March 26th, 1950
Dear Comrade Evans,
First, I am sorry that I did not manage to get down to your MSS during the week. This is really the first chance I have had.
With regard to the Caudwell article–I do not think it would serve a useful purpose to publish it at this stage. Your criticism of his “gene-pack” genetics is now, following the Lysenko controversy, pretty well established in the Party, and there seems no particular reason turning the spotlight on Caudwell for having been wrong on this issue. But I agree that, sooner or later, there must be a general examination of Caudwell’s books. The first Caudwell conference (about two years ago–I can’t remember exactly) was almost completely uncritical. We decided not to have further discussion until there had been discussion and a document drawn up by a group, which would aim at showing both the positive and the negative aspects of Caudwell’s writings. The group has worked very intermittently, and has got nowhere. In the meantime, one of the group has produced a too favourable report. This has been criticised by another comrade in a long paper. The document is now being written in the light of this criticism, and I am hopeful that before long we shall have something that will be serious and not one-sided approach to Caudwell. You will probably think this all too slow. It is. But at the same time I want to win the Caudwell enthusiasts, and make them think, not just batter them.
Now on the points about the war–your letter of Jan. 31st. I don’t think you really argue your original point–that we were wrong to concentrate on the Second Front–except in one passage where you speak of a “petty-bourgeois lack of faith in the ability of a fully developed Socialist State to protect itself.” I think that this suggests a profoundly mistaken view, both from our standpoint and of the actual war position. We never had any doubt about the final outcome; but at the same time we were conscious of the Moore-Brabazon line and the Churchill aim to postpone the second front in order to weaken the Soviet Union to the utmost.
The actual war position was extremely serious, not only from our view. Secondly, in this letter you refer to ”a leadership in shops and factories (which) would ensure to the working class as great a share of the increased flood of surplus value as was possible for us to obtain.” But you make it clear that this was to be obtained without strikes, since you speak of pressure to which the capitalists would have given way. Here again I think you misrepresent the facts. We did have such a leadership in most of the big factories and building jobs, as well as in the mines. They did bring pressure to bear and did win very large concessions. But your general picture is really wrong, as applying to the war period.
As for the Dobb book–that part of it which is a real original study, namely the decay of feudalism and the rise of capitalism. I do not want to retract a word of what I wrote in Communist Review. Already when I wrote that review I did not like the final chapters, and agree to some extent with your criticism. But I think you confuse the question of content with presentation. Basically, it is true that the ”old imperialism” turned to underdeveloped countries, and the ”new imperialism” (not only fascist, but also today American) turned to relatively developed countries. It is a new stage, which although as Lenin pointed out was inherent in imperialism, has now become dominant. And it is important to study this, and the reasons, which in my opinion have a very important bearing on American policy today. Dobb was not wrong to call attention to it, however imperfect the presentation. On some of the other points you raised against Dobb, I think you are unduly worried by phrases expressing “surprise.” It is a question of presentation, and he is obviously in some passages addressing himself to those who believe in bourgeois economics. As to the statistical facts, Dobb is probably right that the employed workers maintain real wages over a considerable period. Kucynski’s argument rests on averaging the whole working class, employed and unemployed, and taking other factors into consideration.
However, I must now post this or I will miss the Sunday-post; and I shall deal with your points on Looking Ahead later.
Best wishes,
Yours fraternally,
EMILE BURNS.
March 26, 1950 (contd.)
Dear Comrade Evans,
I come now to your letter of Jan. 24th, on Looking Ahead. I simply cannot follow you with a reply on all separate points. But it seems to me there are three central points of criticism: the State, Social Democracy and Planning.
On the State: you pick out some of Comrade Pollitt’s expressions and criticise them. The criticism would be justified in a Party syllabus or textbook, but are you quite sure that they are impermissible when he is writing a book for sale to the working class generally? Isn’t he justified in presenting those aspects on which the working class has illusions, in such a way that what he says will be recognised as true, even though he does not state the abstract general conclusions we draw? “In Britain the capitalist control of the State is as yet substantially untouched”; and this is followed by illustrations about the army etc. He then says that for this reason “important, changes in the State machinery will be necessary”; we should “have no illusion that the capitalists will gracefully accept such changes”; but we must fight for them, and that to the extent that the Labour movement is united, and fights for the programme, “in that measure it will reduce the power of the capitalist class, increase the power and control of the workers and the people” etc. I think you are quite wrong in criticising this as if Harry Pollitt sees the solution simply in terms of changing personnel. The working class must smash the capitalist State machine and set up its own. Certainly. But surely this point isn’t reached without a many-sided battle on various fronts, one at least of which is the fight against the ruling class officials and for working class representation in official posts. It would be quite wrong to see this as a continuous process resulting in changing the quality of the State machine. But it is nevertheless a part of the whole process leading up to the final smashing of the State. In essence, it is the same point when we advocate changing the personnel of the Coal Board, although we know it will come about through a change in the general class relationships; but it is part of the fight for this change.
Then on Social Democracy. Such a phrase as “foolish enough” to let the Tories do something can be criticised, but is it not a form of exposure for those still under their influence? And this runs through a lot of the phrases you take exception to. For example, about the General Council staff, ”not composed of people with mass experience and class understanding.” It is attempting to put to the workers that the staff is bourgeois in its training and outlook. But when you claim that this means Comrade Pollitt’s ”firm belief, that an historical tendency can be rooted out through a change of personalities,” and condemn this, I think you are politically wrong. Surely we fight to change personalities? Not only on the General Council but in individual Trade Unions. That this change ”on top” comes ”from below” does not alter the fact that the slogan to change the top is one of the means of rousing the “from below.” And each partial victory strengthens our position, makes us stronger for a later stage, dialectically, below-top–below-top, each influencing the other.
On Planning, in which State and Social Democracy are involved. Again, many phrases put too much ’positive’ into the whole concept of planning, but there are other phrases which show that any realisation of the plan implies a much stronger, more fighting and united working class. Once again, the essence is a programme for which to fight, to expose the bourgeois policy of the Social Democrats, and to rouse the masses to act in their own interests.
Of course the book, published in August 1947, and written during previous months, reflected the optimistic outlook of being able to win the masses more or less easily for the fight for our programme, and of being able to get changes in the Government which would alter the perspective (not in the sense of working class power, but in a fight against the capitalists and American influence). With the formation of the Communist Information Bureau and the publication of Zhdanov’s report, all Parties realised that the favourable developments in the war and immediately after war period could not in fact be carried forward–our forces were not strong enough, not only in Britain but in Belgium and France as well. Therefore a new orientation was necessary, and this was made in the Political Letter and Congress of Feb. 1948. But this does not mean that the Party leadership, or Comrade Pollitt personally, had fundamentally wrong views on the State, Social Democracy and Planning. Still less is there the slightest foundation for your suggestion (in your letter of Jan. 31st) that if criticised earlier they, HP & MD, might have gone Titoite.
You say you are “regarded by the Party as an irritant.” In so far as this is true, don’t you think yourself at least partly to blame by your attack on persons (in the form such as that mentioned); your determination to shoot the pianist, even though he is doing his best; and your unwillingness to allow for popular presentation of a case. It is those aspects of your criticism that do create a certain irritation, and a feeling that what you send in cannot be used.
Now I want to make a suggestion, which you may think is evading the whole question you raise, but is seriously meant. Suppose you turn your guns on the real enemy, and use your ability and knowledge to criticise them. I have always held that such criticism is the basis for training our own people. It sharpens their understanding of what the bourgeois approach is, and helps them to avoid it. They assimilate it much more easily than criticism of our own writings, and it does not have the harmful effect which the latter can have on the confidence in the Party. Further, in the present stage of development, I feel it very important not to make writers themselves lose confidence; better to have something written, even if weak, than fear of expressing themselves. (That of course does not apply to a book like Jack Lindsay’s on Marxism and Science, which set out to undermine the fundamentals of Marxism).
If you agree, 1 would look out for and send a book openly idealist and anti-Marxist, and ask you to review it. You yourself may have something in mind.
Best wishes,
EMILE BURNS.
* * *
Evans Note: I answer these letters in the next chapter. Here I would like to point out to the reader that within a matter of months Harry Pollitt’s book, Looking Ahead, was withdrawn from circulation by the Party, on the plea that events had out-dated it!
Emile Burn’s attempt at open bribery failed. But I must thank Burns for one thing: he taught me a great deal about bourgeois approach and methodology in defence of capitalist ideology. But, as I think the reader will agree after reading the next chapter, there is no real difficulty in exposing lies for what they are, for calling a swindler a swindler.