{"id":372,"date":"2017-05-11T00:01:04","date_gmt":"2017-05-10T23:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/?p=372"},"modified":"2022-04-13T17:25:10","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T16:25:10","slug":"top-marx-bevan-and-the-importance-of-karl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/top-marx-bevan-and-the-importance-of-karl\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Marx: Bevan and the importance of Karl"},"content":{"rendered":"

He may have been dead for over 100 years but suddenly Karl Marx has become an issue in this election. Within all the General Election coverage, John McDonnell has suddenly got people talking about Karl Marx. On the Andrew Marr Show<\/a>, McDonnell was asked about a previous comment where he described himself as a Marxist. He replied:<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe there\u2019s a lot to learn from reading\u00a0Das Kapital, yes, of course, and that\u2019s been recommended not just by me but many others, mainstream economists as well.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Immediately McDonnell was attacked for praising what Priti Patel described as \u201cthe nonsensical ideas of Karl Marx\u201d. Another person who doesn\u2019t seem to think much of Marx is First Minister Carwyn Jones. When asked in First Minister\u2019s Questions by Neil Hamilton whether he agrees \u201cwith the Shadow Chancellor that we have a great deal to learn from Karl Marx and \u2018Das Kapital\u2019\u201d, Carwyn Jones stated that he didn\u2019t \u201cthink that we have much to learn\u201d from Marx\u2019s Capital; \u201cfor those who\u2019ve read it and tried to understand what it says, it is not an easy exercise\u201d. It seems Carwyn Jones\u2019 efforts to distinguish Welsh Labour from Corbyn\u2019s Labour includes dismissing a thinker who inspired many of Labour\u2019s politicians.<\/p>\n

One of those who attributed a great deal to Marx and various Marxist thinkers was Aneurin Bevan. Writing in In Place of Fear <\/em>in 1952, Bevan stated that Marxism \u201cput into the hands of the working class movement of the late nineteenth and first part of the twentieth centuries the most complete blueprints for political action the world has ever seen\u201d. He argued that:<\/p>\n

\u201cNo serious student who studies the history of the last half century can deny the ferment of ideas associated with the names of Marx, Engels and Lenin. Their effectiveness in arming the minds of working class leaders all over the world with the intellectual weapons showed that their teaching had an organic relationship with the political and social realities of their time\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

He stated that if he had any training at all, \u201cit had been in Marxism\u201d. Bevan\u2019s Marxism was of a certain kind \u2013 it was the work of American socialists such as Eugene V. Debs, Daniel De Leon and Jack London that influenced Bevan. He acknowledged that: \u201cthe relevance of what we were reading to our own industrial and political experiences had all the impact of a divine revelation\u201d[1]<\/a>. (Incidentally, Jeremy Corbyn recently revealed that he was reading Jack London\u2019s The Iron Heel<\/em>). It is questionable as to whether Bevan had read Capital <\/em>himself. Bevan\u2019s friend and election agent Archie Lush claimed that \u201cthe first 27 pages of the Tredegar Library copy of Das Kapital <\/em>were dirty, while the remainder of the pages remained clean\u201d[2]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Whether Bevan read Capital <\/em>or not, he still understood the importance of Marx and the school of thought that he inspired. What he read did not fit completely with his worldview; Bevan felt that Marxism had undermined the role of Parliament as a means to achieving power for the working class.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite early in my studies it seemed to me that classic Marxism consistently understated the role of political democracy with a fully developed franchise. This is the case, both subjectively, as it affects the attitude of the worker to his political responsibilities, and objectively, as it affects the possibilities of his attaining power by using the franchise and parliamentary methods\u201d<\/em>[3]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bevan agreed with the principles of class conflict inherent in the Marxist critique of power but fundamentally disagreed with the means of achieving that power. He argued that \u201cthe classic principles of Marxism were developed when political democracy was as yet in its infancy\u201d[4]<\/a>. Bevan became, what one of his biographers John Campbell describes as, a \u201cparliamentary Marxist\u201d[5]<\/a>. Parliament, according to Bevan, was \u201cthe most formidable weapon of all in the struggle\u201d[6]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Whilst there is the need to separate Marx from the different strands of Marxism which influenced Bevan and others, Bevan understood the importance of Marx as a political thinker. Writing in 1921 in Plebs <\/em>magazine, Bevan wrote that The Communist Manifesto <\/em>\u201cstands in a class by itself in socialist literature\u2026No indictment of a social order ever penned can rival it\u201d[7]<\/a>. He regarded the Manifesto <\/em>as \u201cthe best and most convincing exposition of the Marxian point of view\u201d. It might well be argued that Bevan was writing over 90 years ago, so why would Carwyn Jones or anybody else find Marx relevant today? Bevan argued that the Manifesto <\/em>\u201caffords the best example in political literature of the combination of theoretical principles with tactical needs; and because tactics must always be sought in the conditions immediately at hand, the Manifesto <\/em>is today tactically valueless, except in so far as persistent stress on first principles is of tactical importance\u201d. For Bevan, the importance lay not in the tactics, but in the importance of the principles and the value of its theories: \u201cIf the value of a theory depends upon the time it endures, then one can say the Manifesto <\/em>is a permanent contribution to the science of society\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bevan may have rejected many of Marx\u2019s theories but that\u2019s not the point. When Carwyn Jones says there is nothing much to be learnt from Capital <\/em>he is not only disregarding a seminal text and a seminal thinker, he is also disregarding someone who was an influence for a whole tradition he claims to want to advance:<\/p>\n

“Conference we need to constantly remind ourselves what Labour being in Government actually means. That is our historic mission – that is the journey that Hardie started and every Labour leader since must try and advance.<\/em><\/p>\n

How was it that Bevan finished his great quote \u201cthe Language of priorities is the religion of socialism\u201d? It was with these words: \u201conly by the possession of power can you get the priorities correct.\u201d” <\/em>(Carwyn Jones at Labour Party Conference 2016)<\/a><\/p>\n

Whether you agree or not with the theory, the insight gained by reading such texts can be highly valuable, opening up the mind to challenging ideas and changing the way we view the world. This is not just true of Marx, but for thinkers from various schools of thought. Bevan understood the value of engaging with a thinker like Marx \u2013 I hope current politicians do too.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Bevan, A. 1952 [1978 ed]. In Place of Fear<\/em>. London: Quartet Books pp. 37-38<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Thomas-Symonds, N. 2015. Nye: The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan<\/em>. London: I.B. Tauris p. 38<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Bevan, A. 1952 \u00a0p. 39<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> ibid p. 42<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Campbell, J. 1987. Nye Bevan and the Mirage of British Socialism<\/em>. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson p. 26.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Bevan, A. 1952 p. 49<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Bevan, A. 1921. Socialist Classics: The Communist Manifesto. Plebs Magazine<\/em> vol.13(1)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He may have been dead for over 100 years but suddenly Karl Marx has become an issue in this election. Within all the General Election coverage, John McDonnell has suddenly […]","protected":false},"author":1043,"featured_media":376,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[86,65,16,89],"tags":[67,21,72,90,17],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bevan-and-wales","category-history","category-labour-party","category-theory","tag-aneurin-bevan","tag-carwyn-jones","tag-john-mcdonnell","tag-karl-marx","tag-labour-party"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8iFWs-60","meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/509\/2017\/05\/bevan-marx.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1043"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":542,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions\/542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/thinking-wales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}