Re: [Marxism] George Novack as Marxist writer on philosophy and history

["Edward Crawford" <tcrawford@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Perhaps comrade Milner you could help to make some of his work available on
the MIA? I understand his Fourth International articles up to about 1969 are
not in copyright. Dave Walters might want to confirm that.
Ted Crawford
----- Original Message -----
From: "Graham M." <gkmilner@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Marxism List" <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, February 10, 2005 2:13 PM
Subject: [Marxism] George Novack as Marxist writer on philosophy and history


Dear Friends,
                   As many subscribers to Marxism List have had some
connection in the past with the US Socialist Workers Party, I wondered what
opinion they might hold of George Novack, whom I must say probably had more
influence on my own thinking and understanding of Marxism than any other SWP
leader.

   George Novack wrote in "My Philosophical Itinerary", an autobiographical
forward to his collection of essays, 'Polemics in Marxist Philosophy', that
he gravitated toward revolutionary Marxist politics in the early 1930s,
under the impact of the Great Depression, after a period spent studying
literature and philosophy at Harvard in the 1920s.   Novack joined the US
Trotskyist current, and was involved in a number of important struggles in
the 1930s, including the defence of the framed-up Scottsboro Boys, and the
defence of Leon Trotsky from the frame-up of the Moscow Trials.   When
Trotsky arrived in Mexico in early 1937, the exiled Russian revolutionary
leader urged Novack, who was already known as a writer on philosophical
subjects, to confront the pragmatist philosophical approach prevalent in
American intellectual life, and to promote Marxist dialectics.

   In the following decades Novack's published output in the spheres of
Marxist philosophy and general Marxist theory probably exceeded that of any
other individual writer in the English-speaking world.   Most of these works
are still in print, and are published by New York's Pathfinder Press.   The
Australian publisher Resistance Books has recently brought out a selection
of Novack's writings.

   I had the good fortune to meet George Novack in Sydney, during his
speaking tour of Australia in 1973.   I was impressed by his lectures, but
had not yet then, being only a recent recruit to the revolutionary Marxist
movement, read any of Novack's books.   I believe I must have, since that
time, read just about everything Novack wrote, except perhaps for a smallish
number of pamphlets and articles.   Some of his books I've re-read more than
once.

   Novack's style I have always found to be eminently accessible, unlike
that of many of the European Marxist theorists, who seem to find
incomprensibility or an elliptical mode of expression desirable.   I believe
that Novack's expositions of rather difficult Marxist philosophical ideas,
in books like 'An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism' and 'Empiricism and
Its Evolution', are readily understandable to the layperson.   His more
complex works, such as 'Pragmatism versus Marxism' (on John Dewey's
Philosophy) or 'Polemics in Marxist Philosophy' (which include essays on
Sartre, Lukacs, Kolakowski, Engels, Trotsky and other Marxists) are also
quite accessible to those without academic training in philosophy.
Novack's historical writings are also thoughtful and well-considered
contributions to Marxist debate.   His writings in 'Understanding History:
Marxist Essays' contain important insights - particularly the essays "Uneven
and Combined Development in History" and "The Long View of History".
Novack's contributions on US history, collected with those of other writers
in 'America's Revolutionary Heritage: Marxist Essays', are full of original
and useful interpretations.

   Novack's history of democracy as a concept and a political form,
'Democracy and Revolution', develops an important and creative analysis of
democracy from the ancient world, down through the epoch of
bourgeois-democratic advance, and into the 20th century.   'The Origins of
Materialism' is a formidable overview of ancient thought and culture,.
looking at the origins of science and of the materialist world outlook.

   One could also mention the essay by Novack included in the volume 'The
Marxist Theory of Alienation', which also contains material by Ernest
Mandel.   Novack's essay, "The Problem of Alienation", dates from the 1950s,
and discusses the major issues that were to figure in Marxist debate around
the question of alienation in the later 1950s, the '60s and the '70s.
Novack also published in the mid-1960s an excellent selection of material
from the philosophical debate between existentialism and Marxism:
'Existentialism versus Marxism: Conflicting Views on Humanism'.

   I think that George Novack (who died in the mid-1990s) was one of the
finest popularisers of Marxist ideas of the 20th century.   I think in this
respect he deserves to be placed alongside such earlier exemplars of Marxist
popularisation as Plekhanov, Mehring and Labriola, although Novack himself
may have eschewed being placed in such exalted company.   The Marxist
tradition in the USA has produced first-rate theoreticians and contributors
in many spheres of intellectual life.   In the 20th century, I believe that
the revolutionary Marxist current in the USA has been particularly prolific
in producing significant socialist theoreticians, and George Novack stands
out to my mind as an important, although rather neglected, figure.



In solidarity,



Graham Milner
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