Caesarism
Calling card
Campsfield House
Catch-All Party
Catholicism, Gramsci on
Church of Rome and the kingdom of the fairies, a
comparison between the
Clarke, Alan
Class Struggle
Clause Four of the Labour Party Constitution
Coit Tower
Communism
Comrade Turtle
Cones Hotline, the
Crime de Monsieur Lange, Le
Critique of the Gotha Programme, The
Crosland,
Tony
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Caesarism
Although Karl Marx
was scathing about the notion of "Caesarism" in his preface
to the second edition of the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon,
Antonio Gramsci made an interesting attempt to retheorise this concept
in his Prison Notebooks
(see especially pp.219ff of the Selections from the Prison Notebooks).
Although similar in many ways to the more familiar notion of Bonapartism,
there are also significant differences. Marxists tend to link the idea
of "Bonapartism" to the political autonomy of the state that
can be the result of a deadlock in the class struggle. Gramsci does
not follow this line of analysis, and explicates his idea as follows:
"Caesarism
can be said to express a situation in which the forces to conflict
balance each other in a catastrophic manner; that is to say, they
balance each other in such a way that a continuation of the conflict
can only terminate in their reciprocal destruction. When the progressive
force A struggles with the reactionary force B, not only may A defeat
B or B defeat A, but it may happen that neither A nor B defeats the
other - that they bleed each other mutually and then a third force
C intervenes from outside, subjugating what is left of both A and
B. In Italy, after the death of Lorenzo il Magnifico, this is precisely
what occurred."
Gramsci distinguishes
between different forms, suggesting that "Caesar and Napoleon I
are examples of progressive Caesarism. Napoleon III and Bismarck of
reactionary Caesarism." In the former cases, the Caesar fashions
a "fusion and assimilation" of the opposing social and political
forces "after a molecular process".Thus he comes to "represent
the historical phase of passage from one type of State to another type".
The reactionary kind of Caesar, by contrast, also intervenes during
a crisis of the regime, but in such a way that there can be an "evolution"
of the state "along unbroken lines".
"The catastrophic
phase may be brought about by a "momentary" political deficiency
of the traditional dominant force, and not by any necessarily insuperable
organic deficiency. This was true in the case of Napoleon III. The
dominant force in France from 1815 up to 1848 had split politically
(factiously) into four camps: legitimists, Orleanists, Bonapartists,
Jacobin-Republicans. The internal faction struggle was such as to
make possible the advance of the rival force B (progressive) in a
precocious form; however, the existing social form had not yet exhausted
its possibilities for development, as subsequent history abundantly
demonstrated."
Gramsci inisists
that there can be "Caesarism" without a strong leader, and
that all parliamentary coalition regimes have something of the Caesarist
about them. Although control of the military was traditionally important
for Caesarist rulers, he suggests that the control of other modern political
institutions can be an effective substitute today. Thus he can identify
Ramsay MacDonald a kind of Caesar, especially after he broke with the
Labour Party to form the National Governments of 1931. Gramsci also
deploys the category to analyse the rise of Italian fascism, which is
seen as a process from 1922 to 1926 in which "various gradations
of Caesarism succeeded each other, culminating in a more pure and permanent
form". Finally, Gramsci argues that the importance of the Dreyfus
Affair in France was that by uniting and strengthening the Republican
Left, a Caesarist "solution" to the political impasse of the
Third Republic may have been averted.
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Calling
card
From the Big
Soviet Encyclopaedia (3rd ed., English version, v.5 p.68):
"A documents
that informs of a visit, widely used in diplomatic protocol. The card
bears the title, name, position of its owner, and sometimes his address
and telephone number. The head of a Soviet diplomatic embassy can
also have a calling card on which only the words "Ambassador
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" or "Envoy of
the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" are printed..."
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Campsfield
House
Campsfield House
is one of the British Government's major Immigration Detention Centres,
and one that is managed for profit by the Group 4 security company.
Six miles north of Oxford, in Kidlington, it has been in operation since
November 1993, before which it was a youth detention facility. It usually
holds around 200 detainees, generally people who have arrived in Britain
seeking asylum, often from strife-torn parts of Africa. Many are fleeing
torture; almost all are black. Both Amnesty International and the Medical
Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture have expressed serious
concerns at what goes at Campsfield House, and successive Chief Inspectors
of Prisons -- Stephen Tumin and David Ramsbotham -- have sharply criticised
the more arbitrary aspects of British immigration policy after visiting
the site.
On 20 August 1997
a riot caused extensive damage to the building. Nine detainees, three
of whom were teenagers, were charged with offences that could have landed
them with ten-year jail sentences. When the case came to court in June
1998, it collapsed after 11 days as Group 4 prosecution witnesses were
found to be lying, contradicting one another's testimony, or admitting
to the court that the evidence they were giving was unreliable. Notoriously,
the Group 4 officer in charge of "Control and Restraint" was
shown on video dragging a detainee by the neck in what looked like a
strangulation hold, something he had specifically denied doing to the
court.
Home Office Minister
Mike O'Brien -- who recently extended Group 4's contract to run Campsfield
for a further three years -- has expressed the hope "that unfair
criticism of Group 4 staff by protest groups will now cease".
The Turtle salutes
The Campaign to Close Campsfield!
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Catch-All
Party
The idea of the
Catch-All Party was elaborated by Otto Kirchheimer in "The Transformation
of the Western European Party Systems" and published in 1966 shortly
after his death. It is one of those rare political science essays that
remains worth reading thirty years after it was written. The transformation
in question was from what Kirchheimer called "mass integration"
to "catch-all" parties over the course of the twentieth century.
The "mass integration" parties were the pre-World War I socialist
parties (also, perhaps, the Zentrum and the PPI), which organised and
integrated armies of new working-class voters into the structures of
European political competition during the wrenching industrialisation
of European societies. The "catch all" parties are the large
postwar political parties which have tries to move beyond their original
sectional or class appeal to become "people's" parties in
a bid to maximise electoral support. In making the transition from one
model to the other, Kirchheimer highlights five common elements of the
transformation: a "drastic reduction of the party's ideological
baggage", the "strengthening of top leadership groups",
"the downgrading of the role of the individual party member",
the "de-emphasis of the classe gardée, specific social-class
or denominational clientele", and the "securing [of] access
to a variety of interest groups". Kirchheimer's analysis remains
pertinent: all five elements are clearly visible in, for example, the
recent "New Labour" project, and parties which declined a
"catch all" identity when he wrote in the 1960s are now trying
to claim one, for example the PCI/PDS in Italy.
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Catholicism,
Gramsci on
Antonio Gramsci
may have a point when he writes:
"In reality,
when we ask ourselves 'what is a man?', what importance do his will
and his concrete activity have in creating himself and the life he
lives? what we mean is: is Catholicism a correct conception of the
world and of life? As Catholics, making Catholicism a norm of life,
are we making a mistake or are we right? Everyone has a vague feeling
that when they make Catholicism a norm of life they are making a mistake,
to such an extent that nobody attaches himself to Catholicism as a
norm of life, even when
calling himself a Catholic. An intergral Catholic, one, that is, who
applied the Catholic norms in every act of his life, would seem a
monster. Which, when you come to think about it, is the severest and
most
preremptory criticism of Catholicism itself."
[Source:
Antonio Gramsci, "The Study of Philosophy" in Selections
from the Prison Notebooks, p351, New York: International Publishers,
1971.]
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Church
of Rome and the kingdom of the fairies, a comparison between the
Thomas Hobbes usefully
drew attention to the strong similarities that obtain between the Roman
Catholic Church and the kingdom of the fairies in the closing pages
of his Leviathan of 1651. Quentin Skinner helpfully tells us
that the rhetorical device employed in the ninth paragraph below is
called "aposiopesis".
"... [F]rom
the time that the Bishop of Rome had gotten to be acknowledged for
Bishop Universal, by pretence of Succession to St. Peter, their whole
Hierarchy, or Kingdom of Darkness, may be compared not unfitly to
the Kingdom of Fairies...
"The Fairies in what Nation soever they converse have but one
Universal King, which some Poets of ours call King Oberon; but the
Scripture calls Beelzebub, Prince of Demons. The Ecclesiastics likewise,
in whose Dominions soever they be found, acknowledge but one Universal
King, the Pope.
"The Ecclesiastics are Spiritual men and Ghostly Fathers. The
Fairies are Spirits and Ghosts. Fairies and Ghosts inhabit Darkness,
Solitudes, and Graves. The Ecclesiastics walk in Obscurity of Doctrine,
in Monasteries, Churches, and Churchyards.
"The Ecclesiastics have their Cathedral Churches; which, in what
Town soever they be erected, by virtue of Holy Water, and certain
Charms called Exorcisms, have the power to make those Towns, Cities,
that is to say, Seats of Empire. The Fairies also have their enchanted
Castles, and certain Gigantic Ghosts, that domineer over the Regions
round about them.
"The Fairies are not to be seized on, and brought to answer for
the hurt they do. So also the Ecclesiastics vanish away from the Tribunals
of Civil Justice.
"The Ecclesiastics take from young men the use of Reason, by
certain Charms compounded of Metaphysics, and Miracles, and Traditions,
and Abused Scripture, whereby they are good for nothing else but to
execute what they command them. The Fairies likewise are said to take
young Children out of their Cradles, and to change them into Natural
Fools, which Common people do therefore call Elves, and are apt to
mischief.
"In what Shop or Operatory the Fairies make their Enchantment,
the old Wives have not determined. But the Operatories of the Clergy
are well enough known to be the Universities, that received their
Discipline from Authority Pontifical.
"When the Fairies are displeased with any body, they are said
to send their Elves to pinch them. The Ecclesiastics, when they are
displeased with any Civil State, make also their Elves, that is, Superstitious,
Enchanted Subjects, to pinch their Princes, by preaching Sedition;
or one Prince, enchanted with promises, to pinch another.
"The Fairies marry not; but there be amongst them Incubi that
have copulation with flesh and blood. The Priests also marry not.
"The Ecclesiastics take the Cream of the Land, by Donations of
ignorant men that stand in awe of them, and by Tithes: so also it
is in the Fable of Fairies, that they enter into the Dairies, and
Feast upon the Cream, which they skim from the Milk.
"What kind of Money is current in the kingdom of fairies is not
recorded in the Story. But the Ecclesiastics in their Receipts accept
of the same Money that we do; though when they are to make any Payment,
it is in Canonizations, Indulgences, and Masses.
"To this and such like resemblances between the Papacy and the
Kingdom of Fairies may be added this, that as the Fairies have no
existence but in the Fancies of ignorant people, rising from the Traditions
of old Wives or old Poets: so the Spiritual Power of the Pope (without
the bounds of his own Civil Dominion) consisteth only in the Fear
that Seduced people stand in of their Excommunications, upon hearing
of false Miracles, false Traditions, and false Interpretations of
the Scripture..."
[From:
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter 47]
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Clarke, Alan
Much like his predecessor
Humphrey Jennings, Alan Clarke
(1935-1990) was a great British film-maker who died shockingly early
and who never achieved anything like the recognition his work undoubtedly
deserved during his lifetime. Like Jennings, Clarke spent much of his
career working in an unglamorous, underpublicised field, in his case
that of television drama. A lifelong socialist, Clarke specialised in
realistic, often aggressively confrontational productions that shone
a spotlight on people usually marginalised or stereotyped by mainstream
culture, exemplified by the intelligent, articulate but viciously racist
and antisocial skinhead Trevor (Tim Roth) in Made in Britain
(1983), the yuppie soccer hooligan Bex (Gary Oldman) in The Firm
(1988) and above all the Borstal "daddy" Carlin (Ray Winstone)
in Scum (1977 and 1979, the latter a cinema remake of the original
banned BBC production).
But Clarke's range
was far wider than his best-known work suggests, including two outstanding,
almost abstract studies of the Northern Ireland "Troubles"
(Contact (1984) and Elephant (1988), the latter reducing
the situation to a virtually narrative-free parade of killings in what
must be one of the most daringly experimental films ever broadcast by
the BBC), the raucous Northern comedy Rita, Sue and Bob Too!
(1986) and a quietly devastating adaptation of Jim Cartwright's play
Road (1987).
By this stage of
his career his style was unmistakable, a series of long, riveting Steadicam
shots of his characters' seemingly endless walks through bleak urban
landscapes, and for all the raucousness of the surface, there's a calm,
focused intensity about the best of Clarke's films that has led to seemingly
unlikely but surprisingly apposite comparisons with Robert Bresson,
austere master of the French cinema. Tragically, Clarke died of cancer
when preparing what could have been his international breakthrough -
a sadly unfilmed Battle of Algiers-inspired
drama about US government skullduggery called Assassination on Embassy
Row that is one of the great "if onlys" of political cinema.
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Class
Struggle
Class Struggle
was a 1970s board game, conceived as a socialist alternative to Monopoly,
in which players were randomly assigned to different classes and moved
around the board forming cross-class alliances, engaging in struggle,
and heading for one of two mutually exclusive destinations: Socialism
or Barbarism. The box sported a rather good photo-montage of Karl Marx
arm-wrestling Nelson Rockefeller. Improbably enough, a photograph exists
of Helmut Kohl at the 1980 Frankfurt Book Fair holding a boxed set of
Klassenkampf, the German edition of the game. Class Struggle
was designed and manufactured by Bertell Ollman, a professor of politics
at New York University, who wrote an entertaining book about his experiences
as a Marxist businessman, Class Struggle is the Name of the Game,
published by William Morrow and Company, New York, in 1983.
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Clause
Four of the Labour Party Constitution
Old Labour:
"To secure
for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry
and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon
the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution
and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration
and control of each industry or service."
New Labour:
"The Labour
Party is a democratic socialist party.
"It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour, we
achieve more than we achieve alone so as to create for each of us
the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community
ion which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many
not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe,
and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance
and respect.
"To these ends we work for: a dynamic economy, serving the public
interest, in which the enterprise of the market and the rigour of
competition are joined with the forces of partnership and co-operation
to produce the wealth the nation needs and the opportunity for all
to work and prosper, with a thriving private sector and high quality
public services, where those undertakings essential to the common
good are either owned by the public or accountable to them; a just
society, which judges its strength by the condition of the weak as
much as the strong, provides security against fear, and justice at
work; which nurtures families, promotes equality of opportunity and
delivers people from the tyranny of poverty, prejudice and the abuse
of power; an open democracy, in which government is held to account
by the people; decisions are taken as far as practicable by the communities
they affect; and where fundamental human rights are guaranteed; a
healthy environment, which we protect, enhance and hold in trust for
future generations.
"Labour is committed to the defence and security of the British
people, and to co-operating in European institutions, the United Nations,
the Commonwealth and other international bodies to secure peace, freedom,
democracy, economic security and environmental protection for all.
Labour will work in pursuit of these aims with trade unions, co-operative
societies and other affiliated organisations, and also with voluntary
organisations, consumer groups and other representativebodies.
"On the basis of these principles, Labour seeks the trust of
the people to govern."
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Coit
Tower
The Coit Tower stands
in San Francisco, and is home to some fine Socialist Murals.
Lillie Hitchcock
Coit (1844-1929) led an interesting life. Since her teenage years she
had been extremely interested in fire engines, and for many years was
the mascot of the Knickerbocker Engine Company #5, whose uniform she
possessed and was fond of wearing. She also dressed up as a man in order
to stay out late at night, smoke cigars and play poker. She married
Howard Coit in1863, and after he died in 1885, she left for Paris, where
she spent most of the rest of her life, before returning to San Francisco
to die. Her will left a sum of money "to add to the beauty of the
city I have always loved", and in 1933 $125,000 was spent building
the Coit Tower, on top of Telegraph Hill overlooking the San Fransisco
Bay. The architect, Henry Howard, designed a distinctive fluted tower,
which many thought looked, appropriately enough, like the nozzle of
a fire hose.
Starting in January
1934, 3,691 square feet of murals were painted on the inside walls of
the Tower, funded by the Public Works of Art project, an early New Deal
federal programme. The artists - twenty six of them, with nineteen assistants
- worked in remarkable harmony on their various panels, which depict
scenes of urban, industrial and agricultural life in modern California
in the style of the Mexican painter Diego Rivera, in whose studio several
of the artists had worked.
A series of striking
details in the frescoes mark the leftist leanings of the artists. A
copy of the Daily Worker sits on a newspaper stand, where the mainstream
San Francisco Chronicle is conspicuous by its absence, and Das Kapital
sits on the shelves in the library; armed guards protect the gold in
the bank; and a black man stands proudly at the front of what might
be a May Day demonstration. Newspaper headlines highlight the controversies
of 1934: industrial violence in San Francisco where striking dock-workers
were shot dead; and in New York a large painting of Lenin by Diego Rivera
had been destroyed by its counter-revolutionary owner.
The murals were
displayed to the public 20 October 1934, after remaining closed over
the summer while the city authorites decided whether they could be shown.
In the end, only one detail was suppressed: the only hammer and sickle
motif was painted out. The Tower has remained open to the public ever
since, except for a lengthy closure between 1960 and 1977 when extensive
restoration work was undertaken.
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Communism
In Lenin's formulation,
from his report of December 22, 1920, to the Eighth Congress of Soviets,
"Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole
country".
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Comrade
Turtle
A mode of address
suitable for all those who have ever written for The Voice of the
Turtle, in either of its paper or on-line incarnations. The full
list of Comrades Turtle can be found here.
The term was coined in Turtle #2 (Summer 1993, p.13) by Sasha
Abramsky. The official politically correct formulation is "Socially-Enlightened
Laterally-Advantaged Marine Reptile".
Not to be confused
with 'Comrade Tortoise', an elected official of the Junior Common Room
at Balliol College, Oxford, charged with the physical and ideological
training of the College Tortoise, Rosa Luxemburg, for the annual Inter-Collegiate
Tortoise Race against various bourgeois reptiles.
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Cones
Hotline, the
John Major never
had a Five Year Plan, but he did have a Cones Hotline. The "Road
User's Charter" boldly announced that "where roadworks are
temporarily suspended or no work is in progress, we aim to remove the
cones when it is safe and practical to do so", but prudently warned
that "there will be some cases in which this is not possible, for
example where road materials are hardening." To make the ordinary
motorist an integral part of this important state project, a telephone
hotline was set up, on 0345 50 40 30, billed at local rates.
Having been launched
with much publicity in June 1992, the Cones Hotline was quietly disbanded
in September 1995. Nevertheless, calling the same number will now get
you the Highways Agency Information Line, and the Turtle believes that
you can still report your cones-induced Angst to the person who
answers the phone. There has been a change of mood, however, and it
is clear that meeting cone-reduction quotas is no longer integral to
the Government's self-esteem.
Assessing the exact
cost of the Cones Hotline is difficult, as running and staffing costs
were billed to a variety of different agencies at different times. We
do know the hotline cost £20,000 to run in the last six months
of its life, and that between June 1992 and September 1995 it fielded
a magnificent 19,500 calls. Regrettably, only a minority of these concerned
cones. It is not clear whether the Cones Hotline was a uniquely British
phenomenon. The French have a Centre National d'Information Routière,
which operates an information line service, and the Turtle would be
interested to know if this is a similar endeavour.
Research for this
Dictionary entry revealed that the British government does not
keep central records of how many traffic cones are stolen every year.
Perhaps it should begin.
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Crime
de Monsieur Lange, Le
(directed by Jean
Renoir, France, 1936, 84 mins, starring Jules Berry, Rene Lefevre, Odette
Florelle, Sylvia Bataille)
An absolute delight
from beginning to end, this French comedy marked the only collaboration
between twentieth-century giants Jacques Prévert (writer) and
Jean Renoir (director) -- apparently Renoir was rather too fond of improvisation
for someone of Prévert's more classical sensibility. But it's
the spontaneity and freshness that makes what could have been a rather
simplistically didactic fable so irresistible -- it's easy to see how
the story (evil capitalist Batala being forced to flee his publishing
company after his debt-ridden past catches up with him, whereupon his
formally downtrodden workforce turn the business into a co-operative
and transform both its and their fortunes through the joys of collective
labour) could have been drearily one-note and heavy-handed, like a bad
Soviet propaganda piece. Renoir's generosity shines through every frame,
and he commendably resists what must have been an overwhelming temptation
to turn Batala into a stock caricature - in the hands of Jules Berry,
he's a roguish charmer, and it's all too easy to see how he managed
to beguile both creditors and mistresses into eating out of his hand.
Truth be told, he's a lot more persuasive than René Lefèvre's
sleepy, Stan Laurel-like writer Monsieur Lange (creator of the immortal
"Arizona Jim"), though the latter unquestionably has moral
rightness on his side when he has to deal with the awful prospect of
Batala's return. The film is as stirring today as it was in 1935 --
at least three Voice of the Turtle contributors can attest to
recent repertory screenings ending in spontaneous applause, and not
just from them.
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Critique
of the Gotha Programme, The
The Critique
of the Gotha Programme is the last major political text of Marx's
writing career. In 1875 the two major socialist groups in Germany, the
German Socialist Workers' Party (SDAP) and the Lassallean General Association
of German Workers (ADAV), merged to form what would soon become the
Social Democrats' Party (SPD, and the very same party that now dominates
the German government). Before the unity congress in Gotha, Marx was
sent the draft version of the proposed party platform, one that reflected
the influence of Ferdinand Lassalle far more than Marx liked. In the
Critique, Marx tore into the proposed "mission statement"
of the new party, although only minor changes were mde to the final
text of the Gotha Programme which
was adopted by the Congress. Marx eventually had his way, however, and
over the next generation the party was thoroughly Marxified, becoming
the major Marxist force in European politics.
The text takes the
form of paragraph-by-paragraph commentary. Marx lists each clause of
the draft Gotha Programme, and outlines his objections to the argument
he finds there. Seemingly innocuous socialist pieties are subjected
to merciless criticism, including the claim that labour is the source
of all wealth, the idea of a just distribution, or the aspiration for
a free state and universal public education ("The state has need,
on the contrary, of a very stern education by the people"!). And
as Marx demolishes the Gotha Programme, he also lays out parts of his
own vision of the socialist future, returning to the notion of the Dictatorship
of the Proletariat, and presenting a two-stage model of socialism in
which the first phase is a stepping stone to the moment when "the
springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly", when "labour
is the prime necessity of life", and when "the narrow horizon
of bourgeois right [is] fully left behind" that that "society
[can] inscribe on its banner: From each according to ability! To each
according to need!"
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Crosland,
Tony (1918-1977)
From the days when
the Parliamentary Labour Party could field intellectuals rather more
impressive than Denis MacShane, Crosland was perhaps the most interesting
figure on the post-Gaitskell Labour right. Though usually tagged a 'revisionist'
(which chimed in well with his rather disparaging self-description as
'the second Bernstein'), Crosland propounded a vision of socialism that
would put him unimaginably to the Left of the current government (and
the Turtle can imagine a great deal to the left of the present government.)
His political project was defined by a wish to recast socialism as an
ethically-propelled set of political ideals, devoid of the traditional
Marxian teleology, and much of its jargon. This is a project not unlike
that associated with latter-day academic 'analytical Marxists'. Crosland,
we might say, was Jerry Cohen avant la lettre.
For Crosland, what
socialism was about was equality -- and the Labour Party was missing
the point insofar as it concerned itself too much with issues of public
ownership at the expense of this core value. Crosland, it should be
noted, advocated more than the toothless 'equality of opportunity' of
John Smith's Commission on Social Justice - he wanted a thoroughgoing
transformative equality that looked to overthrow traditional patterns
of status, privilege and wealth in British society. (On becoming Education
Secretary, Crosland announced that his aim was to "destroy every
fucking grammar school in the country.") The classic statement
of this position comes in his 1956 book The Future of Socialism, which
is a cracking little book. (It is interesting to note that Labour politicians
of the consensus era were much better writers than their latter-day
automaton children. This was not just confined to those with a background
in the academy -- the solidly proletarian Nye Bevan's 'In Place of Fear'
is a really very under-rated little book, and Roy Jenkins's 1956 'The
Case for Labour' is a beast of a different colour to Tony Wright's 1997
version.) To see Crosland as a man of the right is, I think, mistaken.
He had a clear vision of what socialism really meant, and represents
one of the more interesting, and sadly lamented,faces of Old Labour.
Crosland -- a wonderfully
boozy, foul-mouthed bruiser, is also the source of some excellent anecdotes.
During his time in the Cabinet, he was at a party which he found so
horribly boring that he left the main reception, and lay down asleep,
full-stretch in the hallway. His lanky frame so blocked the passage,
that a young woman had to step over him to retrieve her coat from the
banister, and accidentally nudged him awake. "Hello Ugly!"
said Crosland. The young woman fled, wounded and crying, to find the
party's hostess, and to demand that this terrible ogre be ejected. "Who
is that beastly drunk man who just insulted me?" she inquired between
sobs. "That ..." said her hostess, "that is Her Majesty's
Secretary of State for Education".
Nor did Crosland
suffer fools gladly. When he decided to stand for the Labour leadership
on Wilson's unexpected retirement in 1976, he was visited by his disciple
Roy Hattersley, who wished to tell him that, in good conscience, he
could not vote for him, that he did not want Crosland to embarrass himself,
and that, for his own sake, he should withdraw his name from the nominations.
It would be hard to improve on Crosland's reply: "Fuck Off, Hattersley!"
Whilst in an anecdotal
vein, we must mention of Crosland's Cabinet colleague, George Brown,
for whom Private Eye coined the useful phrase "tired and
emotional". Whilst on a whistle-stop tour of South America, Brown
found himself at a British Embassy reception in Peru. Hearing the band
strike up and spotting a vision of loveliness, resplendent in a beautiful
red dress, across the ballroom, an spritely Brown crosses the room in
order to ask this apparition to dance with him. The reply was heroid:
"I shall not dance with you Mr Brown, for three reasons. Firstly,
you are drunk. Secondly, this song is the Peruvian National Anthem.
And thirdly, I am the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima."
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