Marxism Today February 1981 31 MAURICE CORNFORTH say apologetic, for the theories and politics Greg McLennan writes: Maurice Cornforth, associated with Stalin's brand of Soviet Com- the British Communist philosopher, died on munism. Here, the ability to popularise the last day of 1980 after a long illness. He was cannot be praised independently of what it is 71. As a Communist intellectual, Cornforth that is being transmitted, and in this sense throughout his life and work strove to Dialectical Materialism has been a mixed combine very different qualities: those of the achievement. theorist, but also those of the political Whilst the faults of Dialectical Materialism activist. At Cambridge, Cornforth attended are very much bound up with the beliefs and to Wittgenstein, Moore, and Braithwaite, experience of a whole generation of Com- but also formed a Communist Party group, munists, rather than being simply the addressed meetings of workers, and helped oversights of an individual, Cornforth conduct the fight against unemployment in became increasingly aware of the difficulties the town. As a full-time party secretary in in being a 'party philosopher'. As an East Anglia in the 1930s, then as director of individual, one of his distinctive character- Lawrence and Wishart, he still managed to istics was the willingness and ability to wrestle with and criticise the dominant non- reappraise his own work and beliefs in the Marxist philosophical traditions. search for a consistent and honest One measure of Cornforth's success as philosophical position. Cornforth was, in both specialist and populariser is that his fact, a ceaseless 'revisionist'. By this term no introductory 'trilogy' to Marxism, Dialectical necessary political direction is implied, Materialism, has sold in great numbers since political strategy. But it is important to add though he came to adopt a 'Eurocommunist' its publication in 1951. For many party that success and failure cannot be measured stance, notably in his last book, Communism activists, that book provided a first oppor- simply in terms of copies sold or read. As and Philosophy. But his first, and impressive tunity to seriously reflect upon the general Cornforth allowed on several later occasions, work, Science v Idealism, was severely re- principles underlying Marxist analysis and some of his work was too reverential, not to done in 1950 as In Defence of Philosophy — a.