The Idea Of Communism

I suppose it’s hardly surprising given recent events that Amazon should be awash with radical print. Depending on how you viewed the financial crisis in the first place, this is either the seizing of a golden opportunity or cynical publishers making hay while the sun shines before the inevitable retrenchment.

Tariq Ali’s “The Idea Of Communism” is, I expect, an example of the former. It’s a timely potted history and whilst there’s nothing new to me it’s a useful primer for anyone puzzled with how seemingly intelligent people (I flatter myself) can defend it. If I have any reservations it would only be with his conclusion that capitalist democracy was a long time coming and had its own dictators (Cromwell, Robespierre, Napoleon etc…) so we should anticipate similar setbacks in a transition to socialism. Whilst perfectly true, it is never the less troublesome. It seems to suggest the Stalinist excesses and denial of workers liberty in Russia and the satellite states were in some sense inevitable and therefore legitimate. I suppose if you cleave to the idea of Stalinist Russia being a workers state (albeit one of the Heinz’s varieties of degenerated / degenerate / deformed / with bureaucratic deformation etc…) you paint yourself into this corner. However, for someone with Ali’s impeccable anti-imperialist credentials it’s ironic that his position reminds me of the US’s defence of My Lai – In order to save the village we had to destroy it.

That aside, as a famous German playwright said “It’s a good thing for you, find out more about it”. This is as good a place to start as any.