Abstract
Despite Marx’s sophisticated analysis of capitalism, most postcolonial theory has been highly critical, even contemptuous, of Marxism. Proponents of postcolonialism repudiate all intellectual frameworks that are part of the legacy of the post-Enlightenment European tradition, and this includes Marxism’s theory of capitalism and social transformation. Marx has even been dismissed by scholars such as Edward Said as both racist and Orientalist. Marxism has thus been rejected as an irredeemably white model for social emancipation that has little or no relevance to the world beyond Europe and North America.
Simin Fadaee, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Manchester, has no quarrel with those who insist that European thought needs to be ‘decentred’. However, she claims that ‘postcolonial theorists’ tendency to deny that capitalism is the basis of European power, hegemony and global expansion reveals a serious flaw of culturalism in postcolonial arguments’ (p. 8). The refusal to acknowledge the integral role of capital in structuring societies seriously impedes our ability to grasp the real nature of anti-colonial struggles. She argues that: ‘For these theorists, anti-colonial, anti-racism or anti-inequality movements are to be understood as a response to questions of identity, and they ignore the fundamental interrelations that exist between capitalism, colonialism and racism’ (p. 8).
The author contends that the postcolonialist view fails to do justice to the full corpus of Marx’s work, particularly his later writings. She shows how Marx, in the Grundrisse (1993), sketched out a multilinear theory of history, and by 1856–1857 had become a staunch critic of colonialism. Moreover, in 1890, Engels observed that both he and Marx had come to recognise the necessity of expanding their original materialist conception of history. This required a re-examination of history in its entirety, encompassing the world beyond Europe.
Fadaee avers, however, that even if Marx had never directly engaged with the problem of colonialism, his theory would still serve as a vital analytic tool in the hands of oppressed peoples in the Global South. Marx’s assumptions were inevitably shaped by the contingencies of his own socio-historical context, but his analysis nonetheless continues to have trans-cultural application.
The author then turns to the heart of her study – a reassertion, contrary to recent efforts to replace it with a more identity-focused left politics, of the importance of classical Marxism to the most significant agents of social change in the Global South.
She accomplishes this aim via biographical studies of nine key Marxist-inspired revolutionary figures, starting with Jawaharlal Nehru’s fusion of nationalism and socialism in India, Hồ Chí Minh’s use of Marxism in Vietnam and Mao Zedong’s in China. Stimulating chapters then follow on Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana and Amílcar Cabral in Guinea-Bissau. Next comes an important discussion of Frantz Fanon, whom the author calls ‘the Marx of the Third World’ (p. 132). The focus then shifts to Cuba, and the career of Ernesto Che Guevara. The last chapters deal with Ali Shariati, an Iranian activist who sought to combine Marxist and Islamic thought, and finally an analysis of the Mexican leader Subcomandante Marcos.
On the whole, these biographical studies do a very good job of supporting the author’s thesis. However, while Fadaee is clear that some of these figures, such as Mao, advocated continuous revolution, scant attention is paid to the fact that Marx and Engels believed that the need for violent revolutionary action would cease once the dictatorship of the proletariat had successfully seen off its class enemies.
The book’s biographical focus also has its limitations. It detracts from a consideration of broader political phenomena, such as trade unions, leftist parties and labour struggles, which surely play an even greater role in promoting egalitarian change than do individuals. For instance, Che Guevara’s ‘heroic’ example can only be explained in the context of the specific cadre of professional revolutionaries in which he played an important part. Furthermore, the focus on biographies perhaps inevitably means that insufficient systematic scrutiny is given to the way in which these key figures applied specific Marxist theories to their own societal contexts. Fundamental Marxist theories, such as dialectical materialism and surplus value, are given little or no treatment.
There is also a failure to acknowledge the highly contested status of some of the figures included as case examples in terms of what it means to be a Marxist-inspired ‘revolutionary’. For example, the fact that characters as radically different as Frantz Fanon and Hồ Chí Minh are placed in the same category as ‘Marxist revolutionaries’ is problematic, especially as there is no real attempt to clearly define either term. Most importantly, perhaps, the book fails to distinguish between theorists of Marxism and those who wielded power, such as Mao, whose Cultural Revolution saw him become as brutal an oppressor as any bourgeois regime.
And in a book about the impact of Marxism on the Global South, there is one glaring lacuna: the pivotal role played by liberation theology in Latin American politics. This movement is, almost by definition, characterised by its application of Marxist theory to the inequality caused by capitalism and by its tireless championing of the poor and oppressed. It is referred to in passing in Fadaee’s book, but only in reference to the way in which it helped shape the ideas of Ali Shariati. However, liberation theology has arguably had a greater significance in challenging the ‘false consciousness’ produced by bourgeois ideology in Latin America than Shariati’s ‘red Shiism’ ever did in Iran.
Notwithstanding these shortcomings, this is an engaging study that suggests that Marxism still has considerable power to inspire and give concrete hope to oppressed peoples across the globe. The volume also serves as a much-needed clarion call to those on the left to concentrate less on identity politics, and more on the core concern of Marxism – class struggle.