Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 09:10:53 -0700
From: JDevine-AT-lmumail.lmu.edu (James Devine)
Subject: Re: Socialist Utopia


concerning utopian novels Will Brown writes:
>>Do others think such work is relevant to the
struggle? Or is it irrelevant (perhaps petit bourgoies?) 
fantasising? Should we restrict our reading to the 
collected works of Marx and Lenin?<<

Others have already listed the best left utopias 
available, so I won't repeat them. It's the last issue 
that I think is important.  No we shouldn't restrict our 
readings to Marx & Lenin. (Did they ever restrict their 
reading?)  I think socialist utopianism has a positive 
role to play, as did Marx and Lenin. On the latter, I 
don't know what to call THE STATE AND REVOLUTION but a 
utopia.  On the former, Ruth Levitas (in THE CONCEPT OF 
UTOPIA) writes that "The real dispute between Marx and 
Engels and the utopian socialists is not about the merit 
of goals or of images of the future but about the process 
of transformation, and particularly about the belief that 
propaganda alone would result in the realization of 
socialism" (p. 35). See also Geoghegan's UTOPIANISM AND 
MARXISM (1987: ch. 2) and Hal Draper's KARL MARX'S THEORY 
OF REVOLUTION (1990: ch. 1). It should be remembered that 
the title of Engels' famous work on the subject was 
"Socialism: Utopian and Scientific," rather than 
"Socialism: Utopian _versus_ Scientific." According to 
Draper, Engels really liked the utopian socialists, so 
that Marx had to argue with him to tone down his praise.

I think that the difference between utopian socialism of 
the sort that Marxists should oppose and that which Marx 
and Engels liked is as follows. The first involves 
preaching to workers, saying "if you follow me, we can 
set up this utopia. Here's my blueprint." Often this 
meant going off to the hinterland and setting up a 
commune under the dictatorial leadership of the Thinker. 
This was very common in the 19th century, so that the US 
is the site of a lot of utopian colonies.  Edward 
Bellamy's LOOKING BACKWARD is a good representative of 
this kind of socialism from above, though he wanted it to 
be nation-wide (and in fact called it "nationalism" 
rather than "socialism").  (I think that this book had a 
tremendous influence that is often ignored. It was 
translated into many languages. I bet that the Bolsheviks 
had read it, and since Marx didn't provide blueprints, 
some latched onto Bellamy, who sketches a dictatorial 
planned economy. I don't have any evidence for this 
hunch, however.)  

The second involves workers discussing among themselves 
(perhaps with input from petty-bourgeois intellectuals 
like me) about how _they_ want to run things when they 
take power. I think that William Morris' NEWS FROM 
NOWHERE is a good book with this socialism-from-below 
perspective. It's a response to Bellamy, by the way. 
(It's boring at times, however, partly because there's no 
conflict in utopia and conflict is interesting.) 

It used to be that a lot of people on the left used the 
USSR or China as the utopia: "look how good it is, and we 
can do better."  But that's gone, so it's quite important 
for people to engage in utopian theorizing. We need to 
have some idea of what we want if we are to ever get it.

for socialism from below,

Jim Devine      jdevine-AT-lmumail.lmu.edu
Los Angeles, CA (the city of emphysema)






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