'BEYOND the Fragments' represents the first attempt by socialist feminists to develop a comprehensive critique of Leninism. As such it is an extremely stimulating and Despite the book's ambiguities, it is written in a style and form with which personal level. It highlights many crucial areas оптешньє pracuce is a collection which no serious Marxist can afford to ignore.
The three authors are Hilary Wainwright, a former member of the International Group; Sheila Rowbotham, the Socialist Workers Party; and Lynne Segal, a member of Big Flame.
Hilary bemoans the non-appearance of a socialist alternative to the Labour Party over the past decade. Her concentrated local activities -fragments of the left, as an attempt to create the basis for the emergence of a socialist alternative to Labour on a national level.
Sheila stresses the creative spirit of '68 and the New Left, and argues that this is absent in the main groups, the traditions of '68 are to be found within the feminist movement.
Lynne is the most concrete in her approach. She explains her involvement in community — Islington, in North London -and tells us how her interrelated feminist and libertarian Marxist concepts led her to enter the portals of Big Flame.
Personal All three stress local, experiences. political struggles. gays, and trade 'critical consciousness'. combination early different forms of libertarian Marxism, and a Marx undistorted by Lenin represents the basis for a new and popular socialist movement to 'help us meet person to person'.
It is impossible to do justice to all the issues raised in one review. Hopefully, as the authors wished, a wide debate among all sections of the left Take place Fragments. The question I wish to confront is the central conclusion of Sheila's article, that Leninism and feminism are incompatible.
Sheila considers, acts as a bock on the creativity of the class struggle. I think the assumptions of what it means to be a socialist carried within and Trotskyism and which prevail on the left now block our energy make it harder to people...
Sheila argues that neo-Trotskyism, the latter as represented by the SWP, have taken over approach of the Stalinist Communist parties.
Perceptive Where the book is particularly perceptive is in its exposition of the feminist Because of the subordination of women we had to change ourselves both before we could organise and while we were organising. Sheila explains, women with children can't get up and speak, police on a picket line without some kind of personal struggle against their lived identity.
What happens in "private' — in the kitchen, in the bedroom — has to be an arena of struggle for us. Women cannot choose to make the personal political. - it has to be. women's movement developed independently of men.
'We had to learn to love ourselves and other thoughtand women will identify on a and criticisms of the left. It Marxist who belonged to beyond the especially the SWP. For her, her local picture:
direct, everyday Personal feelings mingle with Movements of women, unionists have developed a For all three, socialism, Beyond I lE moreover, that Leninism Kerensky.
and self-activity and most Trotskyism and we do not. the manipulative critique. humanity:
oppression As write a leaflet, or confront the highlighted Thus the Sheba developed state this.
socialist turn her nose up at this. Patriarchy labour, reproduction, psychoanalysis.
NATHANI scientific in its general, by pointing out that socially constructed, domestic work and terrains of struggle for Marxism. No, left politics is not the women's the WLM as a cultural movement.
used to characterise consciousness' come revolutionary capitalism to revolutionary theory, Marxism The women's of crucial Polemic Many effective as an to organisation than militarism.
public' spheres traditionally stood for. idea that the change.
of alone but through winning convince their and to lend guidance themselves society.
It's a crying shame that yet willing to do that.
Newcastle Socialist no Gramsci developed Lenin's idea of the worker theoretician. The knowledge at which Sheila sneers is Marxism. Yet feminist theory has been developed very much by women who were academics and inteliectuals often used Marxism. She does not Have Marxism and Leninism really been a straitjacket on women's consciousness, their self-activity? Look at the debates on domestic patriarchy, even They have often drawn on In fact, Marxists and feminists in the women's movement have added totally spheres to the revolutionary analysis of society. They have striven to make socialism much more approach to oppression in personality is sexual behaviour ordered by the society in which we live, and that reproduction are vital preserve of professionals. No, it is not possible to dismiss Yes, it is true that the Marxists' programme is not fully developed on these questions. Wedo have to look more carefully at the terms Lenin the "trade union of workers. we do have to understand that the radicalisation of women and blacks touches on wide areas of oppression - the home, the school, the family, the state. But this is not the same as implying that people "spontaneously', without recourse liberation movement in Britain has many Marxist women among its ranks, precisely because it has used Marxism as Marx meant it to be used - to develop theory, not to practise dogma. The party does not have a monopoly on the knowledge of Marxism.
The women's movement has added totally new spheres to the politics we as revolutionaries have to confront. It has shown Leninists that self-discipline and collectivity are often more approach to efficient It has argued for consensus, self-help, and a stress on the way we live our lives, as opposed to polemic, the separation of the 'private and of our life that Leninism It has challenged the 'party' has a monopoly of knowledge in developing a strategy for political But it has not found a new route to socialism. Socialism will not be built on visions the ideological revolutionary overthrow of this society is not only necessary To win that debate you need to be organised nationally (and internationally), you need to have a paper to argue for your Marxist ideas to the day-to-day struggles. You need to be able to build a popular socialist party, not a movement, that can challenge the hold of reformism in every of struggle against oppression in our revolutionary women like Sheila, Hilary and Lynne are not 'Beyond the Fragments' is published by the Centre and Islington Community Press at £1.25. Available from the Other Bookshop, 328 Upper St., London NI. Add 10% p & p if ordering by mail.
Socialist Challenge 12 July 1979 Page 7