The Rest Is History - 38. Communism

Episode Date: March 29, 2021

It was one of the great political ideologies of the 20th century, vying with capitalism for supremacy. Now communism has retreated from the political mainstream having failed to create the utopia of a classless society. Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland discuss the origins of communism as a theory and the frequently repressive attempts to govern by its principles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is ther, the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre. So begins the Communist Manifesto, written in 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Welcome to The Rest Is History with me, Dominic Sandbrook, well-known Marxist, and my sidekick, wishy-washy Brixton centrist liberal Tom Holland. Hello, comrade.

Hello, comrade. So today we're talking about communism, the great political theory that dominated so much conversation in the late 19th and much of the 20th centuries. And actually looking back, Tom, when we were kids, communism and capitalism are locked in this genuine competition, so it seemed, for the hearts and minds of millions of people. I mean, when you survey the world, the map, I can remember those maps from my kind of childhood. The Soviet Union and all its satellite states, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia,and hungary east germany and so on you had in africa you had places like angola ethiopia mozambique you had afghanistan mongolia of course the people's republic of china which is still technically communist as are cuba vietnam and laos but there's been a huge falling off since then so do you think communism is is gone or is it

still with us i think it's such a potent idea and it won't surprise you to know why I think it's a potent idea. I can't wait for this. I think it has very, very deep roots and maybe we'll come to that. And I think that the guiding kind of ideal that it embodies, that all of humanity can be liberated and that all of humanity can share in an equal justice is one that has an obvious appeal. And I guess that when we talk about communism, we tend to mean the specific form that it has taken in the writings of Marx

and then the way that it's evolved with Lenin and with Mao and through the ideological war of the 20th century, as you said. But I do absolutely think that, I mean, it's, you know, China, potentially the greatest power on the face of the planet, remains a communist state. So it's ridiculous to say that, you know, communism has gone the way of Nineveh and Tire, simply purely on the political level. But I think it also continues to have a huge influence on the on the cultural level um yeah so i would say that uh that probably the the the two most influential communist thinkers at the moment would be antonio gramsky italian um in the writing in the 30s who um argued that essentially kind of culture is the way for social justice to be established.

And that's been hugely influential in all kinds of ways that people understand the operation of culture. kind of articulated a Marxist understanding of world politics with an emphasis on how colonized societies and the global South can fight back against what he casts as oppressive imperial domination. And I would say that both of those thinkers have a colossal influence. I mean, I go so far as to say that actually, in a way, you could say that Marxism is more influential at the moment in the United States than it is in China. Discuss. That's interesting. That's an interesting argument. But they're both offshoots, aren a way, you could say that Marxism is more influential at the moment in the United States than it is in China. Discuss. That's interesting. That's an interesting argument.

But they're both offshoots, aren't they, from the sort of the main trunk of communism, which we associate with Marxism. So there had been ideas about a communist society before. So Thomas More in his book Utopia at the beginning of the turn of the 16th century has this vision of a society where people share property in an idealised sort of post-feudal world and the diggers in the English Civil War. But, I mean, these are communist of a kind. They're kind of proto-Marxist ideas, you could argue, couldn't you? Can I? Do you want to bring in your book?

Do you want to do your thing? I mean, everybody's waiting for this. I'm not going to mention my book, but I would say that the prototype of a communist society is the early church. I'm giving you a hard time, Tom, for no very good reason, because I actually find you very convincing on this. I genuinely think you're onto something, so go for it.

So I think the prototype is the description of the early church in the Acts of the Apostles, where it says that the apostles selling their possessions and goods gave to anyone as he had need. And there's an obvious echo there of Marx's famous dictum from each according to his ability to each according to his needs. And essentially that posed a kind of challenge to Christians, which is, is this a kind of realisable ideal? And it's hard to overemphasise the degree to which in the Roman world, the rich and the powerful assume themselves to be morally superior to those who are poor. And Christianity represents a really profound challenge to that assumption. And in the fifth century, you start to get the notion of a kind of class war that is motivated by Christian doctrine.

And there's actually a British thinker called Pelagius who argues that humans can redeem themselves from sin through their own efforts. And this manifests itself in a kind of particularly radical Pelagian thought with the idea that the whole of history is an expression basically of the war of the rich on the poor. And that therefore, if you get rid of the rich, then you will have paradise on earth. Yeah. And this gets opposed by particularly Augustine, the great father of the church, who says that humanity has fallen. We can't possibly realise heaven on earth. And so the best that can be hoped for is that the rich will continue to give to the poor. And I think that in essence, I mean, you could say that there you have communism against social democracy set up in the fifth century Roman Empire. It's basically Karl Marx and the Cadbury's family, the sort of philanthropists of

St Augustine is a chocolate magnate. Essentially. And Augustine's influence is obviously, he's the huge influence on the church. Pelagius gets branded a heretic. And so over the course of the church's history, there's an extreme anxiety about any suggestion that Christian teaching, particularly in the Gospels, you know, woe to the rich, the last will be first and the first will be last, that these sayings of Christ should be put into social practice. But you do start by the, I mean, essentially the Reformation at its radical fringes is an attempt to put that into practice. Although, of course, you have Calvinists who think if you're rich

and successful, that shows that God is smiling on you and that actually being a wealthy merchant or something is a sign of God's favour, right? Absolutely. But on the very, very radical fringes, so even before the Reformation with the Hussite rebellion, you have this amazing communist. communist, I think it's the first attempt to realise a communist society in European history at a place called Tabor, which is named after a mountain in the New Testament. And knights and beggars all join up and start digging this huge, great city. And they're doing it against the backdrop that God is going to judge the world and that paradise will be established on the earth i mean and you can see that that idea of trying to to to build a kind of a universal equality um and that the new jerusalem will be built on earth you know you can see that that's that's kind of waiting then you've got

um about the anabaptists in munster who try to do the same you've got the the diggers in the the english revolution and all these figures are influential on marx so the diggers are now in a what's now what's now a gated community ironically isn't it in way sort of stockbroker that's right stockbroker belt yes um so let's fast forward a bit to the 19th century and the emergence of what people now think of as as communism and now i would argue that that's and and a lot of sort of Karkin communists get very offended if you, and very cross if you say this, but I would say it's so obviously a kind of political religion that it's barely worth arguing about. I mean, it even later on has icons and banners and sacred texts and prophets and all the

rest of it. But the interesting thing about Marx is that Marx is not from a, I mean, he's from a converted Christian background, but he's actually Jewish heritage, isn't it? But the interesting thing about Marx is that Marx is not from a, I mean, he's from a converted Christian background, but he's actually Jewish heritage, isn't it? But do you think Marxism is basic? I mean, obviously you do because you think everything is Christian, but you're kind of, why don't you-

We agreed that fascism wasn't. Any remaining sceptical listeners that Marxism is basically religious? Well, I think that, you know, the famous phrase that you read out at the top of the show, a spectre is haunting Europe. The powers of old Europe have entered into holy lands to exercise this spectre. I mean, on the most basic level, Marx has, I mean, he's kind of like a Gothic writer. He's haunted by vampires and werewolves.

And the language of Das Kapital is kind of shot through with the idea that there are supernatural entities. Bloodsuckers and parasites and all that sort of stuff. Yes. But I think on the broader level, Marx takes for granted that the oppression of the poor by the rich and the powerful is wrong. But he doesn't want to say that this is a metaphysical position, because that would immediately kind of lead him wandering into theological dimensions, into the dimension of kind of Christian thought. So he claims that it's all entirely scientific.

Well, that's the key word, isn't it? The scientific nature of- And materialist, a historicist. So he sits in the British Library, number crunching the facts and lots of graphs, lots of tables, supposedly proving the inevitable fact that all of history is a class warfare and that it is predestined that the wealthy will be overthrown, that a classless paradise will be established.

And it seems to me that essentially the whole pretense of Marxism to be scientific is a kind of oedipal attempt to deny its christian heritage i think wow that's a big and indeed it's jewish heritage because it fascinatingly one of marx's ancestors was rabbi love who was um a famous rabbi in uh in 16th century prague um who um according to legend fashioned the golem, which was a kind of monstrous automaton, a kind of proto-Frankenstein monster, which is, in a way, a kind of sensational prefiguring of the relationship of the bourgeoisie to the proletariat.

So there's all kinds of strange stuff swirling around there. And I think the idea that it's scientific is one for the bursary. I mean, what do you think? Well, I mean, I think it's scientific. I think it's scientific in the sense that so many theories and ideas developed in the 19th century were thought to be scientific because it was an age obsessed with science. So it's the age of Darwinism and it's the age of, you know, new technology and the railways and all the rest of it.

So any new theory, almost by definition, is going to be sort of grounded in scientific language and whatnot. And science in this case, it stands in for, I mean, Marxists often talk about being on the right side of history. So this idea of the inevitable progress of history, and it's a scientific law. I mean, science sort of stands in for God, doesn't it in this i think in this um formula so walter benjamin the great german sort of 20th century philosopher he compared marxism's kind of historical materialism as they called it he compared it with the another automaton the turk which was this sort of supposed robot um there was actually a bit of a con um uh created before it was sort of created now i don't know was it the 18th and early 19th century or something and he sort of said you know what's

hiding under the the pretense of all the machinery is actually theology and is this sort of you know that's the that's marxism's dirty little secret that is basically theology posing as a science and i've always sort of thought that. I mean, I can remember when I was at university meeting people who sort of said, you know, at the age of 20 with all their years of experience of the world, they would sort of say, oh, well, I'm a Marxist. And I'd often say, well, how do you know? How have you decided?

How at this sort of age where we basically know nothing and we're still reading lots of stuff, how do you know that this is the blueprint that explains the world? And of course, that was a stupid question, because I thought it was a political position, but it wasn't. It was a religious position. It's a statement of religious identity, I think, rather than a sort of... I mean, that's obviously not always the case.

There are people who are more sceptical Marxists. But it's not necessarily always... When people say they're a Marxist, it's not often... It's not always a sort of say they're a Marxist it's not often it's not always a sort of cognitively carefully developed position often it's inherited so I don't know if you've read David Aronovich's book about growing up in a Marxist sort of milieu I mean Marxists in Britain in the post-war years where Marxism where communism was a tiny thing they had their own dentists they had their own circlesists. They had their own circles of friends. They had their own newspaper.

They had their entire own view of the world. It was a closed system, not unlike a religious cult. And in many ways, I think that's what it is. Well, Gramsci was a great admirer of the Catholic Church. And it's interesting that across, particularly Latin America, but also in Catholic countries in Europe, really the battle between Roman Catholicism and communism is often a war between siblings.

And they're both closed systems. But once you buy into it, then everything makes sense. And I think also the other obvious parallel with Christianity is the way in which people get branded heretics and the way in which dogma and doctrine has to be adapted to fit changing circumstance. So Marx's philosophy is clearly bred of the very distinctive circumstances of the mid-19th century. So the revolutions that are going on in 1848 in continental Europe, which end up leading to his exile to Britain,

where he and Engels, who is basically kind of running factories in Manchester and going fox hunting on the weekend and things. So he has a kind of eye view of the way in which the industrial revolution is impacting towns like Manchester, cities like Manchester, and inflicting appalling suffering. And Marx says, prophets have to have beards. He has a big beard.

And there you go. No further proof needed. But also, it's fascinating. I mean, I think also that one of the things that you get from both marx and engels oddly is almost no one writes more and with a greater sense of awe about the achievements of the bourgeoisie than marx i mean he you know he he the way in which he describes the achievements of bourgeois civilization, its restlessness, its kind of global reach, its potency, it's a stupefying portrayal of the achievements of Victorian Britain. And there is also a kind of weird sense in which, if you look at, you know, it's not just Engels with his fox hunting.

Marx is kind of, you know, I mean, he's going on seaside holidays, isn't he? I think he's... The Isle of Wight. He's a great fan of the Isle of Wight, I think. Yes. That was it. Because he went to Ventnor, didn't he? For the last fortnight of his life and last holiday.

And it rained every day. And it's come very puterish. It's like a family holiday in the 1950s. Yes. Yes. So you've got the specifics of Marx's circumstances and Engels. And then, of course, you've got the specifics of marx's circumstances and angles and then of course you've got the very different circumstances of um revolutionaries like lenin who come from a very very different world that's what i wanted to move to because of course the great irony with marxism

and with communism is that marx thought exactly that all you're saying about him and the achievements of the bourgeoisie he one reason he likes the achievements of the bourgeoisie is he awed by them is because they have the seeds of their own destruction in One reason he likes the achievements of the bourgeoisie or is he awed by them is because they have the seeds of their own destruction in them. So he thinks the more capitalism develops, the more sort of magnificent it is, the more quickly it will crumble. It's the grave digger.

Again, that gothic quality. Yeah, it is a very gothic expression, isn't it? They're sort of digging their own graves. So he thinks the revolution is going to happen in somewhere like Britain or Germany, the most advanced industrial civilizations. And actually, it happens in Russia, which is the one place that he had thought would be leading the counter-revolution. He'd sort of seen all this counter-revolutionary potential in Russia. So Russia does have two industrial cities,

St. Petersburg and Moscow. But otherwise, it's a huge sort of agrarian giant full of peasants. It's exactly the wrong place in many words, in many ways. It's the wrong place in many ways for communism to take root. And the key figure here is Lenin because Lenin is the person who says, well, actually what you need, you know, it's not just,

you don't just need the course of history. What you need is a revolutionary vanguard, a vanguard party that will take the levers of power, stage a coup, grab power, and then push this through whether people, basically whether people like it or not, because it's acting in the course of history. And then, and I think right at the beginning of the, I mean, right from the outset, when Marxism is put into practice, you have basically violence and dictatorship, and you couldn't have it otherwise.

I think also you have the offer of elitism. So the genius of Marxist Leninism is that it offers you, I mean, basically, so the Marxism will appeal to people who are very concerned with social justice, who want equality across the world, who want justice. What Lenin does is to fuse that with the sense that you need a controlling elite um and on the theme of of communists in london um i i did a brilliant radio piece once about this um this room above above what's now a curry shop in white chapel um where i think for about kind of before you know there's a communist conference going on. You had Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg,

Gorky, Zinoviev, all kind of staying in this, this one bed sit. I always thought it would make an amazing sitcom. Yeah. Yeah. Sitcom.

Very good. Oh, Stalin. And so I think, and I think that they, that the, the brilliant irony of that is, is that that was where the Bolsheviks, i.e. the majoritarians, the people in the majority, were staying. And I think the Mensheviks were, you know, the people in the minority must have been staying in an even smaller room somewhere.

Well, I think, I mean, it's interesting you mentioned Stalin because Stalin kind of hangs over every discussion of communism because you know Stalin murdered millions upon millions of people and and the question with someone like Stalin and what I find so fascinating is Stalin an aberration which Marxists will now often claim oh Stalin was somehow some imposter he was a monster who'd somehow got his hands on the experiments and all got out of control or for example there's the alternative view which is I don't know if you read these monstrously big books by stephen kotkin this american scholar who's working his way through stalin's life and he says no everyone's got stalin wrong stalin wasn't a madman stalin wasn't even necessarily a

sadist or you know any of these things that we imagine he's not sort of traumatized by his childhood he's none of those things stalin is actually a very good Marxist. He spent all his life immersed in Marxist ideas. He's written tons of incredibly tedious articles about aspects of Marxism in Bolshevik journals. And actually, the reason that he kills all these people is because he thinks that's the way to achieve the paradise, that he's actually a good Marxist. And that's the thing that when he makes his decisions, that's what always drives him on. And that actually the violence is inherent and the killing is inherent because that's the only way you're going to achieve this good society. Well, I think that when you look at Stalin or Mao or indeed Hitler, you have to bear in mind

that by their lights, what they're doing, they're doing for the best. And the idea of killing millions in the cause of bringing about some ideal earthly situation is so monstrous to most of us that it takes such a gear shift that I think it's difficult to do that. But I agree. I think that Stalinism develops logically out of Leninism, which in turn is a logical attempt to adapt Marx's theory to, as you said, the kind of unexpected fact that the revolution's happened in Russia and not in Britain or Germany. But I also think, Tom, that by its nature, it has to be violent because there's always a confiscatory element in communism. You know, some people have to be brought down. And those people are never going to say, sure, have all my furniture, you know, have my second home, please take it.

You know, there's always going to be, violence is inherent in it. And violence is in the language. I mean, Lenin's language was extraordinarily violent. And Lenin, of course, famously said, you know, I used to like music and listening to nice, you know, songs and fluffy animals and nice books and stuff. But now I can't do that. I have to be harder than hard. Those things will weaken me for when I become dictator, you know, when I'll have to kill people. And he's

as good as his word. And I think to that, the idea of there being a separation between this sort of cuddly Marxism that Lenin supposedly incarnates, and then the sort of, you know, the mass graves Marxism of Stalin, I think is a false image. Anyway, we need to take a break, Tom. Sorry. We need to take a break. The listeners are very keen to go and overthrow social conditions and collectivise agriculture.

So I think we should let them do it and we'll have a cup of tea and then you can say what you wanted to say after the break. How about that? They're going to go and listen to adverts aren't they well marx would approve i'm sure all right we'll see you after you've um you've indulged some capitalist impulses see in a minute i'm marina hyde and i'm richard osman and together we host the rest is entertainment it's your weekly fix of entertainment news reviews splash of showbiz gossip and on our q a we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works we have just launched our members club if you want ad-free listening bonus episodes and early access to live tickets head to the rest of the entertainment.com that's

the rest is history on thursday we're offering that natural companion piece to today's discussion on communism we're talking elizabeth the first with the historian tracy boorman and here's an early warning for your diaries on the evening of wednesday the 21st of april we are going to do something very exciting. We're going to do our first live episode of the podcast, live on the internet, and it's going to be all about assassinations. Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Indira

Gandhi, Tom will no doubt be talking about Julius Caesar. Not to anticipate, Tom. No, yeah, Caligula, of course, very good. Loads of Romans. So we'll post a link on Twitter that week. Everybody is welcome, so you can join the show and we'll be answering the questions live. You can throw

your abuse at us then and there's nowhere for us to hide. It will be a lot of fun for everybody. Now, Tom, I cut you off and you wanted to say something unbelievably interesting about communism. Well, yeah, unbelievably interesting, but I'm going to combine it with the first of the many, many questions we've had.

And this is from Duncan Hibbard, where he says, is communism inherently totalitarian? I'm wondering about Lenin and Stalin. Isn't Stalinism essentially economically based? So it's about trying to reconfigure the economy. And once you do that, then inevitably, in a sense, you have to kind of seize control of every possible lever. There is no space left for anyone to do anything that the government isn't controlling. And that there might be, I don't know, i mean i mean grampski would be maybe an alternative form of communism that puts an emphasis on control of culture rather than of

the economy okay so i would say it probably is inherently totalitarian because it's not pluralist you know if you're a communist you don't tolerate you know you can't really tolerate challenges um i think and of course lenin's idea of kind of democratic centralism is that basically when the parties agreed, everybody must agree. And you can't have, you can't, you know, Marx and Lenin hated dissent or disagreement. I mean, they spent an enormous amount of time trying to crush any sort of disagreement among their own kind of little group of schools. So I think it probably does have an inherently totalitarian bent. And I think, Tom, going back to what you're saying, Stalin thought that Russia needed rapidly to industrialize

because he completely imbibed the kind of Marxist idea about the course of history, that you'd become an industrial country and then you'd become a communist one. So he pushes that through, you know, and he demands total control, and it's mainly the collectivisation of agriculture. I mean, that's what kills a lot of people at the turn of the 1930s.

Because there's no other source of revenue. Yeah, because he needs to – exactly. He wants to rapidly, rapidly industrialise. He wants to sell grain abroad. He wants to get people into the factories. He wants to cut out – he hates the idea of, you know, private ownership among the peasants, the kulaks who have built up their own little small holdings.

He wants to crush them, not because he's a... I mean, his latest biography would say, not because he's a mad monster, this sort of slavering demon, but because he's a Marxist, because he thinks that's what you do to get the good society. But he's a Marxist who has turned his back on a fairly fundamental proposition of Marx. That this is something universal. I mean, he's pushing the idea of socialism in one country.

He is, you're right. Yes. And so that, I mean, it's that basically that I guess once he's made that decision, once he's hitched his start of that idea, an awful lot then follows from that because immediately people in other countries are cast as enemies and immediately the focus has to be on a kind of, I suppose, a kind of communist nationalism. The list of countries that you,

at the beginning of the programme where you listed as communist, didn't include North Korea. And I guess that, you know, I mean, it's a kind of monarchy isn't it with a yeah dead rather like saint catholic yes yes um a kind of dead body presiding over which shows the kind of weird ways in which communism can evolve but i mean it's it's a lot of the a lot of the kind of most monstrous crimes are where communism fuses with nationalism. So in the Ukraine, for example, Stalin, the famine that Stalin causes there.

I mean, obviously, if that had been in Russia, if it had been just outside Moscow, you're right. I think there might have been a different kind of reaction to it. I mean, our producer was hectoring me. Hectoring is probably a bit harsh, but he was giving me a hard time. He said, you know, if Stalin is just a good Marxist, how does that explain the backlash against Stalin after his death in 1953? You know, Khrushchev makes the secret speech in which he denounces Stalin's crimes. And then there's a sort of slight thawing in the Soviet Union.

I mean, I think there's no doubt that Stalin became incredibly despotic and that power corrupted, as it were. But I think a lot of those people who are... I mean, there's an interesting question about how Marxists are the leaders of the Soviet Union after the 1950s, or how much are they... I mean, in some ways, they're quite conservative. They're no longer pushing to create the new jerusalem they're defensive they're simply what we have we hold i think and i think yes and they're defensive because because of the role played by the party

which becomes a kind of elite and then if obviously if you're you know if you're in the party you hold power and if you hold power then you want to keep hold of it. Yeah. So I think the weird thing is these are people who in Red Square every May, they stand there on the balcony, which is on Lenin's tomb, to go back to our St. Cuthbert analogy. They're standing above the sort of mummified body of Lenin. And all these people are parading past with pictures of great icons of Karl Marx. But Marx, if he saw those men, probably wouldn't recognize them as his comrades, because he's always been an outsider, a radical, a journalist tilting against convention,

whereas they are the ultimate defenders of convention, Brezhnev and all these sort of identikit gerontocrats in their sort of gray suits i mean these aren't people that marx would sort of i don't think you'd enjoy their company and i guess you can say the same about china where it's marxism leninism with chinese characteristics isn't it yeah um so in china again that that question of now, is it a communist state? I mean, clearly, formally it is. Do the Chinese Communist Party in China, are they communist? Do they believe it? I don't think they are.

I mean, I think, you know, in the same way that you could possibly – well, it's an interesting one, isn't it, Tom? I mean, were people Christians? You, in the same way that you could possibly – well, it's an interesting one, isn't it, Tom? I mean, were people Christians? You know, were all these medieval monarchs – they believed they were Christians, I suppose. But, you know, when they read about turning the other cheek and all that sort of stuff, it's harder for a rich man isn't it, with the leaders of the Soviet Union or indeed of China, that they think they believe it but they don't live it, maybe is a distinction. I don't know. We should move on to another question.

We should move on to Beatrice Mouse. Beatrice Mouse says, for those who say it hasn't been tried properly, isn't its failure baked in? Properly ends up with economic failure and tyranny? I mean, this is the stuff of a thousand social media arguments. Has it been tried properly or not? Do you think, Tom, it's been tried properly?

Do you think it's been given a fair crack of the whip? Well, I think to go back to the key perspective of Marx, it's about justice and it's about liberating people to fulfill their potential. And if you think of it in those terms, rather than in the supposed ironclad economic laws that will make it happen, and the whole kind of ideological apparatus that has been built up around it, think that um that that ideal absolutely preserves its its its power and to go back what i was saying at the beginning of the program i think that um you know a lot of of uh a lot of what what is is um agitating uh people in the west at the moment is kind of recognizably bred of that matrix. I think.

So you, so you, you, so that's slightly evasive answer. You haven't said whether you think it has or hasn't been tried properly. I think the assumption is because we've had communist States, we think that there is such a thing as, as communism. Yeah.

But I think that if you think of it again, perhaps again, a bit more like a, like Christianity or something like that, as an ongoing way of living, an approach, an ideal, an attempt to shape your life by certain ideals. Then I think that the idea

of, I mean, and I know that of course Marx is talking about the fact that they will ultimately be a class of society. So that is baked into his perspective. But it's very telling, I think, that in his writings he barely talks about it. And even Lenin, I mean, he's obsessed with the dictatorship of the proletariat, and you need the dictatorship of the proletariat to usher in what will ultimately be the classless state. It's just that it never arrives. So I guess to the degree

that the New Jerusalem will never be built on Earth, the class of society will never arrive. Yeah, failure is inevitable because it's not going to happen because this is a theological myth. But I think that as a way of governing your life, clearly it provides meaning for people across the face of the of the planet and it continues to convulse and agitate the way that um you know certainly british society american society uh european society is is is operating at the moment i think i think that if you think of communism as a uh as a way of living rather than an inevitable end point i i don't think i think that that's would be my take you see what i would say tom is if even if you think of it as a way of living, if you look at all the regimes that proclaim themselves communist,

and there were quite a lot. I mean, we're talking about dozens. There are lots of examples of people where they've taught capital, das Kapital in schools, where they've had all the banners, where they've had the pictures of Marx, where, you know,

academies have been devoted to this stuff where they, where they really thought they were following it. And in every one there's been, you know, repression violence. Yeah. I mean, that there's a point at which you sort of say,

well, maybe this isn't a coincidence. Maybe this is kind of baked into the, to the, to the, to the project from the very, from the very outset, I think because of its anti-pluralist nature,

because if you claim to have a monopoly on truth, and if you claim we are carrying out the will of history, as all these regimes did, particularly from 1945 onwards, then you're always going to get into trouble because any form of challenge is illegitimate. Yeah, and I think the idea that there are ironclad economic rules

that have to be followed, even when they don't actually work, is a huge part of the problem. But on the broadest level, I think it is impossible to build Jerusalem on earth. I think Augustine is right. I think that we are fallen, however you want to put it. Humans are not capable of living like that. And it's true of communists, it's true of Christians, it's true of Muslims, wherever you try and build the ideal state without acknowledging

the fact that humans are humans and things are going to go wrong, you end up with disaster. Have you ever seen this stuff or read this stuff about Boris Yeltsin going to America? So Boris Yeltsin,

I think he's the, what is he then? Is he the, he's a big figure, I think, and he's just been kicked out of the Politburo, but he's still big

in the Russian parliament or he's a big Moscow party boss or, and he's just been kicked out of the Politburo, but he's still big in the Russian parliament, or he's a big Moscow party boss or something. Is he mayor of Moscow? Exactly, mayor of Moscow, I think he is. He goes off to visit NASA near Houston, and on the way he says, I actually want to see what America is really like away from all the handlers. And he stops in a place called Clear Lake,

and he goes to a supermarket called Randall's. And there's pictures of him in this supermarket inspecting the freezer cabinets and stuff. And it's just a kind of piddling little supermarket. And he's ashen-faced. He is horrified. And he gets in his car afterwards, and all the people, his aides said, you know, he didn't speak for kind of 40 minutes or something. And he gets in his car afterwards and all the people, his aides said, you know, he didn't speak for kind of

40 minutes or something. And he was so distressed. And he said, how we have failed, you know, the Russian people. It's just abominable that Americans are living like this.

And, you know, supermarkets in Russia have got a dead dog in them or something. And that's it. And he's just, and it's astounding the extent to which even the kind of elite

were kind of living in a complete fantasy world. And the spectacle of what capitalism was actually really like was just this dreadful shock when Yeltsin realised. Is it Reaganite propaganda that Gorbachev basically realised the game was up when he went to California and flew in a helicopter over LA and looked down at all the swimming pools or something. I don't know. So I think certainly one of Gorbachev's key aides was a man called Alexander Yakovlev. He went to Canada and he became friends with Trudeau. And he was devastated by what he saw in Canada. You know, it was just like to see how ordinary people lived was because, of course, people were told that only the elite lived like this.

That, you know, in Russia, you believed that the kind of Western elite was selling a lie and that everybody was actually really downtrodden and miserable. And to get there, I think for a lot, and the same with Oleg Gordievsky, actually, who we talked about with Ben McIntyre, the defector, he too,

you know, he was in Copenhagen. And again, he was, you know, standing there thinking we are the baddest. Okay. Okay. But I think,

you see, I think that's been reconfigured since the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of communism in the Soviet union, because because that that spectacle of wealth of course was precisely what shocked marx and what you've what you get in in capital away from all the graphs and the figures is this sense of kind of molten anger at the way in which um the prosperity of the bourgeoisie depends upon you you know, children starving and people being evicted from their homes. And I think more particularly, people in distant colonies, you know, being worked to death so that the bourgeoisie can have sugar with their

tea. And I think that actually today, the spectacle of Western wealth operates for many people in a similar way. And I think that that's a huge dynamic in the the kind of understanding of global relations the idea that western wealth has been built on systematic exploitation um and so lenin's idea that imperialism is kind of the last you know the ultimate manifestation of bourgeois civilization i think that that still has a an afterlife in contemporary culture it definitely does and it's very popular the problem though that you have if you're going to take that line i think is how do you explain then you know the massive rise in life expectancy

and living standards in places like in africa and in asia so these are well particularly asia but also in africa too i mean the rise in the rise in life expectancy for example um you know these are never have so you know in many ways of course because there are more people there are more poor people than ever but but relatively speaking the human race now lives longer we live longer much more comfortable much more prosperous lives insulated from the fear of early death or disease than any generation before us i I mean, that's punishing environmental costs, as we all know. But the problem is the exploitation of the poor argument. I mean, not everything is based on sweatshops.

Anyway, we need to do some questions, Tom. Yes. If there are any listeners still left, they're probably outraged. Go on, ask a question. Here's one from Chet Archbold, who always comes up with good questions. Was the development of some sort of communist ideology inevitable in Europe? There were some communist-like movements before Marx,

but if Marx had not lived, would something quite like Marxism have emerged? And that's great, isn't it? Because an awful lot of Marxists, that certain things are inevitable. And that, you know, someone like Marx is just epiphenomenal. He's just a bubble of froth on a heaving ocean.

This is a bit like the question I think we've debated before. Would the Beatles have, you know, if John and Paul had never met, would there still have been the Beatles? There would still have been Marxism. Yeah, clearly. Because Marx was building on Saint-Simon and Fourier and Robert Owen. There were loads of thinkers of this kind. Yeah, Proudhon, exactly.

So there was Bakunin and there were other people who of this kind. Yeah, Proudhon, exactly. So there was Bakunin and there were other people who could have been sort of, maybe would have loomed larger than Marx. I mean, Marx was in many ways a genius. I don't think there can be any doubt of that. A man of enormous intellectual capability, which is why he became such a big figure. And he's a great self-promoter

and a great propagandist as well. And the Communist Manifesto is a great read. And he's a great self-promoter and a great propagandist as well. And the communist manifesto is a great read, but there would have been, don't you think there would have been some form of. Yeah, I do. I think, I think,

however, and again, not to sound like go on my King Charles's head. I think that the hostility to religion might have been less because there were many communist thinkers who were very keen on all that kind of cloudy, fluffy, heavenly stuff as to dismiss it. So I think that's maybe the key thing that Mark's brought to the party.

The producer is gagging for us to do Rick Hunter's question. God knows why. But, I mean, maybe he is Rick Hunter, or maybe Rick Hunter has something on him. So Rick Hunter, no offence, Rick. Rick Hunter says, he's about the Mensheviks, if the Mensheviks had launched the Russianussian revolution instead of the bolsheviks how would things have played out was that ever a real possibility i would say no it probably wasn't a

real well it would have been a completely different revolution tom what do you think well i think that um i mean the the difference between bolsheviks and mensheviks is essentially how brutal are you willing to be isn't it? Yeah, it's basically how moderate, you know, moderate versus radicals to some extent. So I think, yes, so I think that a bunch of kind of, you know, centrist dads were never going to... That's a big... We're never going to kick off the Russian Revolution.

I mean, the Bolsheviks, the Russian Revolution... It's the brutality. You said the violence is baked in. And yet the irony, right, the ambiguity, is the Bolsheviks succeed because the one thing they offer is peace. Everybody else pretty much is arguing for Russia to carry on in the First World War in the summer of 1917. And the Bolsheviks make progress, particularly among the army,

because they're the ones who are saying, no, we'll have peace with Germany, we'll stop fighting straight away. And all their rivals are sort of shilly-shallying and saying, well, we're still committed to the Allies. So the Bolsheviks win by saying peace, but also they're prepared to be more extreme. They're always prepared to go further than anybody else. And so, of course, if anybody else had been, you know, if Kerensky had stayed in power, then yes, the history of the 20th century would look, I mean, it would look very different, I think. Similar dialectic going on with um trotsky

and stalin and stalin ultimately wins out again because he essentially weirdly offers you know peace and and uh stability whereas trotsky is all about permanent revolution and well trotsky is a loose cannon isn't he he's a completely loose cannon and um yes stalin is stalin's the second i mean stalin is the secretary he is the boring guy in the meetings. He's done all the paperwork. I love the idea that both Lenin and Stalin are the kind of safe stable. Anyway, Liz J, great question here. Would a non-communist Russia have been able to resist and ultimately defeat Nazi Germany? Or was it the unique nature of being a communist state that allowed it to fight the war with such brutal force and disregard for human life? That's a great question. And you've just

written a review of a book on Stalin's war, haven't you? I have. Yeah, a very extraordinary book actually by a man called Sean McMeekin. Now, McMeekin, he has this great idea. It's a brilliant central idea of, you know, let's, instead of thinking about the war just about Hitler, we should think about it through, you know. Stalin is the key to the war, not Hitler. So Stalin, look at it through Russia's point of view. It's Russia that also invades Poland. Russia swallows up the Baltic states. Japan is largely motivated by fear of Russia,

so Russia allows you to tie together sort of the Eastern Western theatres, the Pacific and the European theatres of the war. But he also has this extraordinary argument, which slightly to me, well, fatally undermines his book, which is that the Allies should have attacked Stalin as well as Hitler. So we should have, having declared war on Hitler about Poland, we should then have declared war on Stalin when Stalin went into Finland.

We should have fought in defence of Finland. He thinks that Britain and France, if we'd fought Stalin in Finland, that Roosevelt would have joined in, which I don't think he would, and that Mussolini would have joined in on our side as well. So that would be a very different segment. Anyway. You're slurring me off there. That was entirely my fault.

You took me down the wrong course. Would a non-communist Russia... Maybe not, actually. I mean, the nature of communism meant that you could discipline and control Would a non-communist Russia? Maybe not, actually. I mean, the nature of communism meant that you could discipline and control millions of people. And as you say, it's the idea of sacrificing people in the name of the greater good. That sort of came naturally to Stalin's commanders

and the sort of no-step-back rule that the Soviet commissars were always sort of drumming into their offices. I mean, that feels very Stalinist. And military historians, people like Max Hastings, will say the Russians were prepared to do whatever it took and pay any price. When British generals or American generals were a bit weedy about sacrificing their men, Stalin's generals knew that basically if they didn't sacrifice their men, they'd be shot themselves. So they were very effective in that sense. Wasn't the same thing going on with Napoleon's invasion of Russia, though?

Well, yeah, that's the argument. And, of course, in the First World War, the Tsarist officers treated their men like absolute... Yeah, cannon fodder. Also, I mean, it's when the nazis invade that um stalin slightly resurrects some of the old traditions of russia orthodoxy he's yeah he sends well he sends an icon up in a plane that yeah flies around uh the city limits of moscow so that's stalin stalin's a much underestimated politician because he's much more flexible than let's say hitler is he's cannier than hitler and i think you're right about there's always this people often forget about russia that as recently as the sort of mid to late 19th century about 40 million russians have been surfed they're

basically made slaves so this sort of violence and inequality was kind of was was baked into russia stalinism or no stalinism okay okay i think we've got time for one more question golly um do you want to do the the space question yes so this is richard goldstein and he asks if technology continues to rapidly improve isn't a communistic system inevitable for earthlings in a thousand years if not a hundred years when there is no barrier to material well-being wouldn't competition dependent livelihoods become obsolete there's a lot of communism in science fiction. I love the fact that Richard Goldstein may not himself be human when he talks about earthlings. Yeah, there is, you're right.

And there was a communist group called the Positists. The Positists, Dennis Healy complained about in his memoirs that he was being heckled. The Positists were supporting Tony Benn in the Labour deputy leadership election of 1981. The Positists believe supporting Tony Benn in the Labour deputy leadership election of 1981. The Positists believe that because communism is the future, and because it's the future and it's historically inevitable, communism is identified with technological modernity.

The Positists believe that if there were any other civilizations in the universe that were more advanced than us, they would, by definition, have to be communist. So they thought the revolution would probably be brought and they still do think the revolution will probably be brought to to earth by people and flying saucers who will impress us with their communism and then we'll convert us we'll come you know we'll all become communists i don't find that very plausible uh and i don't find richard goldstein argument very... I don't think it will become inevitable, actually. I think it goes against human nature. You brought up Tony Benn.

Yeah. Who I learned from your book got stung on the penis by a wasp. In the bath? I think when he was gardening, wasn't it? But a kind of interesting parallel to Marx, who had a huge boil on his penis and wrote to Engels about it. So there you go. Great heroes.

This is what happens. This is what happens. Great heroes of socialism. Left wing of the spectrum, isn't it? When you get into that world, boils follow. Brilliant. Well, I think the gravedigger of our podcast has... Time is the gravedigger of our podcast. I think this sort of highbr our podcast is... Time is the grave digger of our podcast.

I think this sort of highbrow analysis is precisely what is needed to close the conversation about Marxism forever. Well, time has been largely called on communism internationally. It's been called on us too today. A reminder that on Thursday, we're talking about Elizabeth I with Tracy Borman. So you can't ever accuse us

of having too narrow a field of interest on this podcast anyway thank you for listening enjoy the revolution and see you soon bye thanks for listening to the rest is history for bonus episodes, early access, ad-free listening, and access to our chat