Hobsbawm-Goodbye-To-All-That-1.Pdf
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hat is the historical significance of 1989, the year in which com munism collapsed in eastern Europe, sud denly and presumably irrevocably, anticipating the collapse of the existing regime in the USSR and the break-up of its multinational struc ture? Instant diagnosis is a dangerous game, almost as dangerous as instant prophecy. The only people who dive into it without hesitation are those who ex pect their diagnoses and prophecies to be instantly forgotten (like journalists Goodbye To and commentators) or not to be remem bered after the next election or two (like politicians). Still, there are times when events concentrated into a short space of time, whatever we make of them, are plainly historic and immediately seen to be such. The year of the French Revol All That ution and 1917 were such times and 1989 was equally clearly another. So what do The events of 1989 marked the end of we make of it? It is much easier to see 1989 as a an era, of the epoch ushered in by 1917. conclusion than as a beginning. It was the end of the era in which world history Eric Hobsbawm looks at the meaning was about the October Revolution. For over 70 years all Western governments of 1989 and ruling classes were haunted by the spectre of social revolution and com munism, eventually transmuted into fear of the military power of the USSR and its potential international repercus sions. Western governments are still coming to terms with the collapse of an international policy entirely designed to meet a Soviet threat, both political and military. Without the belief in such a threat Nato has no sense at all. That there was never any reality in this Western image of a Soviet Union poised 18 MARXISM TODAY OCTOBER 1990 to overrun or nuke the 'free world' at a 'Those of us invading the West, were neither within expanding much except in small Latin moment's notice only proves how deep his power nor on his agenda. American countries and, nominally, the fear of communism was. For over 70 who believed After 1956, when the international African states of little international sig years international politics has been that the communist movement visibly began to nificance, the world was still divided waged by one side as a crusade, a cold October disintegrate, various groups outside the into the 'two camps', and any country or war of religion, with a brief intermis Revolution Moscow orbit claimed the original movement which broke with capitalism sion for confronting the more real marxist-leninist or at least the world- and imperialism tended to gravitate or dangers of the Berlin-Tokyo axis. was the gate revolutionary inheritance. On a world to be notionally absorbed into the social On the other side it had long been clear to the future scale, neither the 57 varieties of trots- ist sphere. Ex-colonies which did not that it was no such thing. It is true that of world kyists, maoists, revolutionary marxists, claim in some sense to be 'socialist' or Lenin and the Bolsheviks saw October history have neo-anarchists and others, nor the states which did not look in some way to the as the first phase of the world revol nominally committed to their support, Eastern model of economic develop ution which would overthrow all capi been shown amounted to anything. Even within par ment were rare birds indeed in the gen talism. The early generations of com to be wrong' ticular countries their impact, except eration or two after 1945. In short, world munists (including the present writer) for brief moments, was usually mar politics could still be seen, even on the still joined what we thought of as a ginal. The most systematic attempt to left, as the working out of the conse disciplined army to fight and win the spread revolution along these lines, the quences of the October Revolution. world revolution. Nikita Khrushchev, Cuban revolutionary export drive of the ll this is now over. Com the only peasant ever to rule Russia (or 1960s, did not even begin to look like munism in eastern Eu for that matter any important state), getting anywhere. Unlike the first rope has dissolved or is still sincerely believed that commun world revolutionary wave of 1917-19 dissolving. So is the USSR ism would bury capitalism, though not and the second wave which followed Aas we have known it. Whatever China by revolution. And the dramatic exten world war two, the third wave, coincid will be like when the last of the Last sion of both anti-imperialist and com ing with the world crisis of the 1970s, March generation is dead, it will have munist revolution after world war two even lacked a unified ideological tradi little to do with Lenin and less with seemed at first sight to confirm the tion or pole of attraction. The most Marx. Outside the former regions of prospect. important social upheaval of this period 'real socialism' there are probably not Nevertheless, it is clear that from the by far, the Iranian revolution, looked to more than three communist parties with early 1920s onwards the USSR's policy Muhammad and not to Marx. The com genuine mass support (Italy, South was no longer designed to achieve munists, though central to the ending of Africa and the regionally concentrated world revolution, although Moscow the last hold-overs of the European CP-Marxist of India), and one of them would certainly have welcomed it. In fascist era, were soon side-lined in post- wants to rejoin international social demo the era of Stalin, who actively discou Salazar Portugal and post-Franco Spain cracy as fast as it can. We are seeing not raged bids for power by any communist by what claimed to be social democrats. the crisis of a type of movement, regime party and distrusted communist parties But if there was no significant move and economy, but its end. Those of us who made revolution against his advice, ment to overthrow capitalism world who believed that the October Revolution Soviet policy was cautious and essen wide, revolutionaries still hoped that its was the gate to the future of world tially defensive, even after the stunning contradictions and those of its inter history have been shown to be wrong. victories won by the Red Army in world national system made it vulnerable - What was wrong about Lincoln Stef- war two. Khrushchev, unlike Stalin, perhaps one day fatally vulnerable - fens' 'I have seen the future and it took risks and lost his job for it. What and that marxists, or at any rate social works', was not that it failed to work. It ever Brezhnev wanted to do, spreading ists, would provide the alternative to it. worked in a rackety way, and it has communism all over the world, let alone If communist power did not look like great and in some cases astonishing 19 MARXISM TODAY OCTOBER 1990 achievements to its credit. But it turned ('plan' became a buzz-word across the players; the Yalta agreement which in out not to be the future. And when its Western political spectrum), or that practice demarcated each superpower's time came, at least in eastern Europe, even socialists could have sincerely be zone in Europe, from which neither everyone including its rulers knew this, lieved that their economies would out tried to break out; and, eventually, the and it collapsed like a house of cards. produce the Western system. In the unquestionable prosperity and stability days of the Great Slump it did not seem of the developed capitalist countries How did it happen that the fear, or the absurd at all. which eliminated the possibility, let hope, or the mere fact of October 1917 On the contrary, what was entirely alone the likelihood, of social revolution dominated world history for so long, unexpected, not least by governments in this region. Outside Europe major and so profoundly, that not even the and businessmen anxious about post wars (without nuclear weapons) were coldest of cold-war ideologists expected war ruin and possible depressions, was not, of course, eliminated. the sudden, virtually unresisted disin the extraordinary surge of global eco ost important of all, capi tegration of 1989? It is impossible to nomic growth after the second world talism learned the domes understand this, ie, the entire history of war. This turned the third quarter of the tic lessons of its age of our century, unless we remember that present century into the all-time golden crisis, both in economics the old world of global capitalism and age of capitalist development: the 'Thir and in politics. It gave up the sort of bourgeois society in its liberal version ty Glorious Years' in the French phrase. free-market liberalism which Rea- collapsed in 1914, and for the next 40 So unexpected was it, that the existence ganite America and Thatcherite Bri years capitalism stumbled from one of this super-boom was only slowly rec tain, alone among developed Western catastrophe to the next. Even intelligent ognised, even by those who benefited countries, have tried to restore in the conservatives would not take bets on its 'For the time from it - 'You never had it so good' did 1980s. (Both, not coincidentally, are survival. being there not become a British political slogan capitalist economies on the slide.) The A simple list of the earthquakes that until 1959 - and was fully recognised original stimulus for this change was shook the world during this period is is no part of only in retrospect, after the boom had almost certainly political.