Being in Society

Good German grammar school, followed by good English grammar school and then up to Cambridge, where he, "had lots of time for other activities". This was Eric Hobsbawn's way to the Communist Party, a star first in History and life as a Marxist Historian in a liberal bourgeoisie democracy. If on joining the party in 1932, it was indeed a simple choice between good and evil as he suggests in his autobiographical work, 'Interesting Times' and if Hobsbawn had no real reason to be as disillusioned as a certain George Orwell ne Eric Blair was to become after his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, experiences, which are well documented in Orwell's book, 'Homage to Catalonia' (1938), he (Hobsbawn) was at least aware of the line laid down at the 6th Congress of the COMINTERN in 1928, which equated social democracy with social fascism. In Berlin in 1932 he must also have been aware that this line facilitated rather than hindered the rise of real fascism. Of course, I am talking with the wisdom that hindsight affords us and maybe the grotesque nature of the "social fascism" line wasn't quite so clear to rank and file members of the KPD at the time. Moreover, to be honest that is not my real gripe with Hobsbawn.
When younger I remember reading Orwell's, "Down and Out in Paris and London" and how at the end of the book he gets a new set of clothes and an envelope with cash in it and goes back to his bohemian bourgeoisie existence and I remember thinking that that is not an option for the working class. Now, with Orwell and, to some extent with Hobsbawn too, there is an intellectual sincerity and one would have to come to the conclusion that their hearts too are in the right place. However, if they are not representatives of a generation lost in space, they represented a intellectual middle and upper middle class that was invariably out of place. Both were a priori alienated from the horny handed sons of toil whose interests they wanted to promote. Still, as I suggested there is an intellectual sincerity and a certain humanity as far as both are concerned and in Orwell's case in particular, his books certainly helped even the horny handed sons of toil to see that the Soviet Union was not beyond criticism and, indeed, might not represent their 'Jerusalem' and remember 'Animal Farm' and '1984' were published in 1945 and 1949 respectively. It should, therefore, also be borne in mind that those books preceded the debates between Camus and Satre that were to rage during the early fifties.
Both Hobsbawn and Orwell belong, however, to that environment that spawned the Cambridge "Apostles" and as far as Burgess and Blunt are concerned I fail to detect not only the humanity and intellectual sincerity that would at least have put them on the "right" side but I also fail to detect any real moral fibre. McLean and Philby are different in that they both shared a particular woman and also certain convictions. Nevertheless, didn't they get it so wrong? The evidence would appear to suggest not only was the model provided seriously flawed but also the "intellectuals" who supported it failed to see this or if they did see it, they, with the exception of Orwell and a few others, failed to act upon it.
It can, of course, hardly be otherwise for if we are to accept that our being in society does, indeed, determine our consciousness, we should look no further than Rousseau's two main works, 'Du Contrat Social' and 'Emil'. In the latter the perfect character is produced through a perfect education system and in the other the perfect society exists through a social contract that reflects the general will. The problem is it is a bit like the chicken and egg scenario; in order to get a society of Emils you need the social contract and in order to get the social contract you need a society of Emils. Revolutionaries who still follow the cricket results from their Moscow exile, who walk around with "Sirs" in front of their names, who live in five star hotels, who take themselves off to splendid isolation in the Hebrides to work on a novel might even be well meaning, however, they cannot really represent the working classes.

The picture above is of Groucho Marx, unrelated to Karl Marx. Groucho believed that women should be obscene and not heard. Karl believed that your being in society determines your consciousness.