Enzo Traverso, Revolution: An Intellectual History. (New York and London: Verso Books, 2021), 480 pp, $22.25.
As its title suggests, Enzo Traverso's latest book is an exploration of the ideas revolution has given rise to: the theories, symbols, artistic depictions, monuments, dreams and controversies given impetus by revolution and the possibilities revolutions produce and destroy. Thus, the book is neither a historical account of all the revolutions that have occurred nor is it a taxonomy of the characteristics differentiating revolution from uprising, rebellion, revolt, riot, coups d'état or parliamentary reform. What Traverso wants us to consider are the arguments, from revolutionary to liberal to fascist, that have arisen as a result of events which, for better or for worse, have shaped world history. He wants us to weigh, anew, the evidence and to reappraise our inheritance.
Traverso defines the word revolution as "a sudden - and almost always violent - interruption of the historical continuum . . . a break of the social and political order." (9). He employs this definition, with slight variations, throughout the book, quoting numerous historians and revolutionaries to substantiate that definition as one which is widely, if not universally, accepted. For example, he quotes Mao Zedong: "A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another." Simultaneously, Traverso presents definitions given by reactionary opponents of revolution which confirm the substance while abhorring the result. This is important for the simple reason that the word "revolution" has so often been used to describe everything from soap suds to art that its original designation has been obscured. (I vividly recall the Time magazine cover featuring George Bush and the headline, "American Revolutionary.")
The etymology in English is well known: originally revolution applied to the motion of astronomical bodies such as planets, i.e., revolving around an axis. It began being applied to political processes in the 15th century and became firmly established in the 17th when applied to England's "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, describing overturning or upending as in "the world turned upside down." This may be obvious but it is nonetheless part of the reappraisal that Traverso is calling for since the dilution of the term is more than mere co-optation by admen or technologists to promote their products. The dilution is an attempt through language to defuse or render harmless what for the bourgeois or aristocrat is a most terrifying prospect.
The book is divided into six sections, each dealing separately with different dimensions such as locomotives, barricades, the color red, revolutionary intellectuals, freedom and liberation. Traverso thus covers a wide range of material from personal recollection to monumental art, from the testimony of participants to the reflections of theorists, from the viewpoints of victorious and defeated revolutionaries to the corresponding views of liberals and fascists. For example, there are observations excerpted from Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution as well as musings on that book by Walter Benjamin. At the same time, the observations of Edmund Burke and Alexis de Tocqueville are followed by those of Nazi theorist, Carl Schmitt. There are personal recollections from Victor Serge and George Orwell along with quotations of Auguste Blanqui and Che Guevara counterposed to those of Winston Churchill or Ernst Jünger. As Traverso says, “Conservative historians write as prosecutors who stigmatize revolutions as one - or even more frequently the - source of modern totalitarianism” (22). He goes on to cite "Ernst Nolte in Germany, Stephane Courtois in France, or Pio Moa in Spain," who "depict revolution as the origin of evil."
There are vignettes of historical figures such as Ho Chi Minh, Rosa Luxemburg and Franz Fanon along with short but sharp critiques of other figures such as Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt. The usefulness of this excavation is not confined to the particularities of, say, evaluating Sergei Eisenstein's films or Diego Rivera's murals, but is rather in conveying the geographical and historical dimensions of a singular phenomenon. Literally global in scope and transformative of social relations, revolutions changed the world.
In the closing chapter, "Historicizing Communism," Traverso provides an overview, listing the Atlantic revolutions: American, French and Haitian, which between 1776 and 1804 put revolution, as we usually think of it today, on the map and which, moreover, were linked practically and theoretically. He follows this with the revolutions of the mid-19th century, namely the European revolutions (1848), the Taiping (1850-1864) and Indian (1857) rebellions as well as the American Civil War which, however, were largely disconnected. This is followed by the revolutions of the early 20th century including Russia (1905), Turkey (1908), Mexico and China (1911) which were connected not only by their coincidence but by their mutually reinforcing influence. This is followed by the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Chinese Revolution of 1949 and subsequent revolutions culminating in the Iranian and Nicaraguan examples in 1979. The periodization is useful and includes much greater detail than space permits me to discuss. But this is also where problems with Traverso's book become impossible to overlook. Not only is his list incomplete, it makes the attention he pays to the Russian Revolution a difficulty rather than an advantage.
Traverso's treatment of the Chinese Revolution is slight, which itself raises questions. But worse, it is inaccurate and tendentious, concluding with a curt dismissal: "While liberating the country from imperialism and emancipating the peasantry from ancestral domination, the communist party installed its exclusive dictatorship by suffocating any democratic élan." He seems not to know of the vast literature on the Chinese Revolution - e.g., Edgar Snow, Han Suyin, Anna Louise Strong, Agnes Smedley, William Hinton, Henry Noyes - nor does he give any substance to his charges. Calling Maoism sui generis is obfuscating and ignores the debt to Marxism and the Russian Revolution Mao and his comrades duly acknowledged.
A footnote referring to Trotsky's 1932 essay "The Peasant War in China and the Proletariat" may explain Traverso's strange choices since Trotsky's essay attacks the analysis of the Chinese Communist Party which, following the disasters of 1926-27, led to a radical change in strategy. This change meant relying on the peasants, the overwhelming majority of the population, building a peasant army and maintaining a torturous alliance with the Kuomintang to defeat Japanese imperialism. Had the Chinese followed Trotsky's advice there would likely have been no Chinese Revolution. An added twist in this instance is that Mao's leadership meant deliberately disobeying Stalin. In terms of outcomes, Trotsky's position would have produced similar results to those resulting from following Stalin (and the Comintern). Space does not allow going into the details but it is noteworthy that in a book about revolution, which offers considerable room to wide-ranging viewpoints, so little is devoted to this crucial debate, let alone the results which continue to be felt.
One can only surmise that Traverso's own Trotskyist views have made him vulnerable to such one-sided and ill-informed positions. Since he relies heavily on quotes from Trotsky throughout the book the influence is apparent, only to become overbearing in the case not only of the Chinese Revolution itself, but in the failure to even mention the Cultural Revolution. This cannot be explained as mere oversight. It is the deliberate omission of a key historical event. Indeed, the full import of such omission lies in the fact that the Cultural Revolution was only one component of the worldwide revolution of 1968 and Traverso makes no mention of that, either. Since countless books and articles are entitled 1968 marking the year as a moment of historic significance similar to the revolutions of 1848, its absence here is striking and for two reasons. First, because 1968, as Immanuel Wallerstein has convincingly argued, did change the world in measurable ways. Second, because the revolution was defeated and the consequences of that defeat are part of the very legacy Traverso asks us to reappraise. Reagan and Thatcher, Hayek and Friedman, neoliberalism, postmodernism and the "End of History" - all these and more are common parlance, markers of capitalism's triumph; which can only be explained if one acknowledges and evaluates the two-decade (1960-1980) revolutionary process which preceded.
Had Traverso announced from the beginning that he viewed the Chinese Revolution, Cultural Revolution and 1968 as somehow beyond the pale or not worthy of discussion for specific reasons, it might be food for thought. Instead, he's relying on the ignorance of his readers to obscure the fact that Trotsky was wrong and it is for this reason we should not discuss the subject.
Sadly, this tarnishes what might have been a more fruitful effort. It raises other questions about Traverso's excavations, for example, the omission of the San Francisco General Strike of 1934 in the midst of an account of that year listing numerous other strikes. Could this be because the Communist Party USA was crucial to that strike and the CPUSA was Stalinist? Another example is the complete omission of James Connolly and the Easter Rising, and the Irish War of Independence that followed. This is peculiar because Connolly prefigured the strategies of national liberation which would sweep the world following WWII. Furthermore, he clearly stated the problem of nationalism vs. socialism, warning of the consequences for the oppressed nation in the event they won independence without seizing the means of production and abolishing capitalism. This is one of history's most important lessons and giving no mention to it is problematic to say the least.
Perhaps Traverso's reach exceeded his grasp. No doubt this is a daunting subject and one that does not have the kinds of clear, simple lines of demarcation many of us once thought it did. I know, personally, I held decidedly romantic views of revolution that prevented me from acknowledging complexities and crimes that have to be accounted for and learned from. It is to Traverso's credit that he accepts these complexities and crimes as part and parcel of any revolutionary process, encouraging readers to think of the whole and not parts selected to reinforce a fantasy. Yet the project would have been better served if Traverso had challenged his own biases and started at the beginning which is not, in fact, where he situates it.
Contrary to prevailing notions which make the cluster of revolutions at the end of the 18th century the beginning, the actual start of this process is the English Revolution of 1640-1660. That's when most of the features which continuously reoccur first make their appearance. Not only do we have the beheading of a monarch and the establishment of a republic but we have the building of the New Model Army, the leadership of Levellers and Diggers (the True Levellers) and a brief period of revolutionary euphoria. The Putney Debates elaborate many of the issues which would confront subsequent revolutionaries and Hobbes's Leviathan was born to provide answers amenable to the rising bourgeoisie. Simultaneously, John Milton wrote some of the greatest poetry in the English language, his example setting a standard revolutionary artists would do well to study. We also have the usurpation of popular power by Cromwell and the advance of England as an imperial power even prior to the Restoration. Cromwell's career in many ways resembles Napoleon's. The point here is that to understand the mechanisms as well as the contents of revolution we have to examine those forces, unleashed by history, that take particular form and not only those that have been popularly assumed to be relevant.
Indeed, calling attention to the English Revolution in no way diminishes the importance of any subsequent or prior events having similar content. The simple fact that people throughout the world for many centuries have risen against their oppressors is testament to the underlying truth that where there is oppression there is resistance. Think of Spartacus or the Revolt of the Zanj (869-883), not to mention myriad revolts everywhere that demonstrate this historic dynamic.
What is novel in the revolutions of the 18th century is the abandonment of Biblical or religious justification for the challenge to established authority. From this flowed the separation of Church and State, the certification of birth, marriage and death by magistrates not clerics, and the guarantee of "inalienable rights" to citizens, above all, the right to private property.
The communism of Gerard Winstanley was no doubt justified by his reading of the Bible. Yet it is precisely that reading of the Bible which made heaven on earth the aim and the creation of the laboring people. "He that works for another, either for wages or to pay him rent, works unrighteously...but they that are resolved to work and eat together, making the earth a common treasury, doth join hands with Christ to lift up the creation from bondage, and restores all things from the curse." One could do worse than re-reading Winstanley's brilliant essay, The Law of Freedom in A Platform: Or True Magistracy Restored. Not only was Winstanley a communist but he was a materialist and a study of the thoughts shared by many radicals of the period makes clear the widespread political interpretation of scripture. In fact, a good place to start considering revolution as a modern phenomenon, that is the rise of the bourgeoisie to ruling class, is by reading Christopher Hill's The World Turned Upside Down.
Mat Callahan
Musician and Author
