20.07.2023
Fifty years of socialist theory
Yassamine Mather looks at the role of the journal founded by Hillel Ticktin in 1973
Last month Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory celebrated its 50th anniversary at a conference held online and at the London School of Economics. Hillel Ticktin, who founded the journal, and Mick Cox, who has been deputy editor for most of this time, reminded us of the early years. They both talked of the journal’s historic links with Glasgow University, where we all met.
The first issue of Critique - advertised as “A new journal of Soviet studies and socialist theory” in 1973 - had a number of articles that determined its future. These included Hillel Ticktin’s ‘Towards the political economy of the USSR’, Jiri Pelikan’s ‘Workers’ councils in Czechoslovakia’, David H Rubin on Godelier’s Marxism, ‘Historiography of the Russian Revolution in the 20s’, by James White, Tamara Deutscher’s review of Viktor Serge’s Year one of the revolution and another book review by Mick Cox.
As Hillel explained, “The views that Critique was putting forward and still puts forward were quite different from the rest of the left.” Here in Britain, in addition to the standard pro-Soviet and Maoist anti-USSR positions, as far as the Trotskyist left was concerned, two views of the Soviet Union dominated: Tony Cliff’s position that the Soviet Union under Stalin and his successors had undergone a process of bureaucratic degeneration, where a ruling elite had usurped power from the working class and established a state-capitalist system; and the more standard, Trotskyist view that the USSR was a “deformed workers’ state”, based on what Leon Trotsky had said in the late 1930s. This latter, softer analysis of the Soviet Union was often used (and is still used) to justify some of the most bizarre positions of the USSR at the time - and ironically it is used today to justify Putin and Russia (presented as legitimate successors of the Soviet Union).
We had some of the first editions of Critique available at the LSE and digital versions of all of them are available on the Taylor and Francis website.1
It is difficult to separate Critique’s history from Hillel’s background and biography. He was born in a family of eastern European immigrants in South Africa, became a Trotskyist activist and was forced to emigrate from the country because of his political activities - he often talks of the bravery of black South Africans who helped him avoid imprisonment. He first came to Britain and then lived and studied in the Soviet Union, where his PhD thesis, which was critical of ‘official’ communist parties, was rejected.
Ticktin’s experience in Moscow and later Kyiv were negative. In his own words:
In Kyiv, I studied Russian, and then I went to write my thesis comparing the racial discrimination in South Africa and in the south of the United States. I was put in the Moscow University’s department of political economy - in other words, the main Marxist theoretical department of the Soviet Union. They knew very well that they were not teaching Marxism really, but they realised they could not go beyond where they were. The department had tried to move the theory somewhat, but it was a specific way to interpret Marxism so that it justifies the Soviet Union. I had a supervisor who did not actually supervise me. He warned me that if I wrote anything critical of the Soviet Union, past or present, he would ignore me. And he ignored me.2
It was later in Britain that Ticktin worked on the political economy of the USSR, and developed what is often referred to as ‘Ticktin’s theory’, challenging existing views of the USSR, providing a critical analysis of the Soviet Union’s socio-economic structure and predicting its eventual collapse. He argued that the ruling Communist Party and the bureaucracy held enormous power and controlled the means of production, effectively functioning as a ruling class. He also believed that the party’s control over the economy led to inefficiencies, economic stagnation and a lack of innovation. He argued that the Soviet Union suffered from a crisis of legitimacy, as the ruling party’s ideology became increasingly divorced from the reality on the ground, emphasising the shortcomings and the contradictions within the Soviet system.
For Ticktin all this is related to the transitional period:
… a period in which the issue of socialism had been placed on the agenda. The bourgeoisie had been warned that they could be overthrown - and had been overthrown in one country. In this period, in which the working class had made its mark, but was still to take power over the globe, the revolution in one country began a necessary period of change. Of course, socialism does not come about simply through a revolution - if that were the case, it would never happen. Socialism comes into being because the basis of it already exists within capitalism. In other words, the socialisation of the means of production actually starts to take place within capitalism.
The journal’s historic association with the Glasgow University Institute for Soviet and East European Studies was referred to at the conference and should be mentioned here. The institute’s main figure at the time was Alec Nove, who had a long association with the Russian Revolution, but from the Menshevik tradition.
The weekly seminars, the annual conferences held in Glasgow - all played an important role in enriching the journal. Under Hillel’s influence the institute fostered interdisciplinary collaboration and became a hub for scholars and researchers.
The 50th anniversary is also a good time to reflect on those members of the editorial board who did not stay long with the journal, as well as those who are no longer with us. At the conference Hillel Ticktin and Mick Cox reminded us that the first advisory editorial board included Paul Sweezy and Ernest Mandel. As a result of political differences, Sweezy resigned from the editorial board and apparently his resignation letter is somewhere in the Critique archives. Mandel, however, remained friendly with the journal and some of the early conference speakers included Ralph Miliband and himself. The editorial board benefited from the work of prominent Marxists such as István Mészáros - the Hungarian philosopher who wrote about the possibility of a transition from capitalism to socialism, following his critique of “bourgeois ideology”, including the idea that “there is no alternative”. Another important member of the editorial board and a speaker at previous Critique conferences was Patrick J O’Donnell, a lecturer of psychology at the University of Glasgow, who died in 2016. Hillel Ticktin also referred to David Rubin and Scott Meikle amongst others.
During the conference there was no time to mention everyone on the editorial board. However, the 50th anniversary is a good time to remind everyone of those board members, most of whom have also contributed as writers for Critique and speakers at its conferences: to name just a few, Suzi Weissman, Raquel Varela, Christine Cooper, Peter Kennedy, Bob Arnot, Latief Parker, Savas Matsas, Terry Brotherstone, Michael Vale, Esteban Volkov and Bob Brenner.
Looking forward, the Critique editorial board is well aware of the challenges ahead. For 50 years we have managed to produce the journal on a quarterly basis and now, thanks to an effective academic publisher, the journal is widely distributed in universities from Australia to India. It features articles dealing with the situation everywhere from the UK to South America. Facing a complex and increasingly confrontational global situation, we are well aware of the need to, for example, develop a clearer analysis of China and a better understanding of the United States as a hegemon power in decline, while maintaining our reputation regarding political analysis of events in the Middle East l