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Jurriaan Bendien

Introduction

Hope, Immanuel Wallerstein recently told a meetingof the Institute for Social Studies in The Hague, is a

tricky word; it can only lead to illusions and dis-illusionment. He reportedly declined any discussion

about possibilities of a different, better world in the future.1 For his part, Russian president Vladimir

Putin said on television in December 2001 that hehoped there would be ‘no more revolutions in the

21st century’.In the following essay, however, Ernest Mandel

sides with Lenin on the issue, and discusses the hopefor liberation and social revolution as a creative force,

as a source of motivation in politics – consideringhope and future perspectives an essential dimension

of the Marxist outlook. It was originally publishedin a 1978 memorial volume for Ernst Bloch, with

whose philosophy of hope Mandel felt an af�nity.2

Although he wrote proli�cally (over twenty books

Historical Materialism, volume 10:4 (239–243)© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2002Also available online – www.brill.nl

1 ‘De wereld staat op instorten’, NRC Handelsblad, 1 March 2002.2 Mandel 1978. I revised the German text using the Dutch version subsequently

published in Van der Enden 1980, pp. 51–65. In the notes I have substituted Englishreferences where possible. My thanks to Christoph Jüenke and Ron Blom for supplyingthe original texts. Mandel returned to the theme of hope towards the end of his life,in an address to the Sao Paulo Forum. See Mandel 1992a or 1992b.

and around two thousand articles and pamphlets), Mandel seems to have

been reluctant to publish on purely philosophical questions.3 This short pieceis one exception, but even here he tries to link his philosophical re�ections

to politics and economics.Of particular interest is his thesis that human beings, who evolved beyond

animal existence though consciously-purposive and co-operative labour, areby that very fact creatures who communicate, imagine, hope, dream and

envisage the future – the implications of which are all too often left out ofMarxist discussions of historical materialism, for fear of ‘idealist errors’.

Mandel however has no such reservations – he praises the utopian socialistsfor ‘enormously broadening the horizon of what was thought to be possible

at the time’ and considers the elaboration of a ‘speci�c vision of the socialismof the future’ crucial for Marxist politics in our own time; precisely the refusal

to elaborate feasible socialist alternatives would, he says, result in a lack ofcredibility for the socialist project. He also approvingly quotes Trotsky on the

bene�ts of re�ecting oneself in the ‘mirror’ of imaginative literature, insofaras it is ‘imbued with the desire to transform life’.

For all that, his essay remains rather sober and restrained, distinguishingcarefully between expectations based on conscientious research of social trends,

and wishful thinking. The attitude that guided his own life in this respect iswell summarised in a debate with Paul Sweezy:

Marxists are not religious people. Our conviction about the revolutionary

potential of the proletariat is based upon scienti�c analysis and careful

checking of the historical record – not on irrational faith or scholastic syl-

logisms. . . . If one wants to avoid retreating into a simple rationalization

of one’s own disappointment with the relative slowness of the historical

process, of one’s revulsion against political misleaders, of one’s fatigue and

demoralization, then one should keep a sense of proportion and say: let us

wait and see how the workers will �ght the next few decades, nay half-century.

And let us not wait passively, but do what we can to ensure that these

workers’ struggles end in victorious socialist revolution, before drawing

premature balance-sheets and before barbarism takes over.4

240 � Jurriaan Bendien

3 See Bendien 1987 and 2000. For Mandel’s more ‘philosophical’ writings, see forexample Mandel 1956; 1978b; 1988; 1989; and 1991.

4 Mandel 1979/80. Cf. the biblical concept of faith: ‘Faith is the substance of thingshoped for, and the evidence of things not seen’ (Hebrews 11:1).

The fall of the Berlin Wall did not lead to the kind of revolutions that Mandel

had anticipated and hoped for. Nevertheless, his hopeful revolutionaryperspective did enable him to foresee, analyse and intervene in the growing

crisis of the Eastern Bloc, right up to and after its disintegration, avoidingfalse interpretations of the Communist bureaucracy as an entrenched ‘new

ruling class’ presiding over a ‘state-capitalist’ system or a ‘new mode of pro-duction’ that could reproduce itself more or less inde�nitely. In that respect,

he stayed well ahead of numerous other commentators.I personally met Ernest for the �rst time in 1984. I was just a young graduate

from New Zealand on holiday in Europe, but I had a nose for the big questionsand he was – very generously – prepared to talk about all of them. Among

many other things, I recall asking him about the prospects for a socialistrevolution in Europe. He became enthusiastic, citing examples to demonstrate

the extent of workers’ political awareness in Italy, France, Britain and hisnative Belgium. ‘But aren’t you being too optimistic, as your critics say?’, I

asked. He was visibly irritated and replied ‘It is not a question of optimismor pessimism, it’s a question of studying the facts!’ After making a quick

survey of the European labour movement, he concluded ‘if Europe goessocialist, the world goes socialist’.

I remember coming away from our wide-ranging conversation impressedboth by his pathos and his personal modesty, assured that even if I should

�nd little to be hopeful about, Ernest surely would. He was not a greatrevolutionary politician like Lenin or Trotsky. But he was a very positive,

very hard-working Marxist who inspired countless people, with a stylerefreshingly free from the malice and venom of sectarians. If anything, his

‘greatness’ lay in preparing the way for many other Marxists with his writings,speeches and political activity. Perhaps his pioneering in�uence will one day

be fairly acknowledged.5

In a memorial tribute after his death in 1995, his friend and critic Andre

Gunder Frank stated

Even with all his humanism, I never understood how Ernest Mandel

maintained his inveterate optimism in the face of all the evidence; and yet,

the more the evidence comes in, the more do we need his optimism and

Introduction � 241

5 A Dutch historian of the communist movement, Jan Willem Stutje, is currentlyresearching a biography of Ernest Mandel.

humanism – as well as his analysis – to get out of it. So we shall miss him –

and continue to need him.6

But could it be that anticipation and hope are, as Mandel argues, a vitalingredient of historical materialism – or even that historical materialism is

intrinsically an optimistic, positive, hopeful approach, insofar as it af�rmsthe real possibility of people consciously making their collective history and

changing the world for the better, despite such modern horrors as the Holocaustand Zionist oppression, the Gulag, the devastation of whole countries like

Vietnam and Iraq, and bloody massacres such as in Rwanda and Cambodia?

References

Bendien, Jurriaan 1987, Ernest Mandel: An Attempt at a Bibliography of his Writings, Part

One, manuscript.

Bendien, Jurriaan 2000, Ernest Mandel: An Attempt at a Bibliography of his Writings, Part

Two, manuscript.

Frank, Andre Gunder 1995, ‘In Memoriam Tribute to Ernest Mandel’, http://csf.

colorado.edu/agfrank/mandel_tribute.html

Mandel, Ernest 1956, ‘Les racines de la pensée dialectique [The Roots of Dialectical

Thought]’, Quatrieme Internationale, 14: 4–6.

Mandel, Ernest 1978a, ‘Antizipation und Hoffnung als Kategorien des Historischen

Materialismus’, in Denken heisst Ueberschreiten. In memoriam Ernst Bloch 1885–1977,

edited by Karola Bloch and Alfred Reif, Frankfurt am Main: Europaische Verlags-

anstalt.

Mandel, Ernest 1978b, ‘Spinoza: consequente verdediger van de burgerlijke vrijheid

[Spinoza: Consistent Defender of Bourgeois Freedom]’, Tijdschrift voor de Studie van

de Verlichting, 6.

Mandel, Ernest 1979/80, ‘Why the Soviet Bureaucracy Is Not a New Ruling Class’,

Monthly Review, 31, 3: 63–86.

Mandel, Ernest 1988, ‘Marx, Engels en het probleem van de zogenaamde “dubbele

moraal” [Marx, Engels and the Problem of the So-called “Moral Double Standard”]’,

in Veelzijdig Marxisme. Deel 2: Geschiedenis, Moraal, Psychologie, edited by Eric Corijn

et al., Brussels: Institute for Marxist Studies, Free University of Brussels.

242 � Jurriaan Bendien

6 Frank 1995.

Mandel, Ernest 1989, ‘How to Make No Sense of Marx’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy,

Supplementary Volume Series, November 1989.

Mandel, Ernest 1991, ‘Die Dialektik von Produktivkraften, Produktionsverhaltenissen

und Klassenkampf neben Kategorien der Latenz und des Parametrischen Deter-

minismus in der Materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung [The Categories of Latency

and Parametric Determinism, and the Dialectic of Productive Forces, Production

Relations and Class Struggle in the Materialist Approach to History]’, in Die Versteiner-

ten Verhaltenisse zum Tanzen Bringen. Beitrage zur Marxistischen Theorie Heute, Berlin:

Dietz Verlag.

Mandel, Ernest 1992a, ‘Hagamos renacer la esperanza. Foro de Sao Paulo’, Viento Sur,

4, July–August.

Mandel, Ernest 1992b, ‘Faire renaître l’espoir’, Inprecor, 358, 24 September.

Van der Enden, H. (ed.) 1980, Marxisme van de Hoop – Hoop van het Marxisme?, Bussum:

Het Wereldvenster.

Introduction � 243