Ralph Miliband: a public intellectual - Ralph Miliband and the Politics of the New Left - Book Review

Monthly Review, Jan, 2004 by Richard Kuper

In one form or another, all of Miliband's political work reflected this priority. But what characterized his approach was a recognition that the Labour Party attracted real radicals and they should not be written off. The aim of one initiative after another in which Miliband was involved was to bring together independent socialists from inside and outside the Labour Party, in joint work but in something short of a party, to develop a shared culture, shared ideas, and shared ways of working. Miliband played an important part in the debates and conflicts over how such formations (for example, the Socialist Society and the Socialist Conferences) should develop, always stressing the need for critical distance from Labour, for a class (as opposed to a new-social-movement) emphasis and for an orientation towards Marxism. And then he wanted more; but the independent party he so desired always remained elusive.

The second theme, which became more important for Miliband as time went on, was an increased commitment to civic freedoms as part of any prefigurative notion of what a socialist society might look like. The concern was fired by what happened at the LSE during the student "troubles" in the late sixties, a savage and despairing experience for him. He really believed in the notion of a university as a space for free debate and felt quite betrayed when the LSE, which he had regarded as at least approximating what he believed in, revealed itself to be like other schools. That is, institutions where, as Newman put it nicely, "policy would ultimately be determined by coercive power and repression" (p. 159). In 1970, with John Griffith, he threw himself into establishing and building the Council of Academic Freedom and Democracy (CAFD). These were difficult years as the "easy" cases of defending staff or students against victimization gave way to much more complex questions about whether academics, entangled in one way or another with repressive regimes or ideas, should be able to speak freely on campuses. CAFD itself was deeply divided by these cases. Miliband did not hold an absolutist position on the right to free speech and he and others were forced to reflect deeply on the merits of each case in order to find a principled response. Newman's nuanced analysis of these issues in the chapter "Free Speech and Academic Freedom" shows just how carefully considered Miliband's contributions were.

When he produced Marxism and Politics in 1977 Miliband was explicit in his view of civic freedoms. These, "however inadequately and precariously, form part of bourgeois democracy, [and] are the product of centuries of unremitting popular struggles. The task of Marxist politics is to defend these freedoms; and to make possible their extension and enlargement by the removal of their class boundaries" (p. 237). Miliband held firmly to this position, later expanding it to include an interest in constitutional questions as shown in his signing the (liberal) Charter 88 declaration for constitutional reform. He believed civic freedoms, together with social ownership, would be a constitutive part of any socialist society.