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Marxism for Our Times I speak as a close sympathiser of a Marxist organization whose headquarters are in the United States, and what I shall say this afternoon will try to explain an experience of it, where it is, how it has arrived there, and most essential thing, the relation of Marxism not only to politics but the way of life and thought of those who profess to live by its doctrines. I hope not only to say these things in general but what I am saying will (even if not immediately) be seen in time to be an exposition of the method and results of the doctrines of Marxism. It will not be difficult. I don't propose to come here and put forward difficult problems before you. Youare not a class; I am not a professor. But there is no doubt that a good deal of what I am saying you will find awkward, because it is so different from what, I believe, unless Britain has changed vitally from what I knew it to be last night, you are accustomed to hear—very different from what I was accustomed to learn for many years, to learn and to teach. Nevertheless we have to make the attempt. So that you will be under no misunderstanding or have no doubt or suspense, I will tell you exactly what I am going to do. First, I shall pay great attention to the significance of Marx himself and the relation of Marx's work to the present day and the days ahead. I shall then move on to an analysis of Lenin's work and his relation to the situation in which we are. Then I propose to spend some time on an event whose positive and negative results upon Western civilization still continue to do what it has been doing since it has begun: I want to speak about the Russian Revolution , about a Marxist conception of it. After that I propose to say, not what you ought to do. I wouldn't be so rude, but what some Marxists I know have been doing and what I believe they propose to do in their perspective for the future. [This essay is based on an address entitled "Marxism 1963" delivered in November 1963 to the Solidarity Group in London, England. It was published in the May 1965 issue of Speak Out.—editor's note.] Unfortunately I have to begin with some fewwords about dialectical materialism . That is very difficult in general, yet what I shall say I hope will be very simple and obvious. But it is impossible to deal with Marxism unless upon that basis. I shall try to make it as simple as possible. The key phrase in dialectical materialism for a Marxist is the inevitability of socialism. Now contrary to what a lot of people believe, and this they attack with great vivacity, Marx never believed in the inevitability of socialism. Neither did Lenin. Never at any time would they, as philosophers, put forward that socialism was inevitable. What Marx was very clear about, and Lenin followed him, was quite precise: Socialism or Barbarism. He couldn't say, it was impossible for those materialists to say, it is bound to be this or it is bound to go that way. Not at all. They said, either it goes this way or society will descend into barbarism. Nevertheless the inevitability of socialism remains an imperative necessity for Marxists as a conception. The reason is this: we have a lot of objective facts before us, historical events, an immense variety of happenings. When you observe them you have to decide which you support, which will advance the perspectives that you have, and which are acting against these perspectives. Which, in other words, as far as you are concerned, are leading in the advance toward a socialist society and which are not, which are leading , withinthe basic Marxistconception, to barbarism. Therefore the inevitability of socialism becomes with a Marxist a necessity of thought, because without it he cannot think. What is happening? What do you support? What do you oppose? Literary criticism of late has made the distinction very clear. There is naturalism which describes what is taking place, and there is realism which brings to the description of what is taking place a certain critical view of what it supports and what it does not support. That is in a subject as remote as imaginative literature. In politics it is...

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