Introducing this issue
Revolutionary Marxism has found itself under heavy attack in many countries in the last decade. In the majority of cases our antagonists have been familiar-reformists of all types and most particularly the Euro-communists. But the polemical weapons used have been less predictable. It has been a bitter paradox that on occasion these ideologists have used the work of two of the century's foremost revolutionaries, Antonio Gramsci and Rosa Luxemburg, as their ammunition. In this issue of International Marxist Review we continue the work of reclaiming the heritage of these epic figures for revolutionaries.
In Italy, the fiftieth anniversary of Gramsci's death was commemorated with the Communist Party printing half a million copies of a specially written book as a supplement to their paper Unità. Yet Livio Maitan argues that, as the PCI's project pushes further and further to the right (they now promote the West German SPD as a model for their party!), they find their claimed continuity with Gramsci increasingly embarrassing. Thus Natta, the PCI leader, has discovered that Gramsci was guilty of 'fundamentalist' errors, a familiar charge laid by the Party leadership against those on its left wing. But should this progressive abandonment by the Eurocommunists lead revolutionary Marxists to 'annex' Gramsci. Maitan argues that this would be a mistake. Gramsci's contribution cannot be so easily digested, not only because of the originality of his contribution, but also because of the undoubted errors which characterize some of his most important judgements. Maitan, provides a comprehensively critical review of the man's life and ideas while insisting on the completely revolutionary core of Gramsci's work.
Major new books, but probably more importantly Margarethe von Trotte's recent film Rosa, have brought Luxemburg's ideas alive for tens of thousands of radicalising young people. Yet these works perpetuate some of the misconceptions which have dogged her work. Writers such as Norman
Geras' have already begun the work of refuting the idea, widely held in and out of the revolutionary movement, that her ideas are incorrigibly flawed tribution to the discussion on the party and party organization. He rejects the use of her work made by anti-Bolshevik writers such as Robert Conquest, but also explores more deeply the perceptiveness of her views on the revolutionary organization and the consciousness of the vanguard.
The question of mass consciousness is at the centre of two essays on the question of religion that we carry in this issue. Michael Löwy's essay on liberation theology makes a contribution to a major discussion that has been going on for a number of years in Latin America, but whose repercussions are now being felt in most countries throughout the world. Löwy points out the tension in the Marxist treatment of religion from the celebrated
'opiate of the masses' to Engel's appreciation of the protest potential of religious phenomena, especially that of the rebellious Protestant sects. This tension is now manifesting itself within the Catholic Church in Latin
America. The foremost representative of the liberation theology trend,
Leonardo Boff, has issued a challenge to the Church as a whole. He argues that. 'ever since Theodosius founded the Christian state in AD 380 the
Church has been a Church for the poor but it has never been a Church of
. This type of challenge occasioned Boff's summoning to Rome to be faced with the accusation that he had 'borrowed from various currents of Marxist thought. Löwy agrees that there is substance to the charge, but also argues, controversially, that Marxists have something to learn from the liberation theologians. He concludes that the revolution in Latin America
As Salah Jaber points out in the introduction to his article on Islamic fundamentalism, the assessment of this phenomenon has been another issue of debate within the revolutionary Marxist movement. Jaber argues that the Shi'ite clergy came to lead the insurrectionary struggle against the Shah as a product of an exceptional combination of historical circumstances and that this misled revolutionary Marxists as to the fundamentally reactionary character of the Khomeini movement. The point is driven home further in an assessment of Islamic fundamentalism in series of other countries in-
The failure of a revolution can have as much impact and as many lessons as a victory. The repercussions of the horrible defeat of the Grenadian the poor'?.
4 International Marxist Review by 'fatalism' or 'determinism'
* will be made with Christians or not at all cluding Egypt, Pakistan and Syria.
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*
. Paul Le Blanc takes up Luxemburg's con-
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revolution continues to be a vital debate, not only in the Caribbean basin, but in all those countries where the labour movement concerned itself with solidarity with the New Jewel revolution. The terms of the debate have changed since the assassination of Maurice Bishop at the hands of supporters of Bernard Coard. At the beginning attempts were made by Stalinist parties in the region to exonerate Coard through putting the responsibility for the failure of the revolution squarely on the shoulders of Maurice Bishop. Today the burden of evidence is too heavy for this argument to carry any conviction. Another approach taken by such writers as Richard Hart, who under the guise of praising Bishop, argue that mistakes were made on both sides, effectively putting Bishop on the same plane as his assassins. In an exhaustive study of the chief developments in the revolution, Laurent Beaulieu refutes
We apologise to readers for a mistake in the previous issue which wrongly attributed the article by Claude Gabriel to Peter Blumer. We hope that production difficulties which led to this mistake and the journal's late production of the issue have now been overcome. For this issue we have had to increase the print run to meet demand, so we know we are meeting a real need. Please help us continue the work, by promptly renewing subscriptions and also maintaining the generous donations which have greatly assisted
1. Geras N., The Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg, (London: New Left Books, 1976).
2. Boff L., Church: Charism. and Power, (London: SCM Press, 1985), p. 11.
this new political assassination of Bishop.
* in establishing the journal.
Notes
Introducing this issue 5
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NOTEBOOKS FOR STUDY
THE SECOND volume of Pierre Rousset's study of the Chinese revolution, "The Maoist project tested in the struggle for power", is now available (NSR No. 3). It examines Maoist tactics as they emerged in three distinct periods. From 1932-36, the Chinese
CP was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the
Guomingdang armies and developed the concept and practice
1945-49, the CCP relied on a combination of action by its insurgent armies and complex political operations, including negotiations, calls for peace, land reform and student and trade
Together, the two volumes constitute one of the few overall
Marxist studies of the lessons of the Chinese revolution, an event that shook the world as profoundly as the Russian
NSR No. 1: "The place of Marxism in history", by Ernest Mandel.
"Revolutionary strategy today", by Daniel Bensaïd; "Class struggle and technological change in Japan since 1945", by
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of "protracted people's warfare". From 1937-45 it waged a national liberation war against the Japanese imperialist invasion, in a conflict-ridden alliance with the Guomingdang. Territorial dual power extended to 95 million people. From
", by Pierre Rousset. 32
LIVIO MAITAN Antonio Gramsci's