Women: The Road to Equality and Socialism, by Rosemary Small (Communist Party pamphlet, 10p). During the early Sixties, a number of bourgeois sociologists wrote with enthusiasm of the democratic modern family based on love and equality of husband and wife, and increasingly strengthened by the welfare services of an essentially benevolent State. This picture was supposed to show a trend of inevitable progress and improvement in contemporary" (late capitalist) society. The development of the women's liberation movement challenged this cosy ideology of the family (just as economic crisis, and the rise in working class struggles, have shattered illusions about the affluent society'). IMPACT So it is interesting to find that these ideas of continual progress and change appear to have had more impact on the writer of Women: The Road to Equality and Socialism than either the ideas of revolutionary Marxism or those which have developed around the women's liberation milieu. Rosemary Small gives tremendous emphasis to changes in "To the much more equal relationship of today's young couples and their children" (page 13); "*the significant change in men's attitudes towards sharing the work of the home" (page 11); and the changes of attitudes reflected in the Women's Institute's resolution in support of a comprehensive family planning service (page 16)! Alongside this, of course, there is capitalism -which is a system based on profit, not need, and which continues to cause poverty, bad housing, insufficient nurseries and low rates of pay, especially for women.
KEY QUESTIONS However key questions are ignored. What is the relationship between these apparently "significant" improvements and the development of capitalism? Why, nevertheless, are women still "second class citizens"? What is the relationship between capitalist exploitation and the oppression of women? There is systematic evasion of any analysis of the family as the structure through which women are maintained in a situation of economic, social, sexual and psychological subordination within capitalist society. There is no analysis of the situation of women within the trade unions where male domination and lack of democracy have so often continued to perpetuate, rather than to challenge, women's inequality in work and in society. According to Rosemary Small, all that is necessary is that the unions should "examine their attitudes and policies" on women's issues more carefully.
STRATEGY It is not surprising, therefore, that the strategy advanced for struggle against women's oppression is very restricted. It is aptly summarised in the advertisement at the end: Come into the fight for women's liberation, join the Communist Party today."
Following the British Road to Socialism, this means joining with others to "win a system of government in Britain which will end capitalism for ever" (page 21 our emphasis). Meanwhile, Communist Party policies "of immediate interest to women" consist of a list of reforms to be fought for now; these compromise with, rather than challenge, capitalist social relationships. (Thus the demand for nurseries ends "with extension of hours where possible to meet need (our emphasis); and the demand for equal pay for work of equal value and a minimum wage of £20 is already T&GWU policy.)
BACKWARD In many important respects the ideas outlined in this pamphlet are more backward than many of the ideas which have emerged from the women's liberation milieu, and certainly it has no perspective to offer in the debates which will be taken up at the coming national Women's Liberation conference. Nor does it provide the basis for any clearer understanding of the nature and significance of women's oppression which could be used to develop a strategy against the divisions between home and work, between male and female workers, which the ruling class continually exploit to their own advantage.
Margaret Coulson. the better, and the ultimate reader may even gain some enlightenment. Comrade Mosseeil's review (The Red Mole, 52) of Colletti's From Rousseau to Lenin is centrally concerned with the "philosophical origins" of Engels" "revisions of Marxism" and "fatalism", which had the sad consequence of "turning Marxism into a sub variant of Darwin's theory of evolution", of leading Engels and the Second International along the road to parliamentary cretinism, and opening the way "for every possible crude brand of determinism, fatalism and any theory which justifies passivity - The source of Engels delinquency was, according to Mossgeil, his resurrection of "the Hegelian idea of a" "Dialectic of Nature": Le. his doctrine that matter exists independently of human consciousness and is governed by definite laws which are more accurately reflected in the laws of dialectical logic than those of formal logic. Engels thus brought about "s reconciliation" between (i.e. became an accomplice after the event of) classical materialism and Marxism.
Now, these are sweeping charges. Its not poss ible to reply in a brief space to an indictment so general, and so slimly supported by textual evidence. But what does Mossgell propose as against a Dialectic of Nature" and its Colletti's formula that "Both subject and object are part of an objective object-subject process", prefaced (p.10) by the remark that "the object only really becomes an object and hence something determinate through the contribution of both of these two modalities" (i.e. "the material and ideological levels"), which is not quoted by Mossgeil The meaning of this formula is relatively clear. A process is objective only if it includes a subject. Processes which do not include a subject to know them either do not exist or, at least, cannot meaningfully be discussed. Such a view is not Marx's, but has a more ancient (if not more respectable) lineage. It was Immanuel Kant - a German subjective idealist arguments for the unknowability of the "thing-initself, the object independent of the subject. Kant went on (as Mossgeil does not) to argue that faith is at least as reliable an avenue to truth as reason and observation, since without a universal subject to guarantee its objectivity, the external world and its laws would 'evaporate", philosophic ally speaking.
Thus Mossgeil's objections to a 'dialectic of nature" conceal a more general objection endent existence of nature itself. Clearly, if nature in itself does not exist, it is misleading to argue about whether or not it is dialectical in character. Dialecties here receives the stricture that should properly be addressed to the substantial rump of materialism. If Comrade Mossgeil wants to deny the proposition (common to Marxism and "classical" materialism) that nature exists independently of consciousness, he should present the arguments forthrightly, and deal with the whole gang of 'crude determinists. from Lucretius.
Diderot and Marx to Lenin, at one fell swoop. we awar mis stunning exposures Parallel to Mossgeil's and Colletti's scepticism as to the objective existence of nature goes a healthy anti-empiricism as to texts. from Engels* 1895 Introduction to The Class Struggles in France, quoted by Mossgeil as a "perfect combination of (Engels) Parliamentary illusions and fatalism (growing lay at the heart of the ideas of the Second International", follows the falsified text published in Wilhelm Liebknecht's Votwarts in 1895. To be sure Mossgeil here blithely follows Colletti, but he seems more than happy to use such a taise passage to line Engels up as the philosophical and political inspirer of Bernstein and Kautsky. other conclusion but that the roots of Bernstein's rey isionism and Kautsky's betrayal in 1914 are to be found in Engels' "ambiguous legacy". The unfalsified passage tells exactly the opposite story: "We can count even today on two and a quarter If it continues in this fashion, by the end of the century we shall conquer the greater part of the middle strata of society, petty bourgeois and peasants, and grow into the decisive power in the land, before which all other powers will have to bow, whether they like it or not. keep this growth going without interruption until it of itself gets beyond the control of the prevailing government system, not to fritter away this daily increasing shock force in advance guard fighting. PUBLIC MEETING, Friday. 10 November, organised by London P.D. Main speakers:
Mike Farrell, Bob Purdie. 8.00 p.m. at Conway Hall, Red Lion Sq. (Holborn tube).
UNIQUE XMAS PRESENT? Chinese 'choir, orchestra-'The Internationale'. Long-play record, 33 rpm. 37p (post free) from: D. V., 16 Belmont Court, London N16 5QD. SOUTH ASIA RED FORUM-a series of meetings to discuss the current problems relating to the anti-imperialist and anticapitalist struggles in South Asia. Next meeting Tuesday, 7 Nov.-"The Arab revolutionary struggles' (speaker: A.Said). Room 2D, University of London Union building, Malet Street, London W.C.1. For further details contact J. Singh, 27 Gap Road, London S.W.19. by Colletti is italicised)
Furthermore, Engels wrote in a letter to Lafargue on April 3, 1895: "(Liebknecht) has played a pretty trick on me. From my Introduction to the articles about France of 1848-1850, he has taken everything which could serve to defend the tactics of peace and anti-violence: at all costs, which he has found it convenient to preach for some time past, especially at the present moment when the Exceptional Law is being prepared in Berlin. But I recommended these tactics only lor the Germany of ine present, and that too with essential reservations. In France, Belgium, Italy and Austria it is impossible to follow this tactic in its entirety and in Germany it can become unsuitable tomorrow."
Consigning Engels to the camp of revisionism is a this giant of the labour movement should be based on corrupted texts, nor should it seek to find in their interstices a middle road between materialism and reformism or Kantianism.
From Rousseau to Lenin Studies in Ideology and Soc ROBERT MOSSEIL replies: It was not the intention of the review to endorse current fashionable views, stemming from Lukacs History and Class Consciousness, that in some sense Engels is profoundly anti-Marxist (See, for example, Hodges -Engels' Contribution to Marxian, Coulter -Marxism and the Engels Paradox). What was intended was to indicate that there are however certain really ambiguous points, some of which are noted by Colletti, in some of Engels' works, particularly those written after Marx's death, and indeed nothing remarkable in this at all The presentation of some holy quartet of MarxEngels-Lenin-Trotsky in monolithic accord may satisfy a religious instinct but it has nothing to If we turn to Engels, the most serious point that comrade White makes is that about the falsified point out that this text Colletti quotes from was heavily edited by the SPD so as to 'tone it down'. However, unfortunately, the same ambiguities can be found in other texts of Engels. For example I am not sure that many people would wish to defend the formulation that "the democratic republic... is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat" (Critique of the Erfurt Programme, cited Lenin thes idea which runs through all of Marx's works, namely, that the democratic republic is the nearest approach to the dictatorship of the ree somehow think that ro and is the nearest approach to do not really mean the same thing and that Lenin, in his desire to defend a great revolutionary, is trying to defend a quite unacceptable formulation.
'SOCIALIST WOMAN' SOCIAL at the Sol's Arms, Hampstead Road (near Warren Street tube). Friday, 10 November, 8 to 12.15 p.m.
FLAT OR ROOM IN FLAT urgently required by IMG comrade in N.W. London (N.W.6/ N.W.3 etc.). Ring Carl at 837 9987 (day).
CRITIQUES DE L'ECONOMIE POLITIQUE No.3. La Formation du Sous Supplement 65p La Construction du Socialisme 65p 7-8 La Nature des Pays de /'Est £1.25p 9. Sur la Methode 65p Pierre Salama-Le Proces de Sous Developpement £1.50p J.L. Dallemagne-L'Inflation Capitaliste £1.50p Postage and packing 15% extra. Cash with order please RED BOOKS, 182 Pentonville Rd., London N.1. illusions. Indeed the letter to Lafargue which comrade White cites shows this clearly not to be the case. However that unfortunately does not mean that every single word Engels, or Marx, or Lenin, or Trotsky, wrote is correct. The most famous of all the points concerned with Engels is however that of the Dialectics of Nature. If all that was involved here was a auestion of the existence of the material work and a somewhat ill conceived problem of the "laws of motion of thought then everything would be relatively simple. Unfortunately however it is not with this at all that the problem lies.
Of course the material world exists independently of the subject but, by definition, what is known does not. It is for this reason that Lenin, who I am sure not even Comrade White thinks is an idealist, notes that "Cognition is the external, endless approximation of thought to the object" (Collected Works, vol, 38, p.195) In other words what is known is always different from the material world and, precisely because it is different, can in no sense be considered as the material world. In other words clearly the material world exists (the criteria for this being practice(s) and not a logical one but this material world must be clearly demarcated from what we know. The material world of course is not a product of a 'subject-object process, but what is known precisely is, as Colletti notes, the results of such a process. Once it is noted that (a) what is known is logically distinct from the material world, and (b) what is known is always different from the material world, then the idea of 'reflection' as anything other than a statement that there exists some relation between what is known and what exists, the exact relation being determined by practice, becomes absolutely meaningless. Unfortunately none of these real problems appear to be understood in Comrade White's simple minded assertion that "matter exists independently of human consciousness and is governed by definite laws which are more accurately reflected in the laws of dialectical logic than in the laws of formal logic." Furthermore, while Engels at least understands the problems, it is not possible to accept many of his conclusions. For example I trust not even comrade White wishes to defend either at an empirical level the text on "The Part Played by Nature in the Transition from Ape to Man". which goes against everything known about genetics, or at a more theoretical level all the stuff on water turning into steam as an example of quantity and quality, poles of the magnet as examples of negation, etc. (leave alone subsequent "developments" such as oak trees growing from acorns through the 'negation of the negation' etc.) What is remarkable about all this is that it appears besides formulations such as "dialectical thought. presupposes investigation of the nature of concepts (Dialectics of Nature p.226), etc., which are not in line with this at all.
Mandel Leninist Theory of Organisation (15p)
Mandel Class Consciousness and the Leninist Party (6p)
Lenin Re-Organisation of the Party (10p)
Statutes of the Third International (10p)
Statutes of the Fourth International (10p)
SPECIAL OFFER: All five for 40p (post free)
Enclosed is 40p for the five IMG publication on the Leninist Party.
Name Address Send to: IMG PUBLICATIONS, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1.
The British press is trying to give the impression that nothing much is happening in the Arabian peninsula. The papers have been largely silent about the war between South and North Yemen. References to it have tried to suggest that it means nothing more than a border dispute, although some papers
----- pull-quotes -----
IMG Publications THE LENINIST PARTY