Date: Tue, 05 Aug 1997 19:09:20 +0100
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: M-I: Marxist History and counterfactuals


I take the point from Louis Godena that counterfactuals can either appear
as a trivial parlour game or, as he well illustrates, conceal a sinister
political agenda. 

On my recent book binge I did not in fact buy the best-seller about
counterfactuals by if I recall correctly a don at Jesus college (Oxford?),
partly for this reason. The *way* the analysis was done looked as if it may
not be profound, but perhaps I have done him an injustice too. The most
interesting subject seemed to be what if Hitler had beaten Stalin. I think
approached not as a parlour game but an opportunity to analyse the
underlying balance of forces and balance of probabilities this is a
legitimate part of a marxist historical approach. It is a corrective to
abstract and idealist criticism of Stalin's war record, even though other
criticisms remain.

I am not so interested in this theme as a re-run of determinism in history
- that is the old chestnut of whether there would have been a Trojan war if
Helen's nose had been half an inch longer. The marxist answer is clear (or
shall we say the answer compatible with marxism): in archaic times there
was a high probability of recurring conflict and wars around control of the
straits linking the Mediterranean and Black Seas.

I do not think it is idle to ask whether the Wars of the Roses were
inevitable. As well as to ask how did the Tudors manage a new form of
stability following them? In the feudal era in many European countries
there was a high probability of recurrent wars between coalitions of feudal
lords. The recurrent conflicts in mediaeval and Renaissance Italy between
the Guelfs and the Ghibellines mirrored the earlier conflict between the
German Welfs and (name forgotten), with added polarisation reflecting the
conflict between Holy Roman Empire and Papacy, and relative and lesser
democracy in the Italian city states. Had Shakespeare not lived to write
Romeo and Juliet we would not know of it in this form. But the recurring
pattern of unity and conflict would have been there. 

As a card carrying devotee of chaos theory I find the contradiction between
determinism and indeterminism stated too simplistically. We are certainly,
as James brings out in the quotations from Carr, talking about
probabilities. The mathematical concept is deterministically indeterminate.
Certain variables together, particularly in an iterative system, will tend
to produce certain patterns more frequently and certain patterns less
frequently, or only rarely. At certain times when the patterns are on a
cusp, small features may play a disproportionately large effect.

>From a marxist point of view this sort of analysis *may* be an aide in
discussing the underlying workings of the historical, economic and
political processes. 

History is never a neutral science. This thread is not an abstract
philosophical one. I tend to think that EH Carr probably did mistate the
relationship slightly but I will have to rebuy his book, as I must have
given it away. 

Does this theme matter? Yes. I think one of the issues we continue to
rework on these lists is quite rightly the role and significance of the
Leninist current of marxism. Lenin at one time defined the essence of
marxism as analysing the balance of forces and he was unusual in the rigour
and realism with which he tried to do this, as well as his passionate
commitment to seize any moment to change them. 

I do not think there would have been an October revolution without Lenin.
Whether or not marxists could leap stages in Russia was a question that
went back to Marx's day. Lenin was appalled by the treachery of the leaders
of the Second International and determined (consciously determined) to do
everything to get Russian out of the imperialist war. It is seriously
argued that by swinging the Bolshevik party to accelerate the revolution
ahead of the time when civil disturbances would develop even more strongly
as a result of Russian's continued participation in the war, he set the
Bolsheviks in armed conflict with the Socialist Revolutionaries and
embarked the new Soviet State on a more centralised course than would
otherwise have been the case, with an agenda that contained inherent
probabilities of its own. 



Chris Burford

London.





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