Theatre as Weapon: Workers' Theatre in the Soviet Union, Germany and Britain, 1917-1934 (review)

Reviews 219 The war managers interpreted their continual defeats as momentary setbacks which demanded minor changes of strategy, but never a questioning of Technowar itself. Because they thought within a self-referential universe, they could interpret the defeat of their logic only through the logic of defeat. Setbacks were never seen as fundamental structural problems, only as organizational problems of resource management. When the predictable outcomes of Technowar failed to appear, the managers sought reified solutions: more death, better distribution. In his book, Gibson combines the skills of a historian and social theorist. He has waded through a mountain of diverse material and produced a powerful critical narrative. Where the Frankfurt School and Foucault trace the general social consequences of reified rationality in the "one-dimensional" or "disciplinary" society, Gibson offers an important alternative perspeaive by focusing on foreign policy and militarism. And because he draws not only from the official reports and the interpretations of the government and war managers, but also from hundreds of delegitimized soldiers' accounts (viewed as subjective "literary" interpretations , rather than objeaive "scientific" explanations), his book constitutes both a history and a Foucauldian genealogy that recovers subjugated discourses. Rather than just being a book about politics, The Perfect War becomes a form of political intervention. While Gibson rightly underünes the defeat of U.S. imperialism and shows, moreover, how this was assured through fundamental internal contradictions, he underestimates the U.S. victories and lessons carried away from Vietnam, the knowledge gained through experiments in military science and social engineering, knowledge which can be applied to the management ofpresent-day conflicts. He underestimates the effectiveness of Technowar whose outermost capacity (perhaps goal) — nuclear war — has not yet been realized. The internal contradiction of Technowar may well be that conflicts can only be resolved through irrevocable devastation. Further, while Gibson does discuss the nature of science and the economy before the war, he doesn't provide an adequate perspective on the nature of foreign policy before the war (in order to bater understand the novelty of Technowar); nor does he inquire into any possible technocracy before then. He tends to view the origins of Technowar as an identifiable point in time — the war economy — rather than a slowly emerging process with a more complex history. And whUe he cettainly intends a logical and struaural relationship between Technowar and capitalism, he relies too much on the analogical extension of the production model and does not sufficiently clarify this connection. Finally, Gibson's book points the way toward a critical counter-praxis, by focusing our attention on the dangers of reified rationality, but he is much too vague and sparse in his own prescriptions, suggesting only that we must change the "war-system and mythology" that the U.S. was "entrapped" in and create "a more complex, humane, vision of the world" (459). But what does this entaU? This brings a powerful book to a premature and anticlimactic close. But these are minor flaws of an important book which deserves wide debate and recognition . The Perfect War remains a devastating critique of technological reification, an important vindication of social reality, social theory and hermeneutics. It is simply the best analysis yet of Vietnam. STEVE BEST Theatre as Weapon: Workers' Theatre in the Soviet Union, Germany andBritain, 1917-1934 by Richard Stourac and Kathleen McCreery. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986. pp. 384. $55.00 (cloth). Speed-up, Speed-up! Watch your step! Hold on tight, and show some pep. Move your hands and bend your body 220 the minnesota review Without ends and not so shoddy, Faster, faster, shake it up, No one idles in this shop, Time is money, money's power, Profits come in every hour. Can't stop profits for your sake, Speed-up, speed-up, keep awake. So the capitaUst urges as he leads a group of workers from left to right in a heavy tred. The action takes place on an improvised stage and all the actors are unemployed workers: this is workers' theatre in Britain. In Theatre As A Weapon, Richard Stourac and Kathleen McCreery trace the development of workers' theatre in Russia after the Revolution (1919-20), in Germany after the defeated...