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Jurriaan Bendien
Introduction
Hope, Immanuel Wallerstein recently told a meeting
of the Institute for Social Studies in The Hague, is a
tricky word; it can only lead to illusions and dis-
illusionment. He reportedly declined any discussion
about possibilities of a different, better world in
the future.
1
For his part, Russian president Vladimir
Putin said on television in December 2001 that he
hoped there would be no more revolutions in the
21st century.
In the following essay, however, Ernest Mandel
sides with Lenin on the issue, and discusses the hope
for liberation and social revolution as a creative force,
as a source of motivation in politics considering
hope and future perspectives an essential dimension
of the Marxist outlook. It was originally published
in a 1978 memorial volume for Ernst Bloch, with
whose philosophy of hope Mandel felt an afnity.
2
Although he wrote prolically (over twenty books
Historical Materialism, volume 10:4 (239243)
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2002
Also available online www.brill.nl
1
De wereld staat op instorten, NRC Handelsblad, 1 March 2002.
2
Mandel 1978. I revised the German text using the Dutch version subsequently
published in Van der Enden 1980, pp. 5165. In the notes I have substituted English
references where possible. My thanks to Christoph Jenke and Ron Blom for supplying
the original texts. Mandel returned to the theme of hope towards the end of his life,
in an address to the Sao Paulo Forum. See Mandel 1992a or 1992b.
and around two thousand articles and pamphlets), Mandel seems to have
been reluctant to publish on purely philosophical questions.
3
This short piece
is one exception, but even here he tries to link his philosophical reections
to politics and economics.
Of particular interest is his thesis that human beings, who evolved beyond
animal existence though consciously-purposive and co-operative labour, are
by that very fact creatures who communicate, imagine, hope, dream and
envisage the future the implications of which are all too often left out of
Marxist discussions of historical materialism, for fear of idealist errors.
Mandel however has no such reservations he praises the utopian socialists
for enormously broadening the horizon of what was thought to be possible
at the time and considers the elaboration of a specic vision of the socialism
of the future crucial for Marxist politics in our own time; precisely the refusal
to elaborate feasible socialist alternatives would, he says, result in a lack of
credibility for the socialist project. He also approvingly quotes Trotsky on the
benets of reecting oneself in the mirror of imaginative literature, insofar
as it is imbued with the desire to transform life.
For all that, his essay remains rather sober and restrained, distinguishing
carefully between expectations based on conscientious research of social trends,
and wishful thinking. The attitude that guided his own life in this respect is
well summarised in a debate with Paul Sweezy:
Marxists are not religious people. Our conviction about the revolutionary
potential of the proletariat is based upon scientic analysis and careful
checking of the historical record not on irrational faith or scholastic syl-
logisms. . . . If one wants to avoid retreating into a simple rationalization
of ones own disappointment with the relative slowness of the historical
process, of ones revulsion against political misleaders, of ones fatigue and
demoralization, then one should keep a sense of proportion and say: let us
wait and see how the workers will ght the next few decades, nay half-century.
And let us not wait passively, but do what we can to ensure that these
workers struggles end in victorious socialist revolution, before drawing
premature balance-sheets and before barbarism takes over.
4
240 Jurriaan Bendien
3
See Bendien 1987 and 2000. For Mandels more philosophical writings, see for
example Mandel 1956; 1978b; 1988; 1989; and 1991.
4
Mandel 1979/80. Cf. the biblical concept of faith: Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).
The fall of the Berlin Wall did not lead to the kind of revolutions that Mandel
had anticipated and hoped for. Nevertheless, his hopeful revolutionary
perspective did enable him to foresee, analyse and intervene in the growing
crisis of the Eastern Bloc, right up to and after its disintegration, avoiding
false interpretations of the Communist bureaucracy as an entrenched new
ruling class presiding over a state-capitalist system or a new mode of pro-
duction that could reproduce itself more or less indenitely. In that respect,
he stayed well ahead of numerous other commentators.
I personally met Ernest for the rst time in 1984. I was just a young graduate
from New Zealand on holiday in Europe, but I had a nose for the big questions
and he was very generously prepared to talk about all of them. Among
many other things, I recall asking him about the prospects for a socialist
revolution in Europe. He became enthusiastic, citing examples to demonstrate
the extent of workers political awareness in Italy, France, Britain and his
native Belgium. But arent you being too optimistic, as your critics say?, I
asked. He was visibly irritated and replied It is not a question of optimism
or pessimism, its a question of studying the facts! After making a quick
survey of the European labour movement, he concluded if Europe goes
socialist, the world goes socialist.
I remember coming away from our wide-ranging conversation impressed
both by his pathos and his personal modesty, assured that even if I should
nd little to be hopeful about, Ernest surely would. He was not a great
revolutionary politician like Lenin or Trotsky. But he was a very positive,
very hard-working Marxist who inspired countless people, with a style
refreshingly free from the malice and venom of sectarians. If anything, his
greatness lay in preparing the way for many other Marxists with his writings,
speeches and political activity. Perhaps his pioneering inuence will one day
be fairly acknowledged.
5
In a memorial tribute after his death in 1995, his friend and critic Andre
Gunder Frank stated
Even with all his humanism, I never understood how Ernest Mandel
maintained his inveterate optimism in the face of all the evidence; and yet,
the more the evidence comes in, the more do we need his optimism and
Introduction 241
5
A Dutch historian of the communist movement, Jan Willem Stutje, is currently
researching a biography of Ernest Mandel.
humanism as well as his analysis to get out of it. So we shall miss him
and continue to need him.
6
But could it be that anticipation and hope are, as Mandel argues, a vital
ingredient of historical materialism or even that historical materialism is
intrinsically an optimistic, positive, hopeful approach, insofar as it afrms
the real possibility of people consciously making their collective history and
changing the world for the better, despite such modern horrors as the Holocaust
and Zionist oppression, the Gulag, the devastation of whole countries like
Vietnam and Iraq, and bloody massacres such as in Rwanda and Cambodia?
References
Bendien, Jurriaan 1987, Ernest Mandel: An Attempt at a Bibliography of his Writings, Part
One, manuscript.
Bendien, Jurriaan 2000, Ernest Mandel: An Attempt at a Bibliography of his Writings, Part
Two, manuscript.
Frank, Andre Gunder 1995, In Memoriam Tribute to Ernest Mandel, http://csf.
colorado.edu/agfrank/mandel_tribute.html
Mandel, Ernest 1956, Les racines de la pense dialectique [The Roots of Dialectical
Thought], Quatrieme Internationale, 14: 46.
Mandel, Ernest 1978a, Antizipation und Hoffnung als Kategorien des Historischen
Materialismus, in Denken heisst Ueberschreiten. In memoriam Ernst Bloch 18851977,
edited by Karola Bloch and Alfred Reif, Frankfurt am Main: Europaische Verlags-
anstalt.
Mandel, Ernest 1978b, Spinoza: consequente verdediger van de burgerlijke vrijheid
[Spinoza: Consistent Defender of Bourgeois Freedom], Tijdschrift voor de Studie van
de Verlichting, 6.
Mandel, Ernest 1979/80, Why the Soviet Bureaucracy Is Not a New Ruling Class,
Monthly Review, 31, 3: 6386.
Mandel, Ernest 1988, Marx, Engels en het probleem van de zogenaamde dubbele
moraal [Marx, Engels and the Problem of the So-called Moral Double Standard],
in Veelzijdig Marxisme. Deel 2: Geschiedenis, Moraal, Psychologie, edited by Eric Corijn
et al., Brussels: Institute for Marxist Studies, Free University of Brussels.
242 Jurriaan Bendien
6
Frank 1995.
Mandel, Ernest 1989, How to Make No Sense of Marx, Canadian Journal of Philosophy,
Supplementary Volume Series, November 1989.
Mandel, Ernest 1991, Die Dialektik von Produktivkraften, Produktionsverhaltenissen
und Klassenkampf neben Kategorien der Latenz und des Parametrischen Deter-
minismus in der Materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung [The Categories of Latency
and Parametric Determinism, and the Dialectic of Productive Forces, Production
Relations and Class Struggle in the Materialist Approach to History], in Die Versteiner-
ten Verhaltenisse zum Tanzen Bringen. Beitrage zur Marxistischen Theorie Heute, Berlin:
Dietz Verlag.
Mandel, Ernest 1992a, Hagamos renacer la esperanza. Foro de Sao Paulo, Viento Sur,
4, JulyAugust.
Mandel, Ernest 1992b, Faire renatre lespoir, Inprecor, 358, 24 September.
Van der Enden, H. (ed.) 1980, Marxisme van de Hoop Hoop van het Marxisme?, Bussum:
Het Wereldvenster.
Introduction 243