Memory and forgetting in left politics… October 26, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in The Left.trackback
Reading an old issue of Critique and a piece by Terry Brotherstone on 1956 and the Crisis in the Communist Party of Great Britain there was a particularly interesting section which contained interviews with former CPGB members from that period, some of whom had been members of the Historians’ Group.
But an almost random question at the end of that section really struck my attention.
I suggested that the failure of those historians who let the Party, but did not try seriously to settle its historical accounts, might be seen as a factor in allowing people to join later without paying attention thte historical lessons of the crisis. There is evidence that many of those who joined in the late 1960s and 1970s neither knew about, nor were educate about, what had happened.
TB: Even a historian [I know] could join after 1956 and seems to have known very little about it….
BP: We must face the fact that not everybody is… interested in the history of organisations, or with history in general. ‘History begins with us’, seems to be the attitude….
That last point really resonates, my own understanding of political activity and the history of political formations, whether the WP of which I was a member and other groups, was very limited with much of what there was to know gleaned from the odd party newspaper or pamphlet, some political science and political history books, and more usually oral histories from other comrades. All of which were problematic transmission processes in their own ways.
I wonder is that a feature of life on the left both specifically in relation to the position of individuals within any given organisation and more generally in relation to the left. Pre-internet knowledge about other formations could be very limited indeed beyond the broad brush strokes of policy and attitude, and some aspects of history. Although the amount of material available from competing formations is now much greater has that changed radically or in any substantive way, and if so are there any effects of that on the direction of the left?
There can be an over-emphasis on history also. While it’s true that it’s wasteful to repeat previous mistakes due to unawareness of history, it’s also a fact that circumstances change and what can seem like a repeat of a particular set of circumstances isn’t necessarily so. Using apparent similarities (actively looking for evidence of similarities in order to back up an ideological argument) as a basis for dogmatic assertion of correctness or otherwise of a present day appproach is perhaps a bigger negative in the grand scheme of things.
Ever so slightly off topic… This may have been posted already but there’s an interesting exhibition on at the moment on the archaeology of Monto in the Lab in Foley Street. The curator Thomas Kador, is using the material as a jumping off point for a series of public lectures or roundtables, the first of which kicked off last night on the theme of From the Lockout to the Rising and the Treaty: (How) should we commemorate?An interesting group of speakers gave 15 minute presentations on the theme from various perspectives and it became, well, rather political. I hope these notes do justice to the discussion and apologies for the length of the post.
The first speaker, Helen Carey (Limerick City Gallery) took almost an ahistorical view, focusing her argument of the usefulness of contemporary art to ask the questions that needed to be asked. Although generally a proponent of this sort of thing, her presentation left me, for one, rather cold and she might have elaborated more on this point without resorting to Walter Benjamin. I may have picked her up wrong but the political context within such artistic responses can be framed was solely missing from her argument. The evening did however get better.
Activist and oral historian Mary Muldowney was clear about the usefulness of oral history in extrapolating the ordinary narratives often missing from the academic texts. History is, after all, generally written by the winners. She touched on the absence of class in Irish historiography, something that’s been discussed here relatively frequently, and went on to talk about the work being undertaken by the oral history group established by the 1913 Committee. There’s scope here, according to Muldowney to ask questions such as ‘how did we get here?’, ‘who did this to us?’ and ‘why did we let them do it?’ and I suppose by implication, ‘what are we going to do about it?’
Padraig Yeates was next up and he reminded me immediately of the preface to his classic work on the Lockout which cites the baggage handlers’ strike in Dublin airport in 1998 and the specifically syndicalist history of SIPTU, formed on the merger of Larkin’s ITGWU and the FWUI, based on the almost forgotten dictum ‘an injury to one is the concern of all’. In the wake of social partnership and abject failure of SIPTU to provide any sense of leadership, this point is particularly moot. Looking at the Lockout in the context of the Empire and Imperialism, he emphasised how it wouldn’t have been sustained without the support of the TU movement in the UK, which of course raised its own issues in the context of the national struggle. In terms of the evening’s theme, he wondered whether it was worth commemorating the foundation of an anaemic Irish state, one which has, after all, given us our collective identity. He saw commemoration nonetheless as providing an important social function, where the actual events as such don’t have to be taken as gospel. He reckoned in an ideal world there’d be provision for a scheme of historical lobotomy (!) undertaken on the population, something he could have elaborated on. He looked askance at the concept of ‘community’ where technological innovation has effectively turned us into a community of consumers. In this context there’s a danger that the social memory of the Lockout among the community will evaporate over time, especially, as another speaker pointed out, where the Lockout hasn’t been particularly well taught in the schools.
Looking at Monto and the history of the Lockout and subsequent events, he talked about the dangers of concentrating on ‘ambushology’ (also discussed here on a live thread), where the focus is on who shot who, rather on why they were shot in the first place. Interestingly, he saw oral history as being as flawed as documentary history, citing a few examples from his own research, but came down on the side of oral history as giving communities more access to their own pasts than it does the academics and he saw it as being particularly important for the ‘new Irish’ who form an important part of our communities, a point reiterated by the subsequent speakers.
Roisin Higgins is the author of Transforming 1916: meaning, memory and the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising, one of the best of a plethora of recent tomes dealing with cultural and political memory of the ‘decade of commemoration’. Higgins underlined from the off the problematic nature of commemoration. She went further stating that we should make commemoration difficult for ourselves, to ask ourselves the difficult questions. Exclusion is one of these problematic areas where there’s been very little in the southern media about the signing of the Ulster Covenant in September, despite its crucial importance in our collective history. She looked at the Lockout as a ‘moment of clarity’, where something of significance happened that’s still significant today. And likewise the Easter Rising as formative event in the creation of a Republic, though not necessarily this Republic, which is particularly significant as a potent symbol of national sovereignty, transcending the State, just when that sovereignty has been lost. In this sense the Rising represents both the ideal and the disappointing reality and it must be commemorated from the now, from today’s perspective (which obviously emphasises the latter). She made an interesting point about extinguishing the radicalism of the decade to domesticate it for modern consumption, thus explicitly serving the coalition government’s purposes to neutralise the events. She saw the usefulness of returning to the ‘big thoughts’ of the early twentieth century, bemoaning our inability to think for ourselves. Perhaps the commemorations will make us start thinking again, where we obsess on our current woes, convinced that the ideological struggles of the early twentieth century have been fought and won. She examined the politics of the commemoration and the manner in which they’ve changed over the years: in 1941 it was about neutrality, in 1966 it was about modernisation, in 1991 it was about silence where in 2006 as a celebration of the celtic tiger, although as someone else later pointed out to the chair, we didn’t all party (well, he actually said ‘bollox’ to the very idea). She thus saw the commemorations as an opportunity to reclaim those parts of the story which aren’t part of the received narrative, citing Mannix Flynn’s translations of the Proclamations into the languages of the ‘new Irish’, asking what it all means to them. So what’s the relevance to today, why fund the commemorations when the arse is out of our trousers? What will the troika say? The issues that confront us today, issues of power relations, equality and sovereignty are the same issues that confronted those organising and fighting 100 years ago. The worst thing we can do is pat ourselves on the back: we shouldn’t in fact be acknowledging this history at all if we’re not prepared to do anything about it. And this is the time to do it. Ending on an ambivalent note, she wasn’t that convinced that much good would come out of the whole thing.
Pat Cooke gave the final presentation, one which threw up a few surprises for students of the material culture of the period, suggesting a new iconography that reads the present into images of the past. Who knew for example that the Druid’s Glen golf club contained a garden commemorating 1798 with a basement facility celebrating selected highlights of the national struggle? This is where Seanie Fitzpatrick plays golf every Saturday with his cronies, those who ‘pulled on the green shirt’ on our behalf, pretending they were enriching themselves for the common good. Likewise the Goat Grill, a southside sports pub which proudly displays busts of the signatories of the Proclamation beside a framed copy of the same document. As a former curator of Kilmainham Goal and St. Enda’s in Rathfarnham, he saw public donations of artefacts to both museums decreasing as soon as the Republic’s bourgeoisie started buying up the stuff for their own collections. Where the psychology of this ‘trophy republicanism’ is particularly interesting, he went on to look at another manifestation of republicanism by examining the career of Tom McFeeley, who, according to Cooke would make an apposite grandmaster of the 2016 parade.
Getting back to the arts, he looked at some of the interventions made in Kilmainham, noting the licence artists have to get away with things the rest of us can’t. He asked where was the literary response to our present crisis, suggesting the Abbey was still producing theatre that generally leaves us snoring in our seats. But should art (and artists) reflect what’s happening or should it occupy some other space? Perhaps that’s another day’s work. Anyway, this was followed by a well-aimed shot at Aosdána, the elitist cabal of establishment artists established by Haughey with no statutory basis, bleeding funds from the Arts Council. Again the thorny concept of community was taken up where Cooke noted that class is never discussed when people start talking about ‘community. Whatever that is’.
All in all, an event worth attending and indeed there are several other similar events planned over the course of the exhibition downstairs. There’s more information at http://1913committee.ie/blog/
of course it’s true,most of the left cannot remember(or dont want too) what they said last week don,t mind last year.For instance those who join the swp do they understand Cliffs theory on “state capitalism”. Those who join the “Fourth International” know its troubled history,outside of a few,most would not.
Historical experience is important to learn from so as to be able to move forward.Trotsky tried all his life to learn what went wrong with the revolution and he could not do this without understanding the history of the Bolsheviks.
Now a days most have bought into the “Death of Marxism” and this has a massive pressure on the left.Navigating a way forward many have ended dumping basic historical Marxist understanding of capitalist society.
Hence the occupy movement,supported by most of the left, while understanding this anger against societies impoverishment,we are not the same in the 99%, society is class based. in other words we all don’t have common interests.
It is small wonder that the occupy movement have no idea of the class power of workers given its mis-leadership in the unions.This can change quickly in the heat of class struggle, look at 84/85 miners strike.
Only the power the working class can transform this society with its own revolutionary multiracial party .For all the mistakes of the past this one tenet which has not changed since Marx its either that or as Trotsky said barbarism.
For me this lesson of history has not changed, for most of the left they will hitch their wagon to whatever is popular at a given time instead of a class based party. I suppose I am old fashioned,historically 1917 still has lessons for us today. Anyone joining a left organization it’s understanding of 1917 is a good place to start.
That reminds me of what a friend of mine in the WP said to me many many years ago when we were canvassing… ‘Stalin and Trotksy never lived in Kilbarrack’. It’s simple, perhaps a little glib – though in fairness we were 20 years of age and it was 1985 or so, but it happens to be true. I’ve no problem accepting the historical significance of 1917, but I think that in societies like this one which were explicitly shaped by dynamics substantively different to those in Russia (and then the USSR) it’s very hard to find any easy comparison or parallels – not least because of the subsequent history in socio-economic and political terms here and there. Nor do is it easy to see any way in which 1917 could be replayed in any serious way in this society in the foreseable future.
“Nor do is it easy to see any way in which 1917 could be replayed in any serious way in this society in the foreseable future.”
This is a pretty basic point. We aren’t going to see a revolution in a mostly illiterate country, overwhelmingly made up of peasants, with a social and technological base anything like that of Tsarist Russia ever again.
For socialists today, the issue is how to bring about a socialist transformation of our society. Politics as historical reenactment is a waste of everyone’s time. It’s worth understanding 1917 and learning lessons from it, but the notion that an understanding of it is the “place to start” strikes me as simply insane.
Sure everyone knows that 1789 is the correct place to start…
“For socialists today, the issue is how to bring about a socialist transformation of our society. ”
+1 squared.
“Anyone joining a left organization it’s understanding of 1917 is a good place to start…” – yeah, and the lesson from that is trots will be wrecking heads for ever.
Could I make a general point about the need for honesty. We should not be afarid to admit where things went/go wrong. I am not just talking about Stalinism.
Especially true for Trots (raises hand), I think: whatever your view on why it happened, 1917 did turn into Stalinism. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to have a good explanation for why, and how you would make it sure it would not happen again.
Stalinism, was a learnt process. The bureaucratic centralisation of government and party had begun before Stalin became the notable leader in the CPSU. In fact most of the rev left would argue that this was a necessary development, politburo etc, for the Reds to win the Civil War. I believe the bureaucratic and dictatorial Soviet political system reflected in some ways Bolshevik structure itself. Would things have looked very different under the leadership of the Left Opposition? The same huge issue of Socialism in one country would have hounded any Soviet government dynamic, and created the material basis for the ‘same old crap’ i.e elites as Marx famously said. This is not to rehabilitate the Stalinist regime, but to put it into context.
While we’re on the subject of memory it was Rosa Luxemburg who said the choice was between socialism and barbarism. She was also extremely dubious about Lenin’s belief that a hard core of dedicated revolutionaries were needed to take decisions on behalf of the masses and suspicious of the consequences of this belief. Which may be one partial explanation of why 1917 turned to Stalinism though the personality of Stalin itself, and his victory over Trotsky, surely have a lot to do with it too.
Trotsky’s personality had something to do with it too: if he’d been a bit more politically astute, he might not have ended up with an axe in his head.
An axe?
This is getting a bit like a Robert Anton Wilson/Golden Horde song… ‘the first Trotsky clone ended up with an axe… the second Trotsky clone ended up with a dagger… the third Trotsky clone is sitting drinking Margarita’s with the JFK clone and the Fianna Fáil front bench and Madame Blavatsky and Salman Rushdie and the Easter Bunny and…’
http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2011/07/09/this-weekend-ill-mostly-be-listening-to-the-golden-horde-the-chocolate-biscuit-conspiracy/
The more politically astute Kamenev et al ended up with bullets in the head.
My partner says that they should have yielded power to the Constituent Assembly, flawed as the elections were and the underrepresentation of the Left SRs.The Sandinistas faced an endless counterrevolutionary war iof they did not concede power. Sometimes the price of retaining power can endup destroying what you are trying to do.
By honesty I mean not defending and lieing about stuff whether it is atrocities close to home or abuses by regimes abroad. Oppose Imperialism without being blind.Be a marxist without regarding everything written by whatever line you follow as being holy writ.