Anti-communist history--motivated by ideology or greed?
Historian Robert Service has thrown a hissy fit about a negative review left for his new book on ‘Trotsky’ at Amazon.com. In his Guardian blog piece (I use the word blog deliberately, for it is just rambling, senile sounding babble for the most part) he seems most upset that his new Trotsky biog is not selling as well as he hoped, and blames Figes for this state of affairs. For those acquainted with Service’s work, and his seeming obsession with eliminating all trace of anything positive related to the Russian Revolution, this might signal something of the utterly cynical, properly capitalist motivation underlying his fanatical anti-communism. But is it this simple? Or, is it rather ideology at work?
I have noticed for a long time that a surefire way to top the history bestsellers list is to release ever more explosive exposes of the evils of communism. If any existing history has even a trace of positivity left in place then that is enough to prompt a new history shattering the myths. Arguably, this process has already reached its apex with ‘Mao: The Untold Story’ which takes its own bias and manifest hatred for its subject to such absurd lengths as wrap itself up in its own contradictions and undermine any convincing basis for how a Machiavellian scumbag/bumbling clown like Mao (as the authors would have us believe) could have attained power and keep it for so long. Perhaps, recently, Service has fallen victim to the trend which he played his part in promoting. Because next to these ever more biased histories, Service’s attempt to maintain something like a front of scholarly impartiality now seems almost quaint in the anti-communist publishing industry.
As for Service’s books, they are fairly uninspiring workman like tracts. At least Figes is an elegant stylist, if no less anti-communist in his more sophisticated way. Service also demonstrates a lack of clear thinking, which evidences itself in indulging such rightwing claptrap as claiming Islamism is the new Communism in his book Comrades. I suppose the question is how the likes of Service and Figes have come to totally dominate the Anglo-Saxon market for communist history? The easy answer—almost certainly true to a large extent—is ideology. That is, it suits the interests of the ruling ideology to promulgate anti-communist history. But I think it works in more subtle ways in cahoots with capitalism. The demand of the market always for new angles and spins on things promotes any publishing trend which promises to replace the old with the new. And it is here that the matrix of greed and ideology find their intersection. To a certain extent I do think that Service, Figes et al are motivated by a conservative ideology, but it is also the case that pushing this ideology has proved very lucrative—in terms of book sales and academic prestige.
From a communist perspective, the answer to all this is not to just criticise their bias or publish academic rejoinders such as ‘History and Revolution’ and ‘The Battle for China’s Past’, but rather what we need is a new generation of leftwing historians. What is needed is force. Leftwing historians pumping out new, interesting communist histories aimed at the mass market are necessary. Who, after all, are going to take the places of the Eric Hobsbawms when they are gone? Whilst the left retreats to the philosophy shelves—something I myself am certainly implicated in—the right monopolizes the historical imaginary of the general population.
‘What is needed is force. Leftwing historians pumping out new, interesting communist histories aimed at the mass market are necessary. Who, after all, are going to take the places of the Eric Hobsbawms when they are gone? Whilst the left retreats to the philosophy shelves—something I myself am certainly implicated in—the right monopolizes the historical imaginary of the general population.’
I agree with the general thrust of what you are saying, but sadly the right will always ‘monopolise the historical imaginary of the general population’ (especially on say, the Russian Revolution) outside of revolutionary situations – for the precise reason that if they did not then we would be in a revolutionary situation.
I do take slight issue with the idea that the solution is ‘Leftwing historians pumping out new, interesting communist histories aimed at the mass market’. The very nature of good leftwing history is that it takes time to do – with archival research etc – Eric Hobsbawm did not just pump out populist stuff for example. I once published on my blog an interesting piece by the historian Geoff Eley entitled ‘‘writing in opposition’ which might make for a better model of manifesto.
That said, there is a role for more populist left wing history aimed at a mass audience – one thinks of Chris Harman’s ‘A People’s History of the World’ for example. Again though, Harman did not write that when he was young – it was the culmination of a life’s work thinking about these questions…
I have no problem with the greats of leftwing history poring over the archives for decade upon decade and released sophisticated, scholarly works. Indeed, this is commendable.
However, part of force is simply just exerting as much influence as possible; and to a certain extent this does just come down to how much interesting material you can pump out. Zizek and Chomsky’s career is emblematic, in this regard at least, to how much influence can be accrued just by relentless publishing and touring. My point is we need historians of the left doing this in order to combat the right.
Thanks for the link! Looks interesting!
I agree-quantity must be factored into the equation, even at the expense of quality. What would new leftist historians be up against? rigorously researched pieces from the right? No, not at all. Anybody who has read what passes for bourgeois history will know the singular lack of archival research in most works covering what could be termed ‘modern history’. Niall Ferguson-as a dominant force of the right-has done no primary source work since his D.Litt! We do need more people to just pull their finger out and bash out the articles and popularised works, as a previous generation managed. Local radical/communist history groups could be a good way to stimulate such production, with even the possibility of having compendiums of articles produced for such groups published in book form.
Having thought about it a little more, I agree that there is definitely a need for more ‘quantity’. One good thing to do in your local area is to organise just a one-day ‘People’s History of X’ type conference – try and pull together the local/radical historians you have – this has worked well ina number of areas – and may lead to the formation of local groups. There are a number of labour history groups that do exist in various areas of the uk – see the links page of the ‘working class movement library’ in salford for example – young historians should try and revitalise such groups perhaps.
Generally speaking, the revival of radical history groups will only come, if they come at all, with the wider revival of a political and cultural socialist movement in this country – as in the 1970s with the History workshop movement.
Sorry – we could also learn from the example of the Americans, esp the late Howard Zinn and his supporters in terms of the relentless publishing of different forms of ‘Peoples History…’