Hendrik de Man (1885-1953) was a major figure in the socialist movement of the inter-war period. Trained as a sociologist, he authored several pioneering works of industrial sociology. As an activist and leader in the Belgian Labor Party, de Man's influence was so great that many regarded him as a rival to Marx. In the aftermath of the First World War, de Man undertook a re-thinking of pre-war Marxist verities, which culminated in his immensely influential The Psychology of Socialism. Largely accepting Marx's economic analysis, he argued that the philosophical and psychological inadequacies of Marxian theory were in large part responsible for the opportunism, bureaucratization, and "embourgeoisement" of the movement. De Man came to increasingly stress the extra-economic, moral dimension of socialism, insisting that it could not be reduced to simple anti-capitalism. His attempted reformulation of the socialist ideology, which included such modern themes as workers' control, was, in a sense, the opposite of revisionism. Rather than attempting to bring theory in line with practice, he sought to deepen socialist theory, thereby revitalizing the movement's practice. To counter the resignation of "Marxist" inevitabilism in the face of the depression and the growth of rightist totalitarianism, de Man prepared the Plan du Travail, which was adopted by the Belgian Labor Party in 1933. This program for a planned mixed economy which sought to overcome the minimalist-maximalist programmatic distinction became the rallying point for much of the European socialist and labor movement.

Despite his undeniable historical significance, de Man has been virtually a nonperson in the post-war period, though not without reason. After the Nazi conquest of Europe, de Man, as leader of the Belgian Labor Party, issued a manifesto and other writings urging a policy of strict neutralism. Editor Peter Dodge argues that this final chapter in de Man's political career was an act of desperation born of the seeming permanent destruction of his life's work.

Although suggestive, this explanation is unsatisfactory. Nonetheless, in compiling this collection of de Man's writings and by adding informative introduction and prefatory notes, Dodge has recalled to our attention the ideas of an important, though tragic, shaper of modem socialism.

Gandy aspires to present a "New Marxist" interpretation of Marx's historical vision in contradistinction to the "Official Marxist" (actually Stalinist) unilinear theory of social evolution and economic determinism. The result, unfortunately, resembles more a concoction of revolutionary chic that might be described as vulgar, nondeterministic, pseudo-Marxism than a resurrection of authentic Marxism.

Gandy's attempt to construct a multicausal, multilinear, and interactive summary of Marx's views gets off to a promising start by rejecting the Stalinist., dogma that all societies undergo an essentially identical evolution from primitive communism, through slavery, feudalism, and capitalism, ultimately arriving at communism. He recognizes the importance that Marx and Engels placed upon the Asiatic Mode of Production and argues that they viewed feudalism (and, hence, auto-generated capitalism) as unique to Western Europe. Though unspectacular, Gandy's development of Marx's historical vision is solid and competent-up to a point, a point which can be precisely dated: November 1917.

Unlike the "official Marxists" of the 1930s, Gandy does not kowtow before Lenin and Stalin. His "New Marxism" is much too urbane for that. It does not, however, suffice to keep him from badly losing his balance. He is aware, for example of Engels' famous comment that the leader of a revolutionary movement which seizes power before social conditions are ripe "is compelled to advance the interests of an alien class and to feed his own class with phrases and promises and with the assurance that the interests of the alien class are their own interests." (p. 103) Yet, in discussing whether Communist social systems have or will fulfill Marx's ideals, he concludes "a few of them have leaderships still committed to these ideals, but tremendous ideals lie ahead. We must await the verdict of history." (p. 165) Gandy even writes that the debate about which class can make the socialist revolution "has become less acute for, Marxists with the emergence of the Communist Party." (p. 165) But, before Lenin, there was no debate! The Leninist Party is no minor innovation, but a logical rejection of Marx's theory of social revolution and, indeed, a repudiation of Marxism.

Thus, notwithstanding certain quarrels with "Official Marxism," quarrels which turn out to be both primarily methodological and historically remote, Gandy's "New Marxism" degenerates into a sort of modernized neo-Leninism. Because he obscures Marx's insistence that socialism is premised on the high levels of economic development made possible by capitalism and because he renders optional and secondary Marx's profound commitment to democracy, Gandy, despite his intentions, is, in the end, able to offer no alternative to "Official Marxism."

Ernest Mandel, From Stalinism to Eurocommunism: Bitter Fruits of Socialism in One Country." London: New Left Books, 1978. 223 pages, $5.95 (paperback).

Although Trotskyism is a tiny and irrelevant sect, its leading contemporary theorist, Ernest Mandel, is one of the most prolific and influential thinkers on the left. This volume is pretty much what might have been predicted, a relentless, sometimes entertaining, sometimes tedious polemic against Eurocommunism, in turn instructive and misleading.

Mandel has a firm grasp on the importance and dynamic significance of Eurocommunism. His stress on Eurocommunism as a manifestation of a Progressive crisis of Stalinism, sense of its ramifications on Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and perception that the Soviet leaders prefer the bourgeois status quo in Western Europe to an authentic socialism are insights of genuine merit. But on too many points the limitations of Mandel’s line intrude and what first appears to be perspicacity turns out to be formula.

In tracing the roots of Eurocommunism back as far as the Popular Front era, Mandel is correct, but arbitrary. To extend the search to the founding and early years of the Communist International would have been inconvenient, to say the least, for Mandel's thesis that Eurocommunism is the consequence, the logical culmination of the original sin of "socialism in one country." All in all, his conception of Eurocommunism is remarkably undialectical. It is judged to be "a political and ideological regression" and accused of "repeating the reasoning of Social Democracy yesterday word for word." (p. 29, 34) So complete is his contempt for Eurocommunisin that it is to the right of Karl Kautsky and the Austro-Marxists.

Mandel's strictures against the "neo-reformism" of the Eurocommunists contain not a little validity, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the decisive point in his critique is the Russian question. He is upset that Jean Ellenstein, Manuel Azcarte, and other Eurocommunists have dared to suggest that the seeds of Stalinism may have been contained in the Bolshevik Revolution. The repetition of the traditional exculpations of Lenin and Trotsky from any political or moral responsibility for Stalinism is not only tiresome, but also particularly unconvincing at the present juncture. For the one thing that is clear from the development of Eurocommunism to date is there can be no complete break with Stalinism until and unless the fundamental elements of Leninism are called into question and ultimately rejected.

Mandel's vision, despite some perceptive observations, is blurred by the doctrinaire conviction that the transition to socialism-and every other important question-is really a quite simple matter of following the precepts of Lenin, Trotsky, and the Fourth International.

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