull circle. Once the Catholics used Aristotleagainst Protestantism, then the Protestantsused Hegel against Atheism-and now theCommunists use Engels against Marxism.That they have Hegelianized Engels is afact. That Engels himself began the processis also a fact. When Engels was young healmost swa:llowed Hegel whole; when hewas old, Hegel almost wholly swallowedhim.Needless to say, Hegel himself enjoysconsiderable prestige in the highest dia-lectical circles in Russia. The LeningradInstitute of Philosophy boasts that whereasin England Hegel's Logic-his most abstrusework-sells perhaps no more than fifty-oddcopies a year, in Russia editions of it runinto tens of thousands. Truly, dialectics inreverse-a jump from quality to quantity.Even as far back as 1917 Lenin, in the

throes of the Russian Civil War, exhortedhis fellow-Bolsheviks to constitute them-selves into a " Society of tbe MaterialisticFriends of the Hegelian Dialectic."It is also true that Hegel's glorification ofthe State as the political Absolute and therealization of concrete freedom are currentelements in the Russian state ideology.Whether Hegel intended his state philosophyto furnish political grammars for totalitarianregimes is a matter outside the present orbit.In the hands of the Communists the dia-Iectic has provide::! a mystique and allowedthem to indulge in pseudo-scientific fortune-telling. At the same time, it has evolved

into an authoritarian state ideology, capableof being twisted into the most fantasticshapes to justify the pretexts of the Russianruling cliques in order to preserve theirpower. There is something ludicrouslytragic in the fact that the alleged chargesagainst Trotsky, Radek, Rykof, Bukharinand others were given a "dialectical ,-formulation. Their alleged errors consistedin theis inability to understand the finernuances of dialectical polarity and in conse-quence the mechanistic twist which was givento the interpenetration of opposites (seeShirkov's Text Book ofMaTxist Philosophy).The claim that the dialectic constitutes a

higher truth has been made by all Communist

theorists since Lenin. It has also been made(though in a less exaggerated form) byPlekhanov. The hierarchic structure of thisalleged truth can be seen from a statementby Deborin (who later was removed in theinterests of the higher truth): "While alldialecticians are and must be communists,not all communists are or can be dialec-ticians." That this" higher truth" amountsto infallibility can also be seen from theShort History of the C.P.S.U., wherein itstates: "The Marx-Leninist theory, i.e.,the dialectic, enables the Party to find theright orientation in any situation ... and tosay in what direction they are bound todevelop."No-one wants to visit the sins of thechildren too heavily upon the fathers;nevertheless, some of the broadbased viewsin the philosophic system of the Communists

can be traced to the paternity of Engels.One can concede that there is muchwhich is cogent and instructive in Anti-Duhring. Nevertheless, there are also claimswhich seem to contradict certain premisesof Marxism, such as that: What independ-ently survives of all former philosophy isthe science of thought and its laws-formallogic and science of nature and history."What actually are we to infer from this? Itcould mean that the dialectic, along with itspoor relation formal logic, has only a meagreand modest function- to perform, i.e., toexpress in a set of logical propositions theresults and significance of scientific

findings.Yet it appears that Engels assigned to thedialectic a much more ambitious role. Thus,in his Feuerbach he regards the dialectic as"our best working tool." He also holds thatit constitutes the highest form of thinking.And on page 158 of Anti-Duhring hedeclares: "Dialectics is nothing more thanthe science of the general laws of motionand development of nature, human societyand thought."All this seems self-contradictory andconfusing. In the first place we are led tobelieve that the dialectic is another name for

scientific method. If that is so, then it193

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sts of rules and disciplines for valid But all this is a far step from asae-ting thating. Yet on the other hand it is asserted nature itself is subject to universal dialect-dialectics means laws of nature. We icallaws, which can be subsumed under thesked to believe that it is both canons headings of "the unity of opposites,"inking and laws of nature. It might be "negation of the negation" and "thed that dialectics is either or the other change of quantity into quality and vice-cannot be both. Sometimes it is versa."sted that the dialectic is simply a With all due respect to Engels, he neverdological principle seeking to discover made out a case on behalf of this. What hebehaviour of natural phenomena. But did was to assert that nature, includingctics also claims to have formulated mind, renewed and perpetuated itself inrsal laws of nature and should not accordance with a dialectical principle. Into ask how nature works because it short, his was a theory of cosmic design.how it works, i.e., according to Engels did say,unlike Hegel that the universeectical principles. The only thing left for him was a material universe, but seeingdialectic is the refinement of details he had endowed his "matter" with the sameon dialectical principles. ' creative properties which Hegel had at leasten more serious issues are raised by more consistently given as attributes ofambivalence between "laws of thinking" " the idea," the difference between Hegel" laws of nature." If, as we are led to and Engels is merely formal.ve, the laws of nature are an eternal Again, Engels's view of the dialectic laidtical process, then all our thinking him under a.heavy obligation to show thatreflect this process and our ideas are science itself was based on dialecticalopies of an eternal, dialectical, objective principles. It is true that in Anti-Duhringy. That they are" dialectical" copies and in The Dialectics of Nature he offersnot alter the position-they are still some examples, but they are in no ways. Yet here it seems that Engels was convincing. For example, we are noting what it was really up to him to greatly informed' by being told that thee : that is, that our ideas (copies, North and South poles of a magnet are ages)were identical with objective reality. unity of opposites. The peculiar molecular There is another grave confusion which'h h ' d b hav i f . f . exists in regard to Engels's views on theIS true t at Engels in Anti-Du ring structure an e aviour 0 a piece 0 Iron d' I . W ld hid bsaid that "modern materialism is essen- when magnetized was the subject of an ra e~t1c. e are to .' a~ a~ a rea y eendialectical" and Engels's statement that investigation which required no dialectical n:entloned; th~t all t~lllklllg IS.but.a re~ec-nallogic and dialectics are" the science formulation. We know that one cannot have non of obJectlv~ reality. (A VIew IIIdirectought and its laws" may, of course, be a battery without a positive and a negative contr~s: to ~arx s-see Theses on Feuer~~~h .to nTeaft-dranhe~d1alecticchre3 nothllIg.--cetl-a--"trrrity-of ("'Fpg~ltes"...:c....outthis~oes- ~ ~~WhlC11~wll1-subseqlJellt1-rID.edealt. w111.J.-~ethan sum up in the most appropriate not explain the processes which go. to make Al~d yet ~e are told by Engels t~at allhe findings of science. To this even it. To show how electrical energy is con- eXIstenc.e, i.e., matter ~nd motion, IS self-odern positivists might not seriously verted into electric potential owes nothing ~ontra.dlctory. If t~a: IS so, t~en thoughtt. However, it is not consistent with to the mystical formula of dialectics. Itself }Sl_~elf-con~radl.cLory,and 111tha~casels's viewpoint stated elsewhere. Students in electricity would do not better all thinking ~hlch. IS cle.ar .and .consistentd if that were the role of the dialectic if they studied dialectics. Indeed, if they must b~ u~dlalect1cal thinking and henceould be almost superfluous. Yet one were cluttered with its jargon and precon- false thm~111~. ~ut surely the tas~ of alls from Engels's writings that he held ceived ideas they might be worse. corr~ct. thm~111g IS to. understand t~.e con-eneral principles of the dialectic were In actual fact, Engels merely interpreted ~radlctlOns l11volv~d 11 1 the evolu,l~on ofeat importance. While he m'3.Yhave certain scientific findings. Anyone can Ideas. I~ u:ay be saId that under~tanmn~ theed an autonomy to each science, he interpret them-Engels, Hegel, Bergson or contradictions does n?t necessanly get nd ofs to have held fast to the idea that a Jehovah's Witness.' What is more pertinent them. ~h~s, as Marx~sts; we understand thegh each science had its own "laws" is to ask what scientific discovery has been contr.adictions of capitalism, but ~he ~ystemwere in turn subject to the universal made on the methodological principle of remains. Neve~theless, we can m~m~am thatiples to which the name dialectic is the dialectic. While Engels was an ardent by. ul?-der~tandmg these cOl.;tradlct!ons our. And it is this authoritative character student of the natural sciences, he was not thmklllg. IS clear and ~onslstent and freeEngels gave to the dialectic that has a physicist or a chemist. Nor was he a from being self-contradictory,incorporated into the official philoso- biologist or a geologist. In fact, wherever Again, it may be said that if we canof the Russian ruling elite. science went, Engels- was forced to follow. examine two propositions, both of whichas it seems, Engels held the view that He might argue that the scientific discoveries are acceptable, nevertheless they help us toideas reflect objective reality and this of his day were in accordance with dialectical constitute a point of departure which canlitys a dialectical one, then we must procedure, but he could only be wise after help us to steer clear of the errors containeddialectically whether we are aware of the event. There was nothing in the alleged in both. Surely, the whole point so far asnot. The only difference between a methodological principles of the dialectic logical thinking is concerned is to attempt(if it is permissible to use to demonstrate that it could extend those to give an adequate and coherent account oferm) a non-dialectician is that the first scientific discoveries which Engels accepted any problem we are trying to understand .ome to self-conscious ness-a thorough- into further discoveries. Engels himself To say, for instance, that the positive polegpiece of Hegelianism. Indeed, Engels accepted the scientific views of his age. of a battery contradicts the negative one-elf tells us on page 159 of Anti- Many turned out to be wrong, yet the using the language of dialectics-is not,ng : " Men thought dialectically, long dialectic gave him no clue as to where they when we understand the process whichthey knew what dialectics was. Just were wrong. makes for electrical polarity, to be committedey spoke prose long before the term It is perfectly legitimate deduction from to self-contradictory thinking. Dialecticiansexisted." Now it is true that long Engels's writings to assume that he made may, of course, say that nevertheless theHegel men had recognized that the dialectic synonymous with scientific contradiction of cell polarity remains, yetites go together: that water can turn method. Or, to put it another way, scientific there is no contradiction in our own think-ce and a caterpiller become a butterfly. procedure itself was based upon dialectical ing. This makes it difficult to discover

principles vide Engels. Yet Engels neversatisfactorily showed how the three laws ofthe dialectic-viz., the unity of opposites,the negation of the negation and the trans-formation of quantity into quality-are partsof disciplines, or analytical tools of scientificinvestigation in physics, chemistry, biology,etc.No doubt Engels was eager to give to

Marxism a universal philosophy. What hefailed, it seems, to see in his later years wasthat Marxism needed no such philosophy:not the philosophy of dialectical materialism,whether it was Engels's or the metaphysicsof Dietzgen, or the neo-positivism of peoplelike Bogdanov and to some extent Bukharin.Marxism in my view is a strictly empiricaland scientific investigation of historicalcausation. It is not called upon to take sidesin matters of scientific dispute. Nor has itthe warrant or qualification to do so. Whethera person is a Marxist is not decided by hisholding a view of the quantum theory asagainst the more mechanic concept. He mayeven accept Newton as against Einsteinwithout impugning his orthodoxy. In fact,he may know nothing about any of thosetheories-and still be a Marxist.

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ally what Engels means by the statementall existence is self-contradictory.oreover, when Engels uses the termtradiction he holds that there is a tension

ween and within phenomena themselvesch in turn leads to conflict and, throughflict, development. Thus, he gives thee order of reality to things as he does to

propositions. From the standpointialectics we can say that the North polepposed to the South. To suggest thatis as valid as saying the working class is

opposed to the capitalist class is absurd. Infact, it is difficult to understand whenreferring to natural phenomena what theterm opposition actually implies. Engelshimself used the term as recklessly asHegel. If it really means in regard tophenomena that some things are in contrastwith others, or that certain things exist inpolarity, then the idea of a dialectic innature, with its thesis, antithesis and synthesisinvolving opposition, conflict and recon-ciliation, must be dropped. But in that casethe dialectic goes by the board.

We have perhaps said enough to at leastillustrate some of the difficulties in the wayof accepting the dialectic as a universallaw. In the next article, it is proposed to goa little more into detail on some of theaspects raised and to deal with other aspectsof dialectics. Nevertheless, it seems to meeasy to see how Communists have been ableto raise the superstructure of a mystique o~the basis of Engels's Anti-Duhring andDialectics of Nature,E.W.

OILY ELECTIONS IN AUSTRIAocialists have always pointed out thatonalisation, also called "Public owner-," of certain or all industries leaves theiion of the workers as a disinherited class,uched. Decades of actual experience (thet Office and in numerous countries theand other industries have alwaysState-controlled) have proved theectness of our contention. Advocates ofonalisation like the" Socialist" Party oftria (S.P.O.), the Labour Party inland, and kindred organisations else-e, cannot ignore the fact either anded admit it, on occasion. Thus wequoted before now that a writer inVienna Arbeiter Zeitung pointed out"The transfer of all private capital toState does not by a long way excludeeexploitation of the working-class-it ISuth FAR from being socialism." TheJean jaures called the attempt tontify State ownership with Socialism aossal swindle."et, the leaders of these parties continueoster and nurse this swindle and therebydelude the workers and distract themsound revolutionary action, which:!1ean alter their status from being mere:::ts of exploitation to that of partnerse social wealth.he principal catchword of the S.P.O.he coming General Election will be thisdle that the nationalisation of the oilstry means ownership by the people oftria. If,with their short memories or lackroper understanding of political affairse world at large, one cannot perhapsthe average Austrian worker toember such experiences as the nationali-on of the oil industry in Persia, he hasenough experiences near at home to seethat swindle and to know thatnalisation is no remedy for mass povertyinsecurity. But not only would it be;;culous for anyone to imagine thatnalisation of the oil industry in Persiant ownership by those who extract thatth there, but it did not even meanership by the Persian capitalist govern-

ment. It continues to be owned and con-tr~lled by a bunch of foreign capitalists; inthis case, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.The Austrian oil industry is in a similarposition. Before the war, American, British,Dutch and other capitalist groups controlledit, until it all became German property, onlyto be seized by the Soviet government asbooty after the war. Their allies' interestsin the industry could however not simplybe blotted 'out, and after 10 years of squab-bling, a Treaty was signed in May, 1955,settling matters between them and theAustrian government.h.n article (" Libera-tion and Loot in Austria") in the S.S.for July, 1955, gave some details on thismuch talked about, much. obscured andgenerally little understood treaty. ThisTreaty makes it clear however that thegreater part of the Austrian oilfields, withbuildings, constructions, equipment andother undertakings and property is con-trolled and exploited by Russian, American,British and other foreign capital, and thatfor that part of "property, rights andinterests .... which the Soviet Union shalltransfer to Austria," the Soviet governmentmust be compensated in the amount ofr50,000,000 dollars.In the last resort, it is the onerous con-ditions attaching to this Treaty, the financialdifficulties arising in connection with itsexecution, and starting with the exploitation

of what fields are left to Austria (and leftpractically devoid of any installations) thatcaused the breakdown of the governmentcoalition and the call for a new Election.The policy of more nationalisation does notcommend itself to those groups of capitalistssupporting the Volkspartei; they think theycan do better with "private" enterpriseand calling in the aid and co-operation ofstill more foreign capital! Hence theaccusation by the Arbeiter Zeitung thatChancellor Raab " wants to steal this liquidgold from the Austrian people." Theopponents of nationalisation howeve! alsoproclaim it to be their policy that, m thewords of Chancellor Raab, "this liquid

gold must be and remain the property ofthe whole Austrian people."Cute capitalist business managers as the

present bosses of Russia are, they took lessrisks even than their allies when makingthe Treaty with Austria. In the event ofnationalisation, clause 7 (c ) provides thatthis Soviet property" shall not be subject toexpropriation without the consent of theSoviet Union."And (d) that" Austria will not raise anydifficulties in regard to the export ofprofits or other income (i.e.). rents)_in th""e _form of output or of any freely convertiblecurrency received."Clause 7 (a ) defines Soviet property as:" All former German assets which havebecome the property of the Soviet Unionin accordance with paragraphs I, 2, 3, 4and 5 of the present article (22)."and Item (9) provides: "The Soviet Unionshall likewise own the rights, propertyand interests in respect of all assets,wherever they may be situated in EasternAustria, created by Soviet organisationsor acquired by them by purchase after9th May, 1945, for the operation of theproperties enumerated in Lists I, 2, 3, 4and 5."Now that the other allied interests(American, British, French, etc.) have alsobeen restored as they stood before 1938,respectively 1918, and with the foreignsoldiers gone, the Austrian capitalists andtheir managers and bosses of the twoprincipal political parties have begun a fightbetween themselves, the latter of course forthe jobs. They accuse one another' ofbungling, of selling out "our" oil, and amultitude of other villainies and corruptionsparticularly typical of Election campaigns.This miserable and ever recurring gamealone ought to be enough to convince thevoters that they are being fooled and hum-bugged by both parties. It amounts to aninsult of the workers' intelligence, but thenwhatever great aptitudes and skill they showin the field of producing the wealth of the

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MARXISM and LITERATURE: 9

Centuries measure history; we tend inevit- " Take us, break us, we are yours,ably to think of them as dividing history too, England, my own."setting it up in tidy packages marked nine- Kipling happened along at the right time,teenth-century this and twentieth-century however, catching the popular fancy withthat. Nothing so handy happens. Most of his soldier ballads in.the Boer War and whenthe movements, styles and phenomena which Army reorganization .was calling for awe see as characteristically twentieth-century different attitude to the time-serving soldier.derive from or are part of the nineteenth. In recent years there has been an attemptThe only dividing line which matters be- to re-value Kipling, putting forward thattween the Industrial Revolution and now the" lesser breeds without the Law" oflies at something under a hundred years ago whom he wrote were not fuzzy-wuzzies at-between the era of absolute surplus-value all but the totalitarians. It makes hardly aand that of relative surplus-value. difference. The essence of Kipling is, asThus, the "new" sociological literature was once said in another connection, " that

of the early nineteen-hundreds showed only the members of each nation believe theirthe later Victorians' belief in collectivism national civilization to be Civilization."come to the best-selling stage. Ideas follow The poetical forms and traditions set upmaterial facts, and in turn change them to by the romantics-Wordsworth, Coleridge,other facts. The growth of the State in the Shelley and their contemporaries-lastedlast quarter of the nineteenth century pro- into the twentieth century: so much so, induced Carlyle and Ruskin damning laissez- fact, that most of us were brought up tofaire, urging benevolent dictatorship by the regard poetry in their terms alone. Theystrong and the wise; T. H. Green talking were products of the Industrial Revolution's-en The -Principles- of .Political -Obligasion; - -assault-on men's-:r,iBds,and-they--came--in--Mill arguing for social as against individual- question when industrialism reached a lateristic utility and proposing State control over stage. The petrol engine and the electricwealth distribution as the ideal means. In motor cracked newwhips; the towns reachedthe fifty years before 1914, orthodoxy and out afresh, and leisure became mechanisedheterodoxy changed places. Shaw, Gals- as work..worthy and Wells were the latter, triumphant The first complete break with traditionr,rophets .of ~h~t Matth~w Arnold called was, in fact, made by Gerard Manleythe .natlOn III~ts collective and corporate Hopkins, the monk who died in 1889. HiscaI?aCltyc?ntrolllllg as ~overnment the full poems, written in near-isolation, were soswmg of Its members III the name of the much different from everything else in theirhigher reason of all." time that they were not published until 1918:Shaw put his arguments as plays because that is, until the " modern" movement toit had become the fashion to do so. The which they belonged had sprung from other

theatre returned to life in the last quarter sources. A three-volume" Cyclopaedia ofof the century, largely via the serious, semi- Literature" issued in 1921 does not includesociological plays of Henry Arthur Jones and even the name of the poet who, in Tennyson'sPinero; Shaw's cue came from Ibsen and heyday, was writing this sort of thing:-Brieux, with their bold (so bold that Brieux " Some candle clear burns somewhere Iwas banned and the first Ibsen performances come by.in London caused uproar) treatment of social I muse at how its being puts blissful backquestions and their plea for enlightenment. With yellow moisture mild night's blear-With so much preaching and teaching, it is all black,not surprising that Shaw's plays do not really Or to-fro tender trambeams truckle atlive for all their sparkle. The players are the eye."puppets expounding tabulated wisdom; the The poets of the nineteen-twenties weresparkle is that of first-rate discussion, but yet more hectic in their break with romanticnever of living people and living situations. tradition and their search (strengthened byWhile the State became the Father, the the discovery of Freud) for a language of the

Empah was the Holy Spirit. The doctrine mind. Wordsworth had laid down thatof'" the white man's burden" was not poetry's imagery should come from thingsexclusively English; France, Belgium, of undisputed natural beauty; and now hereGermany were founding colonial empires was T. S. Eliot with-too, Kipling was not the first or only "... the evening is spread out againstwriter of fervent, Empah-struck verse=W, the skyE. Henley in the 'eighties stirred adolescents Like a patient etherised upon a table."of all.ages with his- and a hundred more unlovely, but effective,196

" In every historical epoch, the prevail-ing mode of economic production andexchange, and the social organizationnecessarily following from it, form thebasis upon which is built up, and fromwhich alone can be explained, thepolitical and intellectual history of thatepoch." MARX.

images. The world had become a moreclinical, less romantic place-and sincealmost nobody read poetry, what matter ifalmost nobody understood it? Much" modern" poetry has been obscure forobscurity'S sake. At its best, however, it is. a valuable way of saying important things.Because of their concern with subjectivity,the poets of the last generation have beenpressed along paths of social criticism-thereason why they were easy prey for theCommunists in the 'thirties, and why workslike Eliot's The Waste Land are worthanybody's attention.Criticism of another kind came from the

minor versifiers who, when Rupert Brookehad finished thanking God for the excite-ment, saw through at least the humbug ofthe first World War. There were the calmhumanitarianism of Lawrence Housman,and the sad, bitter poetry of SiegfriedSassoon:-"You smug-faced ~owds with kindlingeye -- - .Who cheer when soldier-lads marcll by,Sneak home and pray you'll never knowThe hell where youth and laughter go."

Inevitably, more was satire than anythingelse, and inevitably, because satire is moreephemeral than most things, most has beenforgotten. A pity, because some of thosepoems were minor masterpieces-like J. C .Squire's:-" All hail to the war for the blessings itbrings! And how could one estimatewhich

Are the greater, the gains that accrue tothe poor or the benefits reaped by therich?As life became more and more atomized

less and less social, writers ofall kinds turnedto the study of the individual. Not theindividual rampant, as in the nineteenthcentury, but the individual from within.isolated, introspective and insecure. Theaccepted story-pattern of scene, plot, climaiand outcome was no longer integral to th rnovel; consciousness as a theme in i tsehcame forward-a pre-occupation which leefrom Dorothy Richardson's and Virgini:\Voolf's mind-portraits to the tremendouslibido-haunted James Joyce epics. And omquestion thrust through it all: what wacivilization doing to man?Scientists occasionallyhave shown that various creatures, subjected to pressure againstheir instincts, become either stupid or cussed. Show rats the certainty of food and t he r

play tricks about it, and at some stage the]turn perverse; manufacture the circum

~ ~- -~ ~-~~~--------------------

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stances, and you may make a sheep neurotic.The set-up for such games with animalsmust be artificial, a product of laboratoryconditions and curiosity. For man, however,it is the product of modern civilization, asocial effect of social circumstances. Thus,the writers of this age have more and morebecome writers against this age because ofwhat it does to men, and none has been morefiercely against it than D. H. Lawrence.What separates Lawrence from most otherwriters of his time is his tremendous desireto find and elevate physical and mentalhealth in people-best seen if one compareshis work with that of, say, Thomas Mann orT. S. Eliot, each of them having a strongdistaste for life as he sees it. Lawrence issupremely the man frustrated by modernindustrial society, looking for and excited bythe symbols of anything better: some of hisstories, indeed, are only preoccupations withsingle symbols-The Plumed Serpent, forexample. And to a large extent the charac-ters in his novels are symbols, too. InLady Chatterley's Lover, the impotenthusband is the upper class, the gamekeeperthe instinctive, vital man who holds the keyfor humanity. How Lawrence hated "thegod-damned bourgeoisie"! How, too, heexalted the physical as against the technicaland intellectual:-" , Give me the body.' I I believe the lifeof the body is a greater reality than thelife of the mind: when the body is reallywakened to life. But so many people, likeyour famous wind machine, have only gotminds tacked on to their physical corpses.'He looked at her in wonder. 'The lifeof the body,' he said, 'is just the life of

the animals.''And that's better than the life ofprofessorial corpses. But it's not true!The human body is only just coming toreal life. With the Greeks it gave a lovelyflicker, then Plato and Aristotle killed it,and Jesus finished it off. But now thebody is coming really to life, it is reallyrising from the tomb.' "Though he began among them, Lawrencenever really saw working people, otherwisethan romantically; that is why his novelsstimulate but do not communicate. Fiftyyears ago, as the tide of working-class con-sciousness rose (soon to run miserably away

down the drains of social reform) the hopewas strong that the movement would produceits own literature. Very little came, andwhat there was is almost forgotten: who,to-day, knows Francis Adams's Songs of theArmy of the Night, or has heard of GeorgeMeek, Bath-Chair Man? The one exception=-perhaps because it is an exceptional bookin every way-is The Ragged TrouseredPhilanthropists. Here and there have beenother works: The Man With the Hoe, JackLondon's two or three with more Supermanthan Socialism, Lionel Britton's Hunger andLove (head and shoulders above the rest)and, if one throws in The Day Is Coming,that is virtually all.

On the other hand, the novel has increas-ingly become the medium for certain kindsof social criticism. A good deal has beensaid in recent years about the decline of thenovel. Certainly, several of its formerfunctions have been usurped by the cinema,radio, television and popular journalism: inthe creation of popular heroes, for instance,Pickwick falls behind Charlie Chaplin andno writer can hope to rival such phenomenaas Davy Crockett. "Decline" is the wrongword, however. What has happened is thatthe novel has changed its character andassumed one which is necessarily moreephemeral. As V. S. Pritchett wrote a fewyears ago in New Writing: "The chiefcharacter is no longer the hero, the heroineor the villain but, in a large number ofnovels, is really an impersonal shadow, apresence that we may call' the contemporarysituation '."The dominant literary attitude of the lasttwenty-five years has been the desire for" realism" in one form or another. Thereis nothing at all realistic about most of it;about the telegraph-language gangster novel,for example, or the mock-Hemingway love-and-guts saga. These, paradoxically, areromanticism in its simplest form-thestraight escape from reality into day dreamworlds. The aim of the realist writer properwas stated by Balzac:-"By adhering to the strict lines of a. reproduction, a writer might be a more orless faithful and more or less successfulpainter of types of humanity, a narratorof the dramas of private life, an archae-ologist of social furniture, a cataloguer ofprofessions, a registrar of good and evil;but to deserve the praise of which everyartist is most ambitious, must I not alsoinvestigate the reasons or the causes ofthese social effects, detect the hidden senseof this vast assembly of figures, passionsand accidents?"The genre known as "social realism"has nothing to do with that process; itconsists of gathering facts journalist-fashionand grafting ideas on them-i.e., of consciouspropaganda-writing. Great works can beand are propaganda (think only of Zola),but the unvarying banality of post-revolutionliterature in Russia, where" social realism"is the writer's Scout Promise, suggests clearlyenough that ordinary realism does muchbetter.What makes a good book? Ultimately,posterity judges, but there are standards andprinciples of criticism which basically arethe same principles needed for objectivejudgment of anything. What is the writer'sintention: what does he aim to show, tell orarouse? Does he succeed in it? What ishis attitude to his readers (revealed in thelanguage he chooses)-and to his own subject-matter? There are many more questions,of course, but those provide a useful start.There is more bilge written in our agethan the history of literature can ever findbefore; it is, in fact, a craft on its own, the

taste for it promoted and standardised by the

threepenny libraries and the book clubs.Pulp literature is easily recognizable andcondemnable, but it is less easy to recognizethat the respectable "best-seller" usuallydiffers from it only by lacking pulp's crudityof presentation. The secret of success forthe Cronins, Deepings, Priestleys and therest is that they set out to by-pass thoughtand re-affirm to the reader his own senti-ments and prejudices: a pat on the back forthe middle-income groups, a slick reassur-ance about practically everything.What of the future? While commercialismdominates everything it has to dominate liter-ature too; that is, there have to be a thousandPriestleys for every Proust. Suggestions asto the role and nature of literature underdifferent, better circumstances-in whatMarx referred to as "human" as against" civil" society-have to be largely guesses.Certainly there will be no Art in the capital,A' sense of any kind, and certainly therewill be no pounding-out of What the PublicWants. Literature will communicate know-ledge and ideas, of course; what else itcommunicates rests on whatever peoplediscover themselves to need. This writerlikes to think that there will be a great dealmore singing and speaking of verse thanreading of it; that the pleasures of the fleshwill be celebrated instead of the dolours ofthe spirit; that, in fact, people will be likethe animals of Whitman's poem-" Not one is respectable or unhappy overthe whole earth "-and they will have a literatiire to show it.Finally, what has been the purpose of allthis? Primarily, to show the social main-springs of .one part of human activity.Historical Materialism is often invoked inprinciple, in the general statement that-language, science, art, religion, techniquesand skills are superstructure on the base ofsimple economic organization; less often toexplain just how, in this or that instance, thesuperstructure got there. However preciousthe analytical tool, it ought to be used toanalyze something. Nor is it merely foranalysis' own sake. Vital issues are involved.Marxists repudiate the" great man " theory:Marxists must be prepared to offer, notcounter-assertion, but real explanation ofCaesars, Newtons and Shakespeares.Literature itself p'~aysa not insignificantpart in the study of history, illuminating the

historian's more or less objective study withits subjective record of men's feelings andaspirations. There are fifty good historiesof Rome, but Petronius's account of thevulgar Roman arriviste lets one in on thecontemporary scene in a different way; ascore of books about the city-states of Italy,but none with the special vividness ofCellini's Memoirs; unnumbered descrip-tions of the way people lived a hundredyears ago, but Zola's and Flaubert's goingunder the skin. And to-day, for all thepsychological . and sociological studies,popular literature (along with advertising)is probably nearer than anything else topublic consciousness. R. COSTER.

19 7

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ritersand Society-2

fJARSON

he subject of the first article in this Her characters, particularly the children,es was William Faulkner, an American are in general, human and likeable, drawnelist, who writes mainly about the South. with a firmness and delineation that is quiteson McCullers is another American unlike Faulkner, and as one reads, one canse novels are set mainly in the South, feel the characters developing during thethere the similarity ends. McCullers course of the narrative. There is also noes in a much clearer and more straight- lack of ideas in her novels. The Heart isard manner than does Faulkner and a 'Lonely Hunter, for instance, contains Reflections in a Golden Eye is a novelerally speaking, her characters spring characters with various shades ,of left-wing in a completely different vein to the twoa completely different world. The views. There is the old Negro doctor who is mentioned above. It deals with the lives ofple in her' novels, are generally" much embittered by his people's struggles and officers, their wives and a private soldier iner home" 'in the sense that they are wishes to lead, Negro marchers to the an American army camp in peace time. Then working-class town-dwellers who Capital to seek human rights for his down- suspense and tragedy of the story is admir-lives recognisably akin to our own, trodden people. Then there is the wanderer haracter nortrai fF lk . 1 '1 f h thi k th t h N blern i 1 ably drawn, as are the c. aracter portraits 0reas. au ner wntes a.most, entIre, yow 0 in sat e ~gro pro em IS o~ y the soldiers their officers and the officers'overished Southern anstocrats, misfits, one of the many social problems, which 1 di Th' ., t d

, c , hales. e VICIousness mono ony aninals. and the lIke., Itsel~ ments no special attentlOn, and w 0 pointlessness of army Iife is portrayed to. considers that marches and the like merely ff (" 0 ld 1ery few of her novels and stones have f itt ~ th n n f th ki great ei ect. ne 0 corp,ora wrote a... n er away e re~ource, Ol e wor mg 1 " 1.," , ,"h," -r-, '1- '1"n published m this country, but those 1 d h . nlJ,J _ readir -tln ~ 'd- ~,etter-('}:v-erY-IHgHc"1:0"-crney 1mpre makmgi''ve-sb fiff'3."'Weatea Itav'e=se'en orai1:=--Ctili an =wl i IS- ' T~

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Book Reviews

SOCIALISM AND RELIGIONmmunism and Christianity, by MartinS. J . (Penguin Books~ 2S. 6d.);lism and the Churches, by Rosaburg (Vanguard Pamphlets, 6d.)mmunism and Christianity is subtitledexamination of the Christian andunist philosophies in their view oflife and happiness": a misleadingif ever there was one. Father

examinations are reminiscent ofterviews for a job which has alreadyspoken for; the one candidate eyedurned down, his qualifications unasked-he other hailed and accepted becauseafter all, the Chairman's brother.e writer's case is that "CommunismChristianity have ... both of them thet of society and of the world at heart,they stand over against one anothered to different means and to differentls"; that, weighing them against each, only in Christian beliefs can be foundefficacious programme for building updual character, social good and inter-al peace." Appearing near the endbook, these are presented as conclu-but it is impossible to treat them assince they conclude nothing. Theeding argument is no argument at allridiculously uninformed account ofism and a fervent psean of Christian

her D' Arcy wants nothing to do withS economics and has nothing to dothe Materialist Conception of History.him Marxism means "the dialectic,'he lays down thus: "Dialecticses the way the mind works; it is theprocedure whereby it finds truth ...however, transferred this mentalion to the processes of nature, andthat nature too, and for him thisall reality, consisted of a dialecticalement." And again: "But Marx meantew to be the complete answer to lifeto its problems, to be a philosophywas complete in its truth and them to change the world . . . all thatns proceeds inevitably from thetruth that matter is in motion anda dialectical principle."t may exist in Father D' Arcy'sination; it certainly has no source ofind whatever in Marx's works. It is

apparent that Father D'Arcy's reading ofMarx is limited: practically' all of hisreferences are not to Marx at all but to theleast distinguished commentators-Sheed,Alexander, Miller, Macvlntyre, DouglasHyde and Charles Lowry, whose obsessionwith Marx the Jew seems to have infectedhim. The unfortunate thing is that a goodmany people are going to read this travestyand believe they are being informed.The social effects of Marxism are, ofcourse, pointed out as existing in Russia.Father D' Arcy refers to the purges, thebrain-washing and the rest and says hedoesn't want it. Agreed; but isn't thatCatholicjsm too? Conscious of the impend-ing criticism, lie pleads that these were oncesocial norms: "At Oxford in past days theUniversity exercised the power of life anddeath over students: in schools during thenineteenth century corporal punishment toour eyes brutal was administered day in dayout. It is, therefore, hardly to be expectedthat the Church," etc. In other words, the

outlook and attitudes of the Catholic Churchare socially conditioned-s-a fact which else-where Father D' Arcy flatly denies.This apart, no reasoned statement is madeof Christianity's role in the theme of thebook-human life and happiness. Marxism,in the writer's view, " covers a mystery withwords and prevents the Marxist from tack-ling the problem fairly and squarely." Thatis as good a comment as any on his own

c c argument" for Christianity, which isconveyed in such terms as: "But the divineprovidence which leaves no one out worksthrough the divine event, which, like themusic of Orpheus, gathers both savage andhuman to its sound, that is, the advent ofChrist; for I being lifted up 'will draw allthings to myself. Mankind has a mysteriousunity, and by what may be called its, collective unconscious,' it adapts itself andresponds to the still unknown and super-natural vocation of God." What is onesupposed to make of this sort of thing?The issues involved, and how not to meetthem, are put forth in Socialism and theChurches. Written in 1905 as an indictmentof the Czarist State Church, it gives anexcellent summary in a dozen pages of theorigins and growth of Christianity-point-ing out, for example, that "while theCatholic Church in former times undertook

to bring help to the Roman proletariat, bythe preaching of communism, equality andfraternity, in the capitalist period it actedin a wholly different fashion. It soughtabove all to profit from the poverty of thepeople; to put cheap labour to work."The pamphlet is concerned with the partplayed by the clergy in Russia against theSocial-Democratic movement. It refers to

the Church's wealth and the exploitation itnot only encouraged but shared in; shows,in fact, that the place of the Church is onthe side of the ruling class. It is a pity thatthe conclusions fall far short of the rest andcome down to assuring all concerned that" Social-Democracy in no way fights againstreligious beliefs. On the contrary, itdemands complete freedom of consciencefor every individual and the widest possibletoleration for every~faith and every opinion,"This is the old "religion a private affair"argument of Social-Democrats everywhere.By its reference to toleration of opinion it is

plausible, but in fact it omits a vital part ofthe Socialist case against religion. Religiousinstitutions stand to the detriment of theworking class: so do religious ideas. RosaLuxemburg excepts from her indictmentchurchmen "who are full of goodness andpity and who do not seek gain; these arealways ready to help the poor." Theirmission remains to spread beliefs which area barrier to understanding of the world.Without the beliefs, the institutions wouldmean little.The case of modern Russia pinpoints thefailings of both these books. The Polish

Socialist Party, who published Socialismand the Churches secretly in 1905, mergedinto the Russian Social-Democratic Party--the Bolsheviks; for the reasons RosaLuxemburg gives, they helped banishreligion after the Revolution-and thenfound that a party running a modern stateneeded religion after all. Communism andChristianity leaves the same point untouched:Father D' Arcy misses it altogether when hetreats the dialectic as the religion of Russia.It may be an official philosophy, but themillions who have scarcely heard of it arefed on mythology and magical obstetrics bythe Orthodox Church while the rulingclique claps its hands. And that is whatreligi ons are for. CORTES.

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ntinued from Page 195)d, the working-class are so far betrayingzingly little political intelligence andurity, Though, along with discontent,thy (a bad thing) and abstaining froJ?ng is ever growing, it is almost patheticee most workers still taking sides in theiroiters' troubles and squabbles. Whereasshould treat with derision all this talk

cc our" oil, and whatever is put over inpress and from the platform con~rolledthe master class, the latter can still findes enough and to spare to vote for thetinuation of their murderous system. Iso difficult to realize that even if all theseperty rights of foreign capitalists wereunced by them tomorrow, the Austrianing-class would still not own even onep of "our" oil? If nationalised, it wouldbe controlled by State-bond and share-ders, and the industry would of courseoperated to provide Rent, Interest andfit for them. And the workers will be asr as they were before.ne may reasonably prophesy that thetion will not appreciably alter theent position of the governm~nt. T.he-tongued leaders of t~e t:-"o big part~e3mainstays of the capitalist State, withmeans and all the channels of their foulaganda at their disposal. .As proof ofS.P.O's. importance to the State, theand the Trade Unions have signed

udy Class Notes

o some extent methods of study mustwith the subject and the indivi?ual.variations can be learned byexpenencehere is, however, a considerable bodyinciples which can be profitably appliedost subjects, and by most individuals.. Scientific Methods. First among theselogical methods of reasoning, and theication of "scientific methods."the course of ordinary daily life a]e acquire some knowledge of logic an]cientific methods." It is very desir-, however, that students should make aspecial study of these methods.The intelligently critical attitude of. Constructive criticism. Challengingseeking for reasons.Purpose. The S.P.G.B. has a definiteuted purpose. Learn to direct yourgy and to avoid side issues.Note-taking.(a ) At lectures.(b ) When reading books. Firstsummarise in the writer's words.Then in own words.(c ) Learn to "skim" books.

37,500,000 Schillings of the share capital ofthe share capital of the National Bank andhave on its Board four members of theGeneralrate : Gen. Directors A. Korp, firstPresident, Editor, K. Ausch, Dozent Dr.Benedikt Kautsky (son of Karl Kautsky)and secretary, Dr. Stephen Wirlandner. Itwill be realized that it pays these men wellto be members of the " Socialist" Party ofAustria, but of the workers, who swell withtheir weekly or monthly membership duesand other contributions the funds of theArbeiterbank, with more highly paid presi-dents and managers?Even a certain shift in the political partyconstellation is not likely to seriously shakethe position of the above arrivists. And ifthe " socialist" Presidents, Generalrate andBank Directors should be in fear of any-thing happening to capitalism, capable ofupsetting their jobs and befitting incomes,one of their comrades, the President ofthe Gewerkschaftsbund, tranquillized andreassured them. In a speech on the occasionof his 70th birthday and the rounding ofthe Johann Bohm-Stiftung (alms in theform of scholarships for workers' children)he said that he was proud and happy toknow that thanks to this fund " FUTUREGENERATIONS" would have less difficultythan he had 50 years ago to go to highersC:100ls. So this" socialist" is satisfied andhappy to think that the inequa'ity of menin opportunities and in the rest of the

features of present-day society will remainwith "future generations to come." Well,if the policy of the S.P.O. and the K.P. isallowed to be pursued, and continue: to besupported by the mass of the people, thenthe invariably referred to as necessary"transition period" from capitalism toSocialism might wellnigh last to somewherenear eternity. Which is reassuring not only tothe" socialist" Generalrate, Bank Directorsand Presidents, but also to their paymasters,the Bourgeoisie, who could not bear thethought of their sons and daughters beingdependent on the chance, and what theywould consider, the humiliation and indignityof a miserable and miserly scholarship froma Johann Bohm, or other charitable Stiftung.Such things you know, are good enough forthe children of the working class! How else,if not as sanctioning and taking for all timefortgranted the INEQUALITY of men-the very antithesis of Socialism-could theinitiation of Stipendien "for future genera-tions" be interpreted.Yes, you workers, generations yet undercapitalism! with privileges for the rich andpoverty and humiliation for you and yourchildren, that will be the lot of the workingclass, if you continue to place your trust inlabour leaders and vote for "personalities"at election times instead of for the revolu-tionary PRINCIPLE OF SOCIALISM!

RF.

HOW TO STUDY10. Reference Books.II. Libraries.12. Current Reading: Newspapers, etc.13. Cuttings and Classification.14. Expression. Speaking and Writing-(a ) Outdoor Meetings (b ) Indoor Meetings(Lectures) (c ) Debates (d ) Personal Contacts(e) Wri:ing.15. Warnings-(a) Avoid Dogmatism(b ) Avoid getting out of depth (c ) Avoidgoing beyond evidence (d) Misuse ofstatistics.16. Conclusion. Aim at knowledge andaccuracy; not defeating opponents. (PastS.P. Controversies, e.g., Trade Unions,Increased Productivity, Reforms, ReformistParties.)

Bibliography.Essentials of Scientific Method, byA. Wolf.A System of Logic (Books 3, 4 and 6),by J; S. MilLHow .We Think, by John Dewey.Methods of Social Study, by S. andB. Webb.

(d ) Different methods for differentsubjects.6. Attitude towards c Authorities."(a) Marx and Engels.(b ) "Public Men" (usually ignorantof specialised knowledge. CabinetMinisters, for example, are rarelyexperts in their own Departments),(c ) Specialist in one field not depend-able in another, even when seem-ingly closely allied. Admissionsby opponents are not necessarilysupport for our case.(e ) Bias.( f) Appreciate value of specialist'sknowledge after discountingdefects.7. Value of Specialisation in one subjectas an aid to learning methods of study ingeneral.8. Necessity of knowing the OtherSide." (a ) Discussion with fellow students.(b ) Discussion with opponents.(c ) Read opponents' case.9. Pamphlets as an introduction to fullerstudy.

Published by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London. S.W.4 and printed by Gillett Bros. Ltd. (T.U. all J"pts.).Jewel Road. Walthamstow, London. E.17.