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Contents : Shallow moralizing instead of Marxism By Frank Brenner What does it mean to build a socialist culture in the working class This phrase crops ups in our polemics with the International Committee but we certainly didn't coin it. On the contrary you will find that this phrase was often used in the political writing of the IC itself if you go back far enough say to the mid-1990s. Back then it was clear what this phrase meant at least in a historical sense. In the last decades of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th socialism was a political and social movement of liberation that united millions of workers around the globe. The term socialist culture' was meant to convey that much more was involved in this movement than just signing a membership card paying dues or voting in elections. The workers youth and intellectuals caught up in this movement felt themselves to be part of an inspiring social undertaking the forging of a new world. Thus the hallmark of the thriving socialist culture' of this era was that socialism was itself a social ideal for great masses of people.1 This point has been made by many historians and political analysts. Here for instance are some remarks by Daniel Guerin from his book Fascism and Big Business long a staple of Trotskyist literature: E arly socialism more than any other movement required of its pioneers and militants an unheard of amount of unselfishness and devotion. It had more than any other movement its heroes and martyrs. Although materialists i.e.philosophically the proletarian revolutionists were in the words of French poet Marcel Martinet "the only idealists in the modern world."2 But Guerin writing in 1936 could already say that "socialism is an old movement which has lost its original flame." The great betrayals of Social Democracy and Stalinism had even by then taken a heavy toll on the socialist culture of the working class. In the many decades since then this degeneration has gotten much worse. The crimes of Stalinism above all served to transfigure socialism in mass consciousness from a liberating ideal into a political nightmare. And with that virtually every vestige of that earlier socialist culture withered away. In the era of Thatcher and Reagan the catchphrase There Is No Alternative' to capitalism summed up the political zeitgeist and this was reinforced by the demise of the Soviet Union the turn of China to capitalism and the degeneration of the trade unions into business unionism'. 1 The word culture in socialist culture' is used in the same sense that sociologists speak of a subculture': we can think of the socialist movement of this era in the broadest sense as a major political subculture. The classic case here is German Social Democracy which became virtually a state within a state in Wilhelmine Germany. 2 Daniel Guerin Fascism and Big Business (1973/1936) p.74. Shallow moralizing instead of Marxism It was in this historical context that the need to rebuild a socialist culture in the working class began to be raised. Clearly it was intended to address this stultifying political atmosphere in which socialism had virtually disappeared from working class consciousness as a viable political alternative. Obviously a mass socialist culture is not something that can be willed into existence in this regard as in every other objective conditions are of decisive importance. But a revolutionary party does what it can to exploit the objective conditions to the limits of their possibilities. In terms of revolutionary practice rebuilding a socialist culture is to a great extent identical to the fight to bring socialist consciousness to the working class that fundamental political imperative of revolutionary Marxism. This means finding a road to the masses by providing alternative leadership in the everyday struggles of the working class and through that work building bridges to socialist consciousness. But it also means in an era pervaded by a There Is No Alternative' zeitgeist propaganda and agitation aimed at rekindling the flame of socialist idealism. However there was never any effort on the part of the IC to examine concretely what the implications were of trying to rebuild a socialist culture. Indeed the phrase itself largely disappeared as the party veered increasingly towards an objectivist theory and abstentionist practice. It was in this sense that the issue figured in our polemic with IC leader David North Marxism Without its Head or its Heart (MWHH) as a crucial aspect of a revolutionary orientation that the IC was abandoning. But recently this phrase has been making something of a comeback in IC literature. This is specifically the case with WSWS arts editor David Walsh: in a lecture tour and meetings held in Britain last month Walsh raised this issue a number of times. His remarks bear some comment because they demonstrate that this newfound interest in rebuilding a socialist culture is not at all a symptom of political health on the contrary what Walsh has done is to skew this phrase in such a way as to empty it of any revolutionary content and fill it instead with an old and banal form of middle class moralizing. The remarks I want to comment on are from a transcript of a public meeting at the University of Manchester titled "The Writer and Revolution" in which Walsh shared the platform with British playwright Trevor Griffiths.3 At one point Walsh raises the need for "a revival of a very rich socialist culture that was damaged by Stalinism." He then goes on to say: "It is certainly my view that the cultural level of the population has to be raised there has to be a moral awakening a cultural awakening as part of the revolutionary socialist project. That from our point of view is why we hold this meeting why we speak of these issues." Now given the context of the meeting and Walsh's own role as an arts editor it isn't surprising that he should as it were take literally the word culture' in socialist culture. And there is 3 "The Writer and Revolution: WSWS arts editor David Walsh in conversation with Trevor Griffiths Part 2 " WSWS Dec. 12 2008: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/man2-d12.shtml. 2 Shallow moralizing instead of Marxism nothing wrong with this: the socialist movement has always been involved in efforts to raise the cultural level of the working class and this cultural/educational work has an important although necessarily secondary role to play in the essential task of raising the political consciousness of the working class. But Walsh goes off in a different direction: he speaks of "a moral awakening" along with "a cultural awakening" but makes no mention of a political awakening. Instead he refers vaguely to this "moral awakening" as being "part of the revolutionary socialist project." Exactly what part A little later in the transcript after some remarks on the global economic crisis Walsh expands on this idea: What we do what we make of it i.e. the economic crisis - FB how it is transformed in a revolutionary direction is a complex issue but we are convinced that the question of culture a deepening sensibility sympathy for others ... in my opinion if there were a mass revulsion as is growing in the US against the death penalty that would be a great step towards the social revolution. Because the revolutionary programme comes relatively late in the game for masses of people. But sympathy solidarity self-sacrifice nobility compassion--those are qualities we very much need to encourage and it is certainly one of the things that art can do. That's why if you look at every great revolution in history it is impossible to imagine it without great artistic and cultural fermentation. Let me note that the ellipsis in this quote (i.e. before "in my opinion") is not something I added but is in the original transcript. So we now have a clearer picture as to what this "moral awakening" consists of. Walsh calls for "a deepening sensibility" in the sense of "sympathy for others" that must be developed in the working class. A little later he talks about "sympathy solidarity self-sacrifice nobility compassion" as qualities that need to be encouraged among the masses. He also gives an example of the kind of "moral awakening" he has in mind mass revulsion at the death penalty in the US and significantly he adds that if that were to occur it "would be a great step towards the social revolution." There is one more point that Walsh makes and it is crucial: this "moral awakening" precedes the adherence of the masses to a revolutionary program. That's what Walsh means when he says: "Because the revolutionary programme comes relatively late in the game for masses of people." In other words first you have this "moral awakening" within the masses and only after that (i.e. "relatively late in the game") do they undergo a political awakening to socialist consciousness. Thus in the conception Walsh is putting forward here this "moral awakening" isn't actually a "part" of the revolutionary socialist project but rather a precondition for it. This last point is stated explicitly in a preliminary report on this meeting that the WSWS posted right after it had taken place. Walsh's remarks on this issue are summarized as follows: 3 Shallow moralizing instead of Marxism This underlined the necessity for writers and artists today to familiarize themselves with history in particular the multifaceted struggle to develop socialist consciousness amongst broad layers of society. The World Socialist Web Site places particular emphasis on the need to raise the cultural level of the working class to develop sensitivity a sense of solidarity and an empathy with others as a precondition for such a development Walsh said emphasis added .4 Presumably Walsh vetted this report if not actually writing it himself. And we can add yet a further quote this time from a lecture Walsh gave in Britain titled "Art and socialism: the real premises" which puts forward the same basic conception: We are seeking to revive and rebuild the international socialist culture that was so damaged by Stalinism. We see this as essential to the project of world socialist revolution. To put it bluntly without a higher level of culture the working class will not achieve victory. Of course we don't fault the population for its present predicament. The present situation is an indictment of capitalism --which in its decay has no interest or capacity to lift masses of people out of degradation and ignorance--and the so-called labor movement the various Socialist Communist and Labour parties and trade unions which have proven their utter rottenness in the past quarter-century. Nonetheless we don't conceal the fact that in our view a heightening of the cultural moral intellectual level of a significant layer of the population is an indispensable precondition for a profound social transformation all emphases added .5 In this last formulation Walsh has added to the "moral awakening" a cultural and intellectual "heightening" all of which are now posited as being "an indispensable precondition" for the victory of the socialist revolution. Since you can't have that victory without the emergence of socialist consciousness in the masses it follows that this three-fold "heightening" of the "cultural moral intellectual level" is also an indispensable precondition for socialist consciousness as well. (Hence Walsh's point about how the revolutionary program only comes "relatively late in the game for masses of people " i.e. after they've become morally etc. "awakened".) If you add it all up this becomes quite a pile of preconditions'. It should be evident by now that what might seem at first sight a relatively uncontroversial appeal on Walsh's part for sympathy and solidarity is actually on closer analysis quite a remarkable claim remarkable as a departure from positions long held by the Marxist movement. Since when have Marxists ever believed that a "moral awakening" of the masses (or for that matter a cultural and intellectual "heightening") is an indispensable precondition for socialist consciousness This has been the standpoint of liberals reformists Christian socialists' and their ilk the standpoint of those who want to morally regenerate' the masses before there can be 4 "Trevor Griffiths and David Walsh discuss The Writer and Revolution'" WSWS Nov. 13 2008: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/tgdw-n13.shtml. 5 David Walsh "Art and socialism: the real premises" WSWS Nov. 26 2008: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/lect-n26.shtml. 4 Shallow moralizing instead of Marxism any talk of fundamental social change. The standpoint of revolutionary Marxists has always been that the masses will find their "moral awakening" through the struggle for socialism itself. In other words it is the political awakening of the masses that is the precondition for their moral awakening which is the exact opposite of what Walsh is arguing for here. There is a passage in Trotsky's Results and Prospects his groundbreaking1906 work on the theory of permanent revolution that addresses this issue directly. Trotsky is discussing the objective and subjective pre-requisites for socialism. With regard to the subjective pre-requisites he writes that it is necessary that the working class "should be conscious of its objective interests it is necessary that it should understand that there is no way out for it except through socialism it is necessary that it should combine in an army sufficiently powerful to conquer political power in open battle."6 This is what Trotsky means by socialist consciousness (a conception obviously informed by what was at the time his recent experience leading the 1905 revolution). But he goes on to contrast this with a very different view of socialist consciousness one with a moral' slant: But many socialist ideologues (ideologues in the bad sense of the word those who stand everything on its head) speak of preparing the proletariat for socialism in the sense of its being morally regenerated. The proletariat and even humanity' in general must first of all cast out its old egoistical nature and altruism must become predominant in social life etc. As we are as yet far from such a state of affairs and human nature' changes very slowly socialism is put off for several centuries. Such a point of view probably seems very realistic and evolutionary and so forth but as a matter of fact it is really nothing but shallow moralizing (all emphases added). This is the same position as Walsh's the working class must be "morally regenerated" to prepare it for socialism and though Walsh doesn't take this argument as far as putting off socialism for several centuries he is equally guilty of "shallow moralizing." Trotsky goes on to show that this "shallow moralizing" is based on shallow logic: "It is assumed that a socialist psychology must be developed before the coming of socialism in other words that it is possible for the masses to acquire a socialist psychology under capitalism." That is putting the cart before the horse: how can you have a socialist psychology before you have socialism And by a socialist psychology Trotsky means "the absence of egotistical motives in economic life" in other words "sympathy solidarity self-sacrifice nobility compassion" that make up Walsh's conception of a "moral awakening". 6 Leon Trotsky Results and Prospects chapt. 7: "The Prerequisites of Socialism": http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/tpr/rp07.htm. All further quotes from this book are from this chapter. 5

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