Book review: ‘The Vote’ by Paul Foot
Posted on Wednesday 17 December, 2008
Filed Under Book review
NOT too long ago, the best-known public face of the British far left was one of the finest journalists this country has ever produced; that the title passed to a stand-up comedian and thence to a university professor who occasionally pops up on Radio Four does, I think, symbolise something.
The late Paul Foot, I am told, was never particularly enthusiastic about the Respect project. I also know from private conversations I had with him shortly before his death in 2004 that he acknowledged the democratic deficit in the Socialist Workers’ Party, to which he adhered for four decades.
Given the ructions – tacitly centred on precisely these issues – currently seen within the SWP, it’s interesting to ask what stance Foot would have taken. Mainly out of loyalty to Cliff, he was never given to public criticism of the organisation. But if only from the logic of his general politics, I like to think that he would have thrown his weight behind the current limited calls for a more bottom-up approach.
Foot’s ideas about democracy are set out at great length in ‘The vote; how it was won and how it was undermined‘, the project on which he was working on at the time of his demise. His central thesis is this:
Capitalism and democracy are always in conflict, and the history of all capitalist states that have conceded universal suffrage has been, in part at least, a history of that conflict. What has happened in all those countries, including Britain, is that the forces of capitalism have conquered democracy, subdued it, suppressed its impact and left it to wither in irrelevance.
The debt to Trotsky’s ‘Where is Britain going?’ is instantly obvious. Like the Russian, he roots the struggle for genuine democracy in the English revolution of the 17th century and the Chartist agitation of Victorian times. Indeed, the idea that everything traces back to the Putney Debates provides the volume’s predominant leitmotiv. Foot also takes in Tom Paine, the successive Reform Acts and the Suffragettes, ending part one with the achievement of (almost) universal suffrage in 1918.
Part two examines the record of the Labour Party from the first minority Labour government of 1924 onwards, and is at times surprisingly warm towards its achievements. Notably, the author departs from Trot orthodoxy in his praise for the post-1945 nationalisations, and even finds kind words to say about the social democratic endeavours of the Wilson administrations.
There is little with which the majority of readers of this blog are likely to quibble. Much of ‘The vote’ is made up of textbook British political history, with all the boring bits about kings and queens left out; think of it as edited highlights from five centuries of class struggle.
The trouble is, there is a certain over-reliance on standard academic sources, with the result that little will seem particularly fresh to readers who are well versed in this sort of stuff. If you know your radical history onions, you always know what is going to happen next.
There’s also the question of methodology. Foot patently wrote as a journo, not as a trained historian, and it is difficult to see what is distinctly Marxist about his approach. Don’t get me wrong; there is, of course, the obligatory concluding chapter, making some elementary points about the Marxist theory of the state and the requisite genuflections towards Bukharin and Lenin’s observations on all this.
But there is no attempt to apply the yardsticks of historical materialism to the subject at hand. Foot prefers rather to use quotes from contemporary sources to emphasise the vacillations of the leaderships of various mass movement for greater democracy. If only the SWP had been around in 1647 or 1839; that would really have socked it to the bourgeoisie, or so the implicit argument seems to run.
In terms of writing style, the prose is not the best of which Foot was capable. As I know myself, it is impossible to maintain the finely-honed vituperation that drives a good 500-word polemic throughout an entire book. Maybe, too, he didn’t have time for that final rewrite all authors need.
In sum, then, a good book but not, I fear, a great one. I’m just sad to reflect that I have now read all of Paul Foot’s books, and there are not going to be any more.
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33 Responses to “Book review: ‘The Vote’ by Paul Foot”
hahaha: “democratic deficit in the Socialist Workers’ Party”! Is that the understatement of the year or the euphemism of the year?
“there is no attempt to apply the yardsticks of historical materialism to the subject at hand.”
Which is probably why its such a useful and readable book
To be fair – he hadn’t finished it at the time of his death (which I think the foreword makes clear) and it could probably have done with a trim of 150 pages or so, and bit of fine-tuning on the prose style.
That said, proudest vote I ever cast was for the author himself, when he stood for Mayor of Hackney, back in about 2003 or so.
“there is no attempt to apply the yardsticks of historical materialism to the subject at hand.”
Which is probably why it’s so readable.
Foot was all about engaging people, and to be using technical terminology would have put a lot of people off. The key message is that social change comes about because of the involvement of the masses of ordinary people.
I’m sure Foot would have been encouraged by the election of a black candidate as US president – with many prejudiced white workers voting for a candidate they identified as being more likely to act in their class interest and many more black workers turning out to vote for the first time. The lesson of the book is that it is not enough merely to case a vote but to organise.
I’ve had this on my bookshelf since seeing a copy in a remainder bin at an airport Waterstones for about 2 quid a few years ago. I still haven’t read it yet.
I read it when it came out – the Library got a copy. Can’t say I recall much about it, apart from the fact that as Pernod says, it was too wordy. It was pretty shallow on the real historical detail as well. Dave is too kind here: scissors and paste job is what I’d call it.
My analysis is that there’s the radical liberal peering through it, which was always Foot’s cor. He’s never been much of a Marxist (not that it’s itself a bad thing). Good journalist though.
Yes, of course it is impossible to write good readable history if you are a Marxist. Karl Marx’s 18th Brumaire, Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution, EP Thompson’s The making of the English working class, Christopher Hill’s The world turned upside down, CLR James’s The Black Jacobins, etc etc – all figments of my imagination.
Foot’s The Vote is of course not in that league – and was unfinished at the time of his death – but it is still a darn sight more readable than any academic bourgeois history and a fine tribute to someone who was a Marxist and an ‘organised revolutionary’ for over forty years. A better review that Dave’s can be found http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/the-vote-how-it-was-won-and-how-it-was-undermined-by-paul-foot-746324.html” rel=”nofollow”>here.
Foot was an interesting phenomenon: a highly talented journalsist and a decent man who ended up the best-known member of a (would-be) Marxist organisation. Yet he clearly had not the slightest grasp of elementary Marxism, and was never an important figure in the IS/SWP leasership. He worshipped Cliff and had genuine sympathy with the IS’s working class militants.
He considered dropping out of SWP activity during their ultra-sectarian period throughout the first six months of the 1994-5 miners’ strike (I know this from a personal conversation with him). A committed atheist and rationalist, he must have been appalled by his organisations concessions to Islamism at the time of his death.
A good guy, but a lightweight. I haven’t read the book in question, but most of his political books and pamphlets were rubbish (eg his IS pamphlet on Ireland that talks about a “39 County” united Ireland!
Before some smartarse makes a meal of this: I am aware that the miners’ strike was ten years before the dates I gave above. OK?
Well Jim for a lightweight he won many working class militants to revolutionary socialism. Whereas a heavywight like you has ensured the AWL have never managed to sustain a membership of more than 1 in Birmingham for any length of time.
Sometimes I wonder whether I suffer from some kind of false memory syndrome. Does anyone remember the TV programmes ‘Dee Time’ (with Dee Wells) and ‘Three after Six’? They were ‘topical’ discussion programmes. Paul Foot was a regular and was always credited as a member of the International Socialist.
(I say ‘false memory’, simply because it seems so unlikely that you could have an intelligent and popular discussion of politics on telly at six in the evening.)
I am sure that he was the first radical politician that many young people were exposed to.
I’m not sure what his ‘Marxism’ amounted to, nor do I care. For all I know, careful analysis of the texts might reveal a ‘radical liberal’, or whatever.
As far as I know he was always on the right side, and I cannot think of anyone who has fulfilled his role since his death.
And what happened to IS’s industrial base in Lucas and Longbridge, Digger?
Jim
Be fair. Whatever happened to Longbridge, full stop.
But I do take your point.
Digger, Denham, please tell us more.
It’s ‘truth and reconciliation’ time.
Dave might take take Jims point but I don’t.
Jim likes to parade on the internet as some heavyweight marxist, throwing insults around, but has never built a base anywhere to lose.
Yes the job cuts, downturn and anti union employers/government eradicated a large part of the SWP industrial base, and of course Longbridge has been demolished (well most of it!). I know Dave is too much of a realist to accept there has been a downturn, but if he lived it Brum he might notice it.
But as Jim mentioned the IS I guess he is referring to his departure in the 70′s. Well long after the split of some engineers in the 70′s SWP had a branch at Longbridge including stewards and members of the Works committee.
Jim meanwhile has reduced his political organisation in Birmingham, a city of 1 million residents to 1. And feels free to insult comrades like Paul Foot,
Jime has not only become pro imperialist, Israel, Iraq, and Iran,he can no longer tell night from day.
little will seem particularly fresh to readers who are well versed in this sort of stuff. If you know your radical history onions, you always know what is going to happen next.
But this book is hardly aimed at those readers is it? Didn’t Foot write this as a general overview for the average reader after all?
(My own review)
Digger
No, I know damn well there’s a downturn. As a realist, I check the annual strike statistics and am aware that industrial action is bumping along at levels last seen in the 1890s.
The odd thing is, I was pointing this out in 1992, when the SWP was calling for a general strike over the Heseltine pit closures. No lectures, please, comrade.
Digger: “Well long after the split of some engineers in the 70′s SWP had a branch at Longbridge including stewards and members of the Works committee”.
This is bollocks fom start to finish, Digger, and a classic example of SWP rewriting of history. First off, the “split of some engineers in the 70′s* was, in fact the expulsion and/or resignation of approx 90 per cent of the organisation’s industrial base nationally. Its entire factory branch at Lucas (where they controlled the stewards’committee)was lost almost overnight as was the entire membership at BL Trators and Transmissions, including tghe Convenor, Arthur Harper. They had less influence at Longbridge in the first place, and retained a couple of stewards (the admirable veteran Frank Henderson and young Larry Gaffney who left the organisation some years later). The IS/SWP *never* had a functioning branch at Longbridge and *never* had anyone on the Works Committee. Whoever told you otherwise, Digger, is either a fanatasist, a liar or a hack who’se lost the ability to distinguish fact from fiction.
Dave you wrote on a different thread “First we had a ‘downturn’ analysis of a period that featured the most important upsurge in British class struggle since 1926”. Cliff began an argument inside the SWP about a downturn in the late 70’s. The great Miners Strike of 84/85 didn’t contradict this argument it illustrated it. A long bitter, defensive strike, that was lost. This strike saw a fantastic solidarity movement and of course there were possibilities for the miners to win, for example when the dockers threatened to strike or NACOD’s, but in general the rank and file was not able to overcome the TUC/Labour Party leadership that effectively sabotaged the strike.
As for the mood around the Heseltine pit closures in my workplace an ardent Tory voter who it had taken me 12 months to recruit to the union, greeted me with a demand for a general strike when I walked in to work the morning after. I wouldn’t underestimate the widespread anger amongst even tory inclined workers over this issue, but this time it was Scargill’s conservatism that channelled this into a safe march around Hyde Park (my union Branch sent 3 double decker coaches to this workday demonstration). The theory of the downturn was not that there would not be struggles but that the nature of them had become defensive.
Jim if your looking for “a fantasist, a liar or a hack who’se lost the ability to distinguish fact from fiction” I suggest you check out a mirror. There was a Longbridge Workplace Branch of the SWP throughout the late 70,s and early 80’s. In addition to Frank Henderson (who was on the Works Committee) and Larry Gaffney (who is still a member I think), there was John Murphy, Mick Cannon, a lad called Priest who we recruited from the CP and a couple of others.
Yes a significant group of engineers left (a couple were expelled) when they disagreed about running a rank and file candidate in the AUEW but 90% of our industrial base, you must have been living on fantasy island. However the loss of you and your little sectarian faction was a non event. No wonder your part of a gang of one in Brum.
So what do you think happened to the IS’ industrial base in the West Midlands then?
“Yes a significant group of engineers left (a couple were expelled) when they disagreed about running a rank and file candidate in the AUEW but 90% of our industrial base, you must have been living on fantasy island. However the loss of you and your little sectarian faction was a non event. No wonder your part of a gang of one in Brum”, says Digger: I can only repeat (in despair), This is utter bollocks. You are factually wrong on every point. I’ll go through hem now, but I’m beginning to wonder whether it’s worth it… The expulsion of the IS engineers was most definately *not* a matter of “couple” being “expelled”: there were wholesale expulsions that resultated in the decimation of the IS industrial base. I’m not sure whether my estimate of “90 per cent” of the IS industrail base is ea#xactly accurate – but I *am* confident that it’s not far out. This was confirmed some years later, in the course of correspondence between the AWL and the IS full-timer responsible for the xpulsions, Steve Jepphries.
I anm prepared to be proven wrong on the single question of whether Frank Henderson was ever on the Longbridge Works Committee (frankly, I can’t remember, but I still on balance, think not) but I am absolutely sure about the others you mention:
Larry Gaffney: presently convenor of Gaydon; left the SWP many years ago.
John Murphy: left Longbridge in the late 1970′s. Last I heard, a FE lecturer. May or may not still be in the SWP.
Mick Cannon: haven’t heard anything about him for twenty years.
Tony Priest: took VR in the late ’70′s.
No idea about the “Couple of recruits” from the CP… In other words, Digger, you’re talking bollocks. I was tyhere, comrade. I remember. You seem to be going on handed-down SWP lies. Listen to me, and you will learn the truth.
Oh, yes, Digger: I forgot to mention: as for “a Longbridge workplace branch throughout the 1870′s and eary ’80′s”: I worked there during exactly that time, and despite some relatively minor differences (certainly much less than now) collaborated quite closely with the IS/SWP’ers in the plant, on a comradely basis. I can assure you that there was no functioning IS/SWP Longbridge factory branch during that period. Unless, by that you mean people occassionally meeting up in the pub for a chat…in which case, I was a member.
I’m getting old I know: but I worked at Longbridge during the 1970′s…not the 1870′s…
Jim after starting off saying there was only two SWP stewards at Longbridege, Frank and Larry, you now accept the five I have mentioned and I know there was more whose names I can’t recall. This was well after the split with some engineers.
So you have now admitted talking bollocks or as you would say telling lies.
No hand me down story, I helped them produce the Longbridge SWP Factory bulletin.
Digger, why not answer Voltaire’s Priest’s question:
“So what do you think happened to the IS’ industrial base in the West Midlands then?”
No, Digger: I’m talking about *after* the “Engineers” were expelled in 1975. Your misunderstanding of this point suggests that you are either deliberately dishonest, or just plain ignorant. But, let’s just look at your “list”: granted Frank and Larry (although your claim that Larry “is still a member” is palpable nonsense – I’m in touch with him to this day and he’s more hostile to the SWP than I am): you’ve included a guy who took VR, someone who left the plant in the late 1970′s to go into Higher Education, and a guy no-one’s heard of since about 1975.
And I still deny that there was ever an IS/SWP “factory branch”…
I think readers can judge who’s talking bollocks.
As I say: I worked there and was on the JSSC at the time, so I know what I’m talking about. You may have helped produce some factory bulletins, but you evidently have little idea of the reality of the situation in the plant at the time. As I said: listen to me, and you’ll get the truth; listen to SWP hacks, amd you’ll get a pack of lies.
But if you choose not to believe me, there’s a simple way of checking: contact Larry Gaffney, now convenor at Gaydon. He’ll tell you the truth, though he’s pobably somewaht busy with other matters just at the moment.
So, Jim and Digger. You agree that somebody (bodies) fucked up somewhere thirty or so years ago?
Me too.
Jim I was always only talking post 1975, you said there was only two, and I name five that I could recall. 1975 is when I joined the IS (SWP).
As I said I know there was a factory branch because I helped them produce and distribute the Londbridge bulletin. Always nice to be told by a non member how the party was organised.
No Lobby I don’t agree someone fucked up. In 1975 there was a major poltical dispute and some members were expelled and others left because of it.
If your really interested you can go to Chapter 13 More Years for the Locust by Jim Higgins for his detailed but “hostile” take on the issue.
The downturn and factory closures wiped out substantial parts of the SWP industrial base, you can’t have a factory Branch at Longbridge or Chrysler Linwood if the factory is gone.
It’s great Jim thinks he got on well with our comrades at Longbridge, they wasn’t a;ways as complimentary about him, or though to be fair the concentrated their criticism on the CP dominated works committee.
So lt’s get this straight, “Digger”: you think there was a functioning Longbridge factory branch in the late 1970′s becuae you include in your calculations a guy who took VR and various other fly-by-nights? You are simply wrong. There was no functioning factory branch at Longbridge. And I repeat my challenge: ask Larry Gaffney. Or John Murphy. As for your view of the expulsion of the “Engineers”: the idea that this was a matter of “some members were expelled and others left” is bollocks. This was the expulsion and driving out of the IS’s entire working class, industrial cadre. I’m no fan of Higgins, but on this matter, his account (in “More Years For The Locust”) is broadly accurate. A far left organisation achieved a real implantation in the working class…and blew it.
Jim you must really stop deluding yourself or I guess you are really just attempting to delude blog readers.
You believe Jim Higgines account is broadly accurate. He claims there were 135 supporters of the platform of the IS opposition and that more sympathised. Well if we assume all 135 left or were expelled out of an organistion of over 3,000 this could hardly constitute its “entire working class industrial cadre.”
Unless you are sekking to claim the nearly three thousand that remained were students.
Anyway enough of your thoughts on the demise of the IS/SWP perhaps you might explains the process by which you managed to reduce to one AWL membership in Brum.
Digger: your mistake is to believe IS/SWP membership figures. I can assure you that the overwhelming majority of IS industrial members left at that point, and the IS/SWP was left as a petit bourgeois movement. The AWL, small in umber, continued with its industrial orientation. Certainly, during the miners’ strike our record was honourable, unlike the SWP’s.
What wasn’t honourable about the SWP in the miners’ strike? We were collecting from week one and although we were slow to recognise the importance of the miners’ support groups they didn’t form until several weeks into the strike. Or have you something else in mind?
Is your fantasy about the SWP becomong petit bourgeois in 1975 some deep seated need to rationalise how your small sect became so miniscule that it is left with only 1 member in Brum.
Was it your correct industrial orientation or your descent into cheer leaders for imperialism that have made you so irrelevant, if not invisible, to the working class.
Whilst the SWP was central to building one of the biggest mass movements in history you are busy loading metaphorical US and Israeli bombers. How sad!