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Holding Fast to an Image of the Past: Explorations in the Marxist Tradition
In this wide-ranging book of essays, Deutscher prize-winning author Neil Davidson offers theoretical reinterpretations and appraisals of key thinkers and themes of interest to contemporary radicals. Throughout Davidson demonstrates the enduring explanatory power of the Marxist understanding of history. Topics include Adam Smith, Eric Hobsbawm, Antonio Gramsci, Naomi Klein, and Marx and Engels' views on the Scottish Highlands
440 pages, Paperback
First published October 18, 2013
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About the author
Neil Davidson
47 books13 followersNeil Davidson lectured in sociology at the University of Glasgow and is the author of six books, including the Deutscher Prize–winning Discovering the Scottish Revolution and, most recently, Nation-States. He wrote some of the most widely read analyses of the previous referendum and Scottish independence for journals including Bella Caledonia, Jacobin, New Left Review, Radical Philosophy and Salvage.
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December 18, 2023
My interest in Neil Davidson's body of work generally springs from a preoccupation with the forging of a contemporary "Open Marxism." Some background may be in order. Marxism is, above all else, a theory of praxis, meaning it isn't simply a way to philosophize the world or academically categorize everything so that it can be understood for its own sake. As countless Marxists will quote time and again until we are blue in the face, "philosophers have merely interpreted the world. The point, however, is to change it."
This does not mean that Marxists are dismissive of philosophy. Far from it, we must understand philosophical, political and historical concepts in order to change the world. But this in turn has implications for how Marxists philosophize. If Marxism is a leaving and breathing worldview intended to change that world, then it must allow itself to be, in a sense, accountable to that same world. History evolves and changes, most often beyond the control of Marxists themselves. And so, if we are to apply a Marxist method (ie. dialectical materialism) to Marxism itself, we must constantly be squaring the changes of history against what we might otherwise take for granted in Marxist theory.
Enter the concept of Open Marxism, which has two definitions that are simultaneously overlapping but also somewhat at odds. Both are characterized by the eschewing of dogmatic orthodoxy. But while the more widespread one has taken this to the point of essentially marrying Marxism with autonomist and semi-anarchist thought, the definition that interests me the most is that which sees itself as squarely within the parameters of the best of anti-Stalinist Leninism.
The term is possibly best exemplified in an article by Paul LeBlanc on the writings of Michael Lowy (found here: http://links.org.au/node/3549). The spirit of the Open Marxism held up by both LeBlanc and Lowy is summed up as such:
In other words, Marxism as a flexible, breathing praxis. Theory must lead to action, action must lead to reflection of how the result of our actions impact the theory. Repeat as needed. And it's always needed.
The point of this long-winded introduction to a review of Neil Davidon's Holding Fast to an Image of the Past is to frame why a Marxist scholar and a book such as these are so essential to forging or renewing a tradition that, to be blunt, is ever going to be worth a damn in terms of changing the world. The past forty years have not been kind to the left generally and the Marxist left in particular. It's little wonder that a great many groups and parties that once were able to mobilize large numbers or working and oppressed people have now degenerated into dogmatic sects clinging to an orthodoxy that lends little in the way of usefulness.
Davidson's approach is, in contrast, both sober and refreshingly effervescent. His theories are also mentioned in LeBlanc's article, and some of his most recent work has been aimed at revisiting and reassessing key planks in the Marxist tradition such as the theory of permanent revolution and the dynamics of the bourgeois revolution. During a talk at the Socialism 2014 conference in Chicago -- which was tailored to provide something of a teaser for Holding Fast -- he argued that an effective Marxist doesn't take her knowledge or viewpoints only from Marxist theory itself. Many central concepts used by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, Gramsci and so on were taken from or elaborated upon the contributions of non-Marxist thinkers, albeit integrated into a thoroughly Marxist framework in order to pull out their most dialectical kernels. Why should our approach today be any different, particularly as neoliberalism has proven itself to be the most flexible iteration of capitalism yet? Why should we be any less heterodox in our critical thinking?
This does not mean that Marxists are dismissive of philosophy. Far from it, we must understand philosophical, political and historical concepts in order to change the world. But this in turn has implications for how Marxists philosophize. If Marxism is a leaving and breathing worldview intended to change that world, then it must allow itself to be, in a sense, accountable to that same world. History evolves and changes, most often beyond the control of Marxists themselves. And so, if we are to apply a Marxist method (ie. dialectical materialism) to Marxism itself, we must constantly be squaring the changes of history against what we might otherwise take for granted in Marxist theory.
Enter the concept of Open Marxism, which has two definitions that are simultaneously overlapping but also somewhat at odds. Both are characterized by the eschewing of dogmatic orthodoxy. But while the more widespread one has taken this to the point of essentially marrying Marxism with autonomist and semi-anarchist thought, the definition that interests me the most is that which sees itself as squarely within the parameters of the best of anti-Stalinist Leninism.
The term is possibly best exemplified in an article by Paul LeBlanc on the writings of Michael Lowy (found here: http://links.org.au/node/3549). The spirit of the Open Marxism held up by both LeBlanc and Lowy is summed up as such:
Orthodoxy, if understood as a closed system, is an approximation of death. There had been nothing “orthodox” about Trotsky’s vibrantly dialectical Marxism, nor had this been a quality of the “Fidelista” romantics who had made the Cuban Revolution in 1959. And it was absolutely alien to the fabulous cultural and intellectual convergence that one found in Michael Löwy’s writings, where Lenin and Leon Trotsky were rubbing shoulders with Rosa Luxemburg and Che Guevara, mingling with Georg Lukács and Ernst Bloch, not to mention Antonio Gramsci, José Carlos Mariátegui, Walter Benjamin ... and innumerable unorthodox others.
In other words, Marxism as a flexible, breathing praxis. Theory must lead to action, action must lead to reflection of how the result of our actions impact the theory. Repeat as needed. And it's always needed.
The point of this long-winded introduction to a review of Neil Davidon's Holding Fast to an Image of the Past is to frame why a Marxist scholar and a book such as these are so essential to forging or renewing a tradition that, to be blunt, is ever going to be worth a damn in terms of changing the world. The past forty years have not been kind to the left generally and the Marxist left in particular. It's little wonder that a great many groups and parties that once were able to mobilize large numbers or working and oppressed people have now degenerated into dogmatic sects clinging to an orthodoxy that lends little in the way of usefulness.
Davidson's approach is, in contrast, both sober and refreshingly effervescent. His theories are also mentioned in LeBlanc's article, and some of his most recent work has been aimed at revisiting and reassessing key planks in the Marxist tradition such as the theory of permanent revolution and the dynamics of the bourgeois revolution. During a talk at the Socialism 2014 conference in Chicago -- which was tailored to provide something of a teaser for Holding Fast -- he argued that an effective Marxist doesn't take her knowledge or viewpoints only from Marxist theory itself. Many central concepts used by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, Gramsci and so on were taken from or elaborated upon the contributions of non-Marxist thinkers, albeit integrated into a thoroughly Marxist framework in order to pull out their most dialectical kernels. Why should our approach today be any different, particularly as neoliberalism has proven itself to be the most flexible iteration of capitalism yet? Why should we be any less heterodox in our critical thinking?
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