A Spectre Haunting — -On the Communist Manifesto
China Mieville, Haymarket Books 2022 — -A review
“ the Manifesto . a flawed and partial product of its time and yet as something vital” (136)
China is an excellent writer of both fiction and non-fiction. His assessment of the Communist Manifesto is full of important insights and provocative observations. It balances the appreciation of “ history’s most important” political document ( Phil Gasper) with an honest look at its limitations. He reminds us that this is a call to action. Its purpose was to rally communists to fight for the cause. As such, some of its seeming certainties are exhortations. Its factual statements can certainly be evaluated within its context as an agitational statement.
Determinism is one issue analysts often comment on. China says that Marx and Engels(M/E) authors of the Manifesto express the inevitability of successful communist revolution, but also recognize that insurrection can lead to the “ mutual ruin of the contending classes”. He says it is futile to speculate on what the real opinion of M/E was on this since they expressed both. Critics of Marxism often harp on supposed rigid determinism but Marxists today usually focus on the latter statement. As China noted Engels later explained that economics only dominates in the “last instance” with superstructural elements often dominating the form of struggles. China also makes the obvious but important point that full determinists would see no need for a call to action.
The CM was written hastily at the beginning of M/E’s political career. It did not and could not spell out all aspects of their communism. On many issues it alludes to later solutions that M/E and Marxists developed. Even capitalist commentators note how prescient the CM was on globalization. There are hints of M/E’s later more openly anti-colonial position in the CM but these are mixed with appreciation of capitalist development of productive forces. This is one of China’s criticisms of the CM : that it was too appreciative of the bourgeoisie and didn’t show enough hatred of them. This criticism seems a bit misplaced since the whole purpose of the CM was to motivate the overthrow of the capitalists.
After the CM was written in response to the revolutions of 1848, M/E developed the theory of Permanent Revolution later taken up by Trotsky, Parvus and other theorists. This theory expressed their understanding of the weakness of the bourgeoisie in fulfilling what they had thought were its “historic tasks”. Permanent Revolution ended any vestige of stages theory that still existed in M/E’s views. (75)
China defends the Feminism of the CM while also admitting that M/E did not adequately engage with the socialist feminism of their own time. He notes that while they criticized bourgeois morality they did not endorse “Free Love” as other communists did (51). He alludes to the Critical Race Theory (CRT) debate in talking about the CM’s attitude to public education.
China takes up the question of society bifurcating into just two classes. He says that M/E never suggested that all other classes would disappear. “ “the opposition between the two great hostile camps” is so powerful a motivator of antagonism that it tends to subordinate other class conflicts to its logic””(72)
Against critics, the author, lays out and defends the basic assumptions of the CM. (73)
China presents an interesting discussion on morality. He distinguishes morality from moralism. Though M/E try to abstain from abstract morality they implicitly operate on a moral basis. They obviously take a side in inevitable class warfare and want the victory of the working class. This cannot just be a favoring of the next stage in history. M/E are so keen to disparage bourgeois morality that they seem to dismiss morality generally. They do predict that a real fully human morality can develop under communism.
At the end , China has an extended discussion of hate as a revolutionary motivation. This is interesting. He says that hate has to be directed and aimed at a class and social system rather than at individuals. In footnotes he mentions an example of how hatred should not be used — a Socialist Worker article that seemed to celebrate the death of a child because he was from a rich family. With these limitations, he is all in favor or revolutionary hate as a motivator. (156)
The author explains that the CM seemed to adopt the iron law of wages without openly saying so. Instead M/E later rejected this and discussed class struggle as modifying wages .They also saw the importance of the “historical and moral element” in determining wages. China expands on this by pointing out that class struggle can impact the value of labor power which in turn impacts the value of all other commodities. (49) M/E’s rejection of the Iron Law also reinforces M/E’s support for unions and reform struggles (74). China explains how Marxists should evaluate reforms. (84) (144)
He notes that the transitional demands that the CM lists seem moderate in many cases. These were suggested as examples, not as a universal program, though they are suggestive.
Universal suffrage can achieve different results depending on the context of how it is won in and how it is fought for (146). In fact, in every case so far, capitalism has been able to accommodate universal suffrage. Capitalists did not expect this to be true and often opposed it vigorously.
China explains the newly arising “hipster Stalinism” because of ignorance of actual Stalinism. (100)
China discusses “racial capitalism” and the interconnection of race and class (122) “ Ideology is made real in lived reality, and in powerful affective structures and drives rather than merely ideas.” This important point has been made by many others as well: “privilege” i.e. different treatment of different racial groups is necessary to reinforce the ideas of racism. If there was no “racial bribe” ( Michelle Alexander) , it would be hard to get anyone to accept the idea of racial inferiority. Dubois’ “psychological wage” is important but not enough to achieve the ruling class goal of division among workers.
He goes on to discuss how “woke” capitalists can use anti-racism (147).
He also applies this capitalist attempt at cooptation to climate change ( 150)
On page 137, China discusses neoliberalism as a particularly cruel form of capitalism. He discusses the interaction of capitalism and previous modes of production. Sometimes capitalism incorporates and uses aspects of those modes rather than sweeping them away as the CM implied. This expresses a very important point often overlooked: Capitalists pursue money, not capitalism ! They do not consult Capital to see how they should act.
“The social forms that Marx would have capitalism destroy live on within it , transfigured as both points of identification and functioning relations, suffused with fantasy in ways which cannot be fully comprehended apart from their non-capitalist dimensions. “quoting Toscano, The Manifesto Revisited.
China has a very useful discussion of the conflict of individual and sectional capitalist interests vs. the interests of capitalism as a system (142)
He discusses the need for humility among revolutionaries (151).
China goes beyond the Manifesto to delve into M/E’s position on possible peaceful revolution in the U.S, Britain and the Netherlands. (85) In doing so, he seems to approve seeing the state as a battleground as long as revolutionaries are actually for a “rupture”. He seems to support Poulantzas over Lenin in this regard. He notes that Lenin in State and Revolution rejected M/E’s speculation on peaceful revolution as outmoded, but he doesn’t seem to agree with Lenin on this. This seeming rejection of Lenin’s position by the author is unfortunate. Lenin’s position is more in line with the vast bulk of M/E’s writing which supports the need to smash the capitalist state.
The author begins a discussion of lessons for revolutionaries today on the party question. China explains the use of the term party in the early 1800s as tendency rather than as specific organization. He calls for revolutionary organization centered around a few key points with wide room for debate. Depending on exactly how this is interpreted, his approach seems sensible. This seems in part a rejection of the British Socialist Workers’ Party’s top down, less democratic version of Democratic Centralism which he was familiar with as a former SWP member.
As a Marxist , he opposes the pessimism of so many who reject the prospect of successful revolution.
Overall, a very interesting and provocative discussion of the Manifesto and lessons for today !
