The first thing the average socialist of a certain type do (and to maul a phrase by Sir Humphrey – I‘m a very average socialist) when they enter the home of a fellow left-winger is gravitate to the bookshelves. A quick scan to identify the political section and then a stock-take in the style of 90s football stickers. “Got, got, need to read, got, need to read, hang on is this my copy of Felix Morrow’s Revolution & Counter Revolution of Spain?”.
The socialist maxim “Educate. Agitate. Organise.” is in that order for a reason. Reading up on political matters has a long-established tradition within the Left (ILP publications, Left Book Club, innumerable papers) and there are signs of a resurgence with the relaunching of Tribune and the resurrection of Left Book Club to name but two.
Of course “doing the reading” can at times be a chore. Even the illustrious Aneurin Bevan (to whom this blog is dedicated) despite talking of the influence of Marx in his political outlook allegedly failed to get to grips with Karl’s most iconic text. Via Archie Lush (Bevan’s friend and comrade) we learn that “the first 27 pages of the Tredegar Library copy of Das Kapital were dirty, while the remainder of the pages remained clean” even future founders of the National Health Service can tire of the intricate dissection of the volume of linen and wage labour that goes into a coat*. Bevan has never felt so relatable. Fortunately there are other writings from which we can receive an education…
In Alan Bleasdale’s GBH (which is about a generic left-wing faction and definitely not Militant - in much the same way George Orwell’s Animal Farm is primarily concerned with how domesticated fauna approach agricultural mechanisation) Michael Palin’s Jim Nelson utters the following rebuke to the hard-left faithful:
“I’m talking [...] for all those who refuse to learn about life from manifestos and Marx and Das Kapital because that’s your problem for some of you boys isn’t it? You’ve only read one book. You must have read that book and thought right that’ll do for me that’s the book for me I know about life now. Why not read two books? Read three. Get a rounded view of life instead of the flat earth version. You may come to the same conclusions as you did reading that one book but is there any harm in knowing other things?”
“You’ve only read one book”. It’s a killer line. Righteous contempt in half-a-dozen syllables. It’s a great line but alas its dramatic hyperbole simultaneously overstates and understates its case. The Marxists of my acquaintance would never read just one book. The problem stems from reading multiple books which are mere echoes of one another – plenty of noise but no additional information. Which is not to say a single book cannot have a profound effect in and of itself…
Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia was the text that truly converted me to adopt the moniker of Socialist. Chronicling Orwell’s time fighting against fascist Spain as part of the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM). It is essentially a piece of travel writing discussing the mundanity of war as one seeks out warmth, food, shelter, and cigarettes. It’s just that amidst these activities there’s a chance you’ll get shot (by fascists or erstwhile comrades). A sort of Bill Bryson: Notes from a Revolutionary Country. Homage to Catalonia does little to shy away from the lack of glory involved in war (deaths are perfunctory and form punctuation to the afore mentioned mundanity) yet amidst it all there are moments of inspiration and elevation:
“The thing that attracts ordinary men to Socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it, the 'mystique' of Socialism, is the idea of equality; to the vast majority of people Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all.”
George Orwell remains high in my esteem (despite centrists and Liberals having sought to claim him as their own – with an alacrity alas absent from claiming their mistakes) although there are those on the Left who are unable to forgive Orwell’s infamous list. To which I can only reply: let he who hasn’t grassed up his friends to the state cast the first stone…
Aneurin Bevan’s In Place of Fear is of course the text to which I most refer (and will be the feature of at least one or more article in its own right). Simultaneously a defence of Nye’s actions and also fashioned as a weapon to be wielded in the cause of his socialist principles In Place of Fear is a work which in the words of Jennie Lee “remains urgently contemporary”. For me the key passage has always been as follows:
“The collective principle asserts that the resources of medical skill and the apparatus of healing shall be placed at the disposal of the patient, without charge, when he or she needs them; that medical treatment and care should be a communal responsibility that they should be made available to rich and poor alike in accordance with medical need and by no other criteria. It claims that financial anxiety in time of sickness is a serious hindrance to recovery, apart from its unnecessary cruelty. It insists that no society can legitimately call itself civilized if a sick person is denied medical aid because of lack of means.”
I believe this to be the Bevanite equivalent of John 3:16. A brief passage which is no substitute for the whole but serves to encapsulate the sentiment entire. Reading is no replacement for action but it can bolster the underpinnings for action and it can help articulate nascent thoughts.
Over the course of the next few months I’ll be adding a reading list/review section to We Need To Talk About Bevan. This will include works which I admire (e.g. In Place of Fear), works with which I have disagreement over their content with but are worth reading for the information they contain and the skill in the prose (e.g. Alastair Campbell Diaries), and works which I fundamentally remain at odds with for both their content and their prose (e.g. Tony Blair’s A Journey. Look if I had to read about how he mused on his political triumphs “Hadn't we impaled our enemies on our bayonet, like ripe fruit?” then you have to as well…).
In the interim the following texts are well worth a read if you find yourself wanting to know what makes We Need to Talk About Bevan tick (they are also going to be the first five texts reviewed).
In Place of Fear – Aneurin Bevan
Eleanor Marx: A Life – Rachel Holmes
The Crab Cannery Ship – Takiji Kobayashi
Beaten Down, Worked Up – Steven Greenhouse
Homage to Catalonia – George Orwell
*as a by the by this anecdote is gleaned from Nicklaus Thomas-Symond’s superlative biographical work NYE: The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan
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