EDITORIAL PERSPECTIVES (continued)
The instability of the situation called for an authoritarian resolution: the Bonaparte presidency,
the curtailing of universal (male) suffrage, the evisceration of the Parisian National Guard, etc., etc.,
leading to the December 2, 1851 coup, the dissolution of the National Assembly, and the "election" of
Bonaparte as Emperor Napoleon III exactly one year later, on December 2, 1852.
The mass activity-consciousness cycle thus constitutes a defining dynamic on a shorter time frame
than that appropriate for evolution of the mode of production as such. An analogy with the 20th-century experience, of a worldwide popular political wave launched by the Russian Revolution,
enhanced by the Great Depression, and then reversed in the post-World War II decades (in what we
may eventually come to call the "capitalist restoration") is clearly suggested.5
A final thought. Commentators on 18B often seem not to have placed it in a context of Marx's
thinking about the recent political events overall, of his (and Engels') assessment of the state of
advancement of the working class and conditions for socialist revolution. As is well known, Marx and
Engels were caught up in the euphoria of the 1848 explosions across Europe; 1852 was a moment, if
ever there was one, to reevaluate their earlier position in light of the retreat of the democratic forces
and the re-entrenchment of monarchies and absolutist regimes. There are periods like this, of
prolonged capitalist consolidation -- much as Marx and Engels in their time and we in ours would
prefer something else! The Eighteenth Brumaire signals Marx's decisive turn to political economy:
forthcoming sesquicentennial celebrations will focus on the Grundrisse, the Critique, and Capital. But it
also is his attempt to develop the analytical tools to grasp periods of reversal and retrenchment, within
an overall historical materialist framework. Again, the general relevance for the 20th and early 21st
centuries is obvious. The precise application to present-day conditions remains, of course, a matter for
continuing inquiry.
IN THIS ISSUE
The present period of capitalist reversal-and-retrenchment has witnessed a resurgence of intellectual
defenses of inequality. These reproduce the classical tale of inexorable tradeoff between equality, on
the one hand, and a series of presumably valuable social assets, on the other: individual freedom,
initiative, dynamism, growth. Without multimillionaires and billionaires -- so the story goes -- no
material progress, no spice of life. The giant who steals the golden eggs is portrayed as the goose who
lays them.
Now economist Yanis Varoufakis, in his study "Against Equality," compares one recent version of
this position to a sophisticated liberal reply, which accepts the notion of a tradeoff between freedom
and justice and seeks the optimal position along it. Varoufakis' conclusion may be unsettling to some
readers: the right-wing defense of inequality offers more of value to the left than does the well-meaning and sophisticated but misguided attempt by liberals to defend a measure of equality by
accepting the right's premises. In urging us to attack the tradeoff itself, rather than trying to maximize
along it, Varoufakis provides a critical introduction to the thinking of John Rawls, Amartya Sen, and
other recent contributors to the debates on equality. His study resonates well with Alan Carling's
review essay on Bowles and Gintis, Recasting Egalitarianism (S&S, Fall 2002), and has important
implications for the ongoing "socialism" discussion.
The debate about globalization and the transnational ruling class (see William I. Robinson and
Jerry Harris, Spring 2000, and the resulting symposium, Winter 2001-2002) continues to develop, and
future issues will return to this vital topic. Here one of the participants in the symposium, Robert
Went, offers a fuller statement of his position ("Globalization in the Perspective of Imperialism"). The
current phase of accumulation, increasingly liberated from governmental controls, represents a
return, in some ways, to the classical imperialism of the pre-World War I period. But not in all ways.
Went argues that the unprecedented development of cross-border links among capitals has shifted the
focus from military to economic rivalry. There are three models of possible future development: USA
dominance, rival blocs, and an international state; Went finds that at present there is no basis for
porting one of these scenarios over the others.
The publication of Kate Weigand's Red Feminism: American Communism and the Making of Women's
Liberation has stimulated a wide-ranging discussion, not least because of her striking central theme: for
all of its limitations and problems, the Communist Party USA was the crucible for significant work,
both theoretical and practical, by women who developed our understanding of the oppressions visited
upon women in capitalist society and of the pathways to liberation from these oppressions. These
women served as a vital bridge between the feminist movement of the early 20th century and the
"third-wave" feminism beginning around 1970.
We are therefore honored to present "Red Feminism: A Symposium," organized, edited and
introduced by S&S Editorial Board member Lise Vogel. Marxist historians and feminists Rosalyn
Baxandall, Gerald Horne, Dorothy Healey (via an interview with Van Gosse), and Bettina Aptheker
offer critical examinations of aspects of Weigand's work. Their contributions are followed by
Weigand's response. This discussion achieves a new intensity at the intersection of the personal and
the political, and sharp issues are raised, especially concerning the nature and role of the CPUSA in
the 1940s and 50s but also in later periods (not the focus of Weigand's study). Was the Communist
Party the site for work on women's issues only because it was the only game in town, and were the
pioneering women who did this work at mid-century eventually forced to leave? Or was the Party and
its program an essential contributory factor? We expect further contributions to this discussion in
future issues.
Finally, we present an important historical document, also from the history of the U. S. left but
this time by the actual participants. The Communication by Albert Vetere Lannon and Marvin Rogoff,
"We Shall Not Remain Silent: Building the Anti-Vietnam War Movement in the House of Labor,"
recounts their joint struggle, from the late 1960s until the end of the war in 1976, to develop trade
union antiwar activism and to bring the participation of labor into the general antiwar movement.
Their narrative is important for at least three reasons. First, participation from labor was uniquely
important in building antiwar consciousness in broad sectors of U. S. society, where the campus-based
organizations could not reach as effectively. Second, the growing role of labor in opposition to the
Vietnam War helped break the choke-hold of reactionary cold-war forces at the upper layers of the
AFL-CIO -- a rupture that bore significant fruit years later. And finally, the labor voice against the war
destroyed the "hard hat" myth, that workers were monolithically aligned with the imperialist assault
against Vietnam. It might also be mentioned that Lannon and Rogoff, coming from different
traditions on the left, embody in their collaboration a vital task for the future: overcoming the classic
20th-century divide between a left that engaged with the concrete and problematic tasks of actually
building the new out of the old, and a left that sought to maintain the purity of socialist ideals against
the enormously corrupting weight of the old.
D. L.
___________________
1 A conference to mark this anniversary was held at Tulane University in New Orleans, April 13-14, 2002. Information,
abstracts and full texts of some of the papers are available at http://info.bris.ac.uk/~potfc/brumaire/welcome.htm.
2 For readers who never knew, or have forgotten (and would be embarrassed to ask): "Brumaire" is the name of one of the 12
30-day months in the calendar installed by the French Revolution. The revolutionary year began with the month of Vendémiaire
(the "vintage month"), whose first day is the Autumnal Equinox, or September 23 in the familiar reckoning. The 18th day of
Brumaire (month two, "the month of fogs") thus corresponds to November 9, 1799 (year eight of the revolutionary calendar),
the date of the original coup d'etat of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Calling the coup engineered by the great Napoleon's nephew Louis Bonaparte, on December 2, 1851, that nephew's
"eighteenth Brumaire" is an ironic figure of speech, a sarcasm. The 1928 International Publishers edition of 18B, to which I am
referring, contains a full description of the calendar, a chronology, and a glossary, all of which appear to have stood the test of
time.
3 This subsequently took shape as "Modes of Production and Theories of Transition," S&S, Fall 1984.
4 Readers are referred to the S&S special Issue on the French Revolution (Fall, 1990), for a full discussion.
5 See the important study by Jerry Lemcke, "Why 50 Years? Working-Class Formation and Long Economic Cycles," S&S,
Winter 1991-92, which links what I am calling the "activity-consciousness cycle" to the "long waves" in economic activity that
observers since Kondratieff have perceived. I am not so certain about either the existence of long waves or the linking of the
activity-consciousness cycle to intergenerational dynamics, but all that is another story.
"Capitalist restoration" here should not, of course, be taken to imply that the capitalist class ever lost state power (as opposed
to strategic control) in the "First World."
