The reification of Marxism: Rejoinder to Lazar

Author(s): PETER WORSLEY

Source: Sociology, Vol. 9, No. 3 (September 1975), pp. 496-502
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
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 496 CORRESPONDENCE

Taken as a whole ethnomethodologists do not ap

This follows directly from their rejection of any
social reality and their insistence on the epistemol
conception of sociology does not extend to the ideo
of their colleagues. Their position in this is string
morally neutral. We can draw on it to study the
observable social order be it the Paris Commune
our practice as sociologists.
But we are also moral citizens. The understa
ethnomethodology makes available deeply moral co
equality of all people and their ideas and their right
retarded, no mentally disturbed, no culturally dep
in a different way from us but who are essentially
There is the emphasis on communication between h
on the continual possibility of change as that order i
want a better world enough, we can have it, but its
to do something to bring it nearer. Conversely, res
cannot be shrugged off to some impersonal 'they
responsibility must in part be our own. Finally, th
cation open, of defending the free dissemination
market in ideas with continuous argument and deb
One can well wonder whether a stronger emphasis
a check to the worst excesses of Stalinist thou
Ethnomethodology presents a revitalized libertarian
the sociologists of our day from the Left as Weber
This note represents no more than a brief note w
in these theoretical questions than I to pursue them
can be an immensely profitable line of enquiry in a
understanding of social action.
R. W. J. DINGWALL
Centre for Social Studies ,
University of Aberdeen

The reification of Marxism: Rejoinder to Lazar

De omnibus disputandum - Karl Marx's 'favourite motto*.

'Mais il ya dans le marxisme le sens d'une fatalit, et de l'exaltation de la volont. Chaque
fois que la fatalit passe avant la volont, je me mfie'.
Andr Malraux, La Condition Humaine.

It is somewhat paradoxical that though my Presidential Address was primarily aimed,

positively, at 'bringing society back in', and negatively, against phenomenological idealism
(culminating in such solipsistic extravagances as the claim, by one colleague, that he 'created'
Northern Ireland - because he 'defined the situation' in his mind), and against abstracted
interactionism and associated radical-chic 'counter-cultural' relativism, I should only have
provoked a defence of Marxism, to which I alluded only marginally. Perhaps this reflects the
transience of the first set of ideologies, since they are in deep crisis (where their heyday is not
already over) and the certainty of the true believer that once gripped their adherents has been
replaced by growing doubt.
Marxism is more resilient. Indeed, any intellectual system that could survive Stalinism and
still command generous responses from millions of people must have something remarkable

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 CORRESPONDENCE 497

about it. What that continuing, indeed expa

[Marxism is] the only culturally available world-

and inequality at the heart of its theory, and t
praxis'.1

Marxism provides not only a cognitive map of the world, but also retains both an historical
and evolutionary conception of change which eschews historical inevitability, pessimism, and
cyclical and other determinisms, since it emphasizes, in a 'Promethean' way, human potential,
and Man's capacity to create new values, social formations and aspirations, as well as specifying
the agencies (proletariat - and now peasantry - and Party) which need to be organized in order
to bring these things to fruition.2 Insofar as it speaks to the real condition of people's lives, it is
a materialist theory; but, unlike positivism or reductionist materialism, it contains a crucial
'utopian' vision of possibility, and hence continues to engage the sympathies of those who, as
citizens, refuse simply to acquiesce, and, as intellectuals, do not delude themselves that their
work is or ought to be value-free. Marxism steadfastly refuses to lie down and die, despite
successive annihilation campaigns, basically because it is not simply a 'belief-system', but a
praxis: a way of changing the world. Hence, despite periodic setbacks, let-downs, even
betrayals, people revive and modify it.
But these processes generate, and will continue to generate, both successive and synchronically
rival versions of Marxism. Marxism, in fact, is not an historic or decontextualized 'thing', and
to treat it as such, as I think David Lazar does, is to undertake the reification of Marxism.3 I
outlined some of the more important varieties of Marxist thought, not because I wanted to
'poke fun', as he describes it, but for the very serious reason that these controversies have not
only intellectually divided and racked the universe of Marxists, but also had (in some cases)
enormous practical effects on their lives and on those of others, since Marxism is a collective,
often mass, institutionalized political phenomenon, not simply as abstract intellectual orientation.
Because it has resulted in mass misery as well as mass emancipation at times, a little more
humility on the part of its more uncritical defenders would also be in order. The shades of
over twenty million dead in the USSR have some reason to doubt the assumption that Marxism
is doctrinal perfectability realized, and - Marxists should remember - they included the flower
of that Communist generation.
Nor do the successes of Marxism necessarily constitute as valid a test of the validity of its
theories as its more pragmatic defenders (those who emphasize 'the test of praxis') assume:
with enough power, most theories can be made to work. And there can be disconnection :
intellectually coherent theory without practice, or successful practice with defective or minimal
theory (from the practice of acupuncture to the achievement of modern capitalism under the
ideological inspiration of Protestantism). The interpretation of the relationship between theory
and practice, in terms of prediction - an alternative, equally popular Marxist canon of theoretical
efficacy - reposes on a rather different, positivistic set of assumptions about historical deter-
mination, and omits the collective assertion of human agency emphasized by Gramsci (and
Mao):
Really one 'foresees' to the extent to which one acts, to which one makes a voluntary effort and so
contributes to creating the 'foreseen' result. Foresight reveals itself therefore not as a scientific act of
knowledge, but as the abstract expression of the effort one makes, the practical method of creating a
collective will.4

It is not mere nit-picking, therefore to refer, as I did, to some of the major controversies
within Marxism itself. To do so, rather, is simply to point to some of the greatest issues of our
day. And when the two major institutionalized versions of Marxism, in the USSR and China
respectively, are so bitterly opposed that the latter regards the former as a 'social' imperialism
more dangerous than capitalist imperialism, the plurality of Marxism scarcely needs emphasizing

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49^ CORRESPONDENCE
The 'principal contradiction' (out of the series of cont
is that between positivistic and humanist versions o
inexorable working out of a ' logic of history* (with H
and not even the first Marxist - in an era profoundly
natural sciences - was able to avoid expressing his socia
sciences. The humanist version - equally his - emphasiz
ship of theory and practice and of subject and object,
values' - conceived of as if they were lodged in some
as part of an overall process by which they produce th
thought, too. In more voluntaristic versions of Marxi
collective action of men that is crucial, and the devel
latter Marxism that has gripped millions, precisely
re-socialization of Man - which is only to be accompli
in Marxism are obscured if one simply produces stipu
then defines everything else as 'bourgeois* science (an
mistaken). Mr. Lazar 's definition emphasizes 'the r
material forces of production in the history of society
words too closely, all might seem well, but there ha
mean, among Marxists as well as non-Marxists, scholar
locus classicus , Mr. Lazar, with heavy irony, dismi
compatibility between the views of Marx and Weber
His view, however, is not shared by other Marxists. Z
was by no stretch of imagination attempting to refute Mar
of the causal chain'.6

or, again (in a book entitled Marxism: a re-examination

A large part of Weber's work can be viewed as an attempt t

with a political and military determinism . . . Marx did not g
they deserve in his purely theoretical formulations . . . [Thi
after him. [It] led to vulgar Marxism among his self-ap
criticising the latter for not carefully distinguishing the
determined' and these, in turn, from the 'economically rele

The point I am making is not so much whether this i

(though that is important, too), but that different
calling themselves Marxists. Mr. Lazar does not see
evidently himself holds a different point of view on
that of Zeitlin. One traditional way out of this kind of
'revisionist'. Such accusations are met, on the part of t
their critics are 'vulgar' ('unreconstructed', 'dogmatic')
(by Marxists) of much of what has hitherto been take
leaves the supporters of Marxism as bewildered as its
have been defending the wrong thing all along. In th
of false starts and fresh starts.
I do not hold the view that there are simply a plur
judgements as to their respective value can be made. Bu
discussed so far the title of Marxism. (I have a somewh
falls under the rubric 'Marxism', and - see below - it
least - marxisant thought in Western Europe.) In m
Stalin are all Marxists of different kinds, and the emp
in that body of thought represent perfectly logical an

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 CORRESPONDENCE 499

is a very complex body of theory, and if it

terms of its capacity to define the most relev
it is markedly more problematic - in a diffe
forbidding problem of operationalizing
Marxism does not exist 'in itself' : it is embo
from classes to coteries, with different soc
locations in history and society, and is carri
is not an absolute, unambiguous or perfect thi
resource, used instrumentally, it is as subje
phenomena. It also inevitably contains dis
becomes an institutionalized orthodoxy, w
correlate of the reification of Marxism is
dichotomization of knowledge into Marxism
(error). As far as sociology is concerned, t
tradition in sociology' (Lazar, Gouldner a
'bourgeois sociology' - is assumed. Those w
'revisionists', 'left Weberians', and other pejor
I am reminded of Engels' 'favourite saying':
in bourgeois sociology, and not simply at
'bourgeois' simply as a synonym for 'errone
either came to sociology in the first place b
inspect the world, or those who were later
they had read sociology. Massive as the lim
are in non-Marxist sociology, and despite th
the status quo it provides, it, no less than
contradictory phenomenon. It would be cu
from utilizing the knowledge and insights it
To take one striking example, a study of
Chinese history would have helped avoid
Communes were set up during the Great L
been no Leap and no communes, either, had
concerning the re-socialization of man an
Communist Party to initiate it.)9
It is difficult, in the end, to categorize M
provides an all-purpose get-out from the se
body of the text.
But there is one irreconcilable difference
Marxism. I find it quite modest. Firstly, the
the contribution of Marxism, in my view, h
attempted, has been unconvincing: notably,
precisely by the equating of the twin conce
and 'the rest'); secondly, the absence (thou
and elaborated Marxist psychology relatin
society; thirdly, the inadequacy of Marxist
State and society; and, fourthly, the absenc
the levels of mediation, secondary association
Singularly absent from Marxist sociology,
with concrete social problems - the solution
to a remote socialist future, treating c
'reformism'10 - has been the absence with f

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500 CORRESPONDENCE

less than 'the societal whole': an 'over-socializa

I deplored, for bourgeois sociology.11 Little w
Marxism, or that so many Marxists become in
(and rarely) embark on research among real p
far richer, however limited its societal vision.
Now to my own stipulations. Paradoxically
commonly taken to be Marxist or marxisant ,
sophistication, is widely considered to be high
and French structuralism. (Lvi-Strauss, for e
his mind via a daily reading of the Eighteenth
schools borrow concepts from Marx, abstracte
fragments within a framework which is basic
some other hyper-inflation of subjectivity, in
conception of the 'deep' (sc. sub- or pre-soci
ultimate in unlikelihood - the conflation of
One has to hand it to intellectuals : there is lit
these influential schools are held up as exam
Marxism by self-designated Marxists. At the
veers away from human agency and assertion
Yet the influence of such schools is restricted a
view, this is both the source and the expressio
axiom that the production of scientific knowl
production of revolutionary theory occurs a
revolutions. The successful revolutions, how
Russia, China, Cuba and Viet Nam, and it ha
dominant Western distortions and succeeded i
have espoused them. The lucidity of Chinese M
contradiction', contrasts vividly with the opa
revolutionary theory in the West, who, div
primarily with other highly educated peopl
(This is the significance of Mao's remark that
celebrating ignorance, but castigating the
scholasticism for action.) The oscillation of
minism, its passivity and pessimism (Frankfur
theorists reflect the bifurcation of Marxism i
hand, and institutionalized parliamentary - '
the twin poles of an 'absent centre' : a revolut
Hence I find myself unable to discuss the 's
reference to a handful of writings by academ
seriously flawed, the intellectual counterpart
revolutionary praxis of its own, aptly symboli
an apical ancestor - Lenin - and its subseque
Trotsky and Stalin: all indices of political iden
to have achieved its own revolution - over half
and creative exponents of Marxism in the Wes
both deeply involved in significant mass revol
What Mr. Lazar takes to be 'inconsistency'
Marxism, I see as a recognition of its plural c
and theoretical over-development in the W
Weberian' the kind of funny conclusion that r

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 CORRESPONDENCE 5OI

I accept Mr. Lazar 's portrayal of the dilemm

of course, quite other conceptions of what
holds - and they are well-established inside B
(albeit, usually defusing him) amongst the
sociology is a 'debate with the ghost of Marx
Marx himself encountered this kind of sch
Not only was it foreign to his thinking (as h
saw their revolutionary theory as having b
from the tripartite traditions of the Enlight
social theory, British classical political econ
Marxism, however, by no means signified th
non-Marxist thought, to take out of it what
with the rest. It is not good enough simpl
Marx (who suggested dedicating Capital t
exclusivist interpretations of his own though

PETER WORSLEY

University of Manchester

Notes

i. 'The State of Theory and the Status of Theory*, Sociology , Vol. 8, No.
15.
2. See my 'The Revolutionary Party as an Agent of Social Change (or The Politics of Mah
Jong)' in Social Science and the New Societies , ed. Nancy Hammond, Social Science Research
Bureau, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 1973, pp. 217-245).
3. A similar failure to theoretically identify which brand of Marxism he identifies with
(except by exemplification) is exhibited by Martin Shaw in his Marxism versus Sociology:
A guide to reading y Pluto Press (1974), Introduction, despite his noting that (a) Gouldner had
earlier challenged him to say ' which or whose marxism* he had in mind, and (b) that C
Wright Mills has said that there is no such thing as a 'plain Marxist'.
4. Antonio Gramsci, The Modern Prince , Lawrence and Wishart, 1957, p. 101.
5. Irving Zeitlin, Ideology and the Development of Sociological Theory , Prentice-Hall, 1968, p.
122.

6. Van Nostrand, London, 1962, pp. 161-2.

7. See, for example, Eric Hobsbawm's use of this device in 'Karl Marx's Contr
Historiography', Ideology in Social Science (ed. Robin Blackburn), Fontana/Co
pp. 265-283, where he dismisses the 'economic interpretation of history', th
"basis and superstructure", 'class interest and the class struggle', 'historical
historical inevitability', etc.
8. See Herbert Marcuse's 'immanent critique', Soviet Marxism: a critical analysi
University Press, New York, 1968.
9. See chapter on the communes in my Inside China , Allen Lane/Penguin Press,
10. See Stan Cohen's caustic remarks on the indifference and hostility of the L
the study of deviance, 'Criminology and the sociology of deviance in B
Deviance and Social Control (eds. Paul Rock and Mary Mcintosh), Tavistock, 1974
li. Ernesto Laclau's critique of A. G. Frank, for instance, in his 'Imperialism in Lati
New Left Review y 67, 1971, pp. 19-38, registers dissatisfaction, from within M
this kind of 'over-integrated' model, in this case, one of the world society.
12. Mao Tse-Tung Unrehearsed : talks and letters, 1956-71, ed. Stuart Schra
Harmonds worth, pp. 19, 204-210.

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502 CORRESPONDENCE

13. For one view of the dilution and erosion

see Nguyen Nghe's castigation of Frantz
attributes to the pernicious ('subjectivis a
acquired from French intellectuals. He rem
develop an adequate political theory and
Liberation, 'Frantz Fanon et les Problme
1963, pp. 22-36. (In particular, he reje
'comparatively privileged* working-cl
proletariat' as the revolutionary classes.) F
institutionalized European Marxism (despite
clear: 'For a long time now* he wrote,
Europe'.

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