The Left Review And Communism

Analyse one or two items from The Left Review, situating these texts in relation to the journal’s broader political and cultural concerns.
Established by Writer’s International, the Left Review desired to “ally themselves more closely with the class that will build socialism” , thus concerning themselves primarily with the working classes who, throughout the 1930’s, found themselves to be drawn towards the political ideals of Communism. The political position of The Left Review is, of course, stated in its very title, informing the reader from the outset that its contents will be of a constitutionally left wing opinion. This political position is confirmed further by the quote placed beneath the publication’s title, which reads
And this
conflict...is not engendered in the mind of man. It exists, in fact, objectively, outsides us, independently of the will and actions of the men that have brought it on. Modern Socialism is nothing but the reflex in thought of this conflict in fact.
This quote is printed in The Left Review without a name or source affiliated with it, but the quote’s true source is co-author of The Communist Manifesto Frederich Engels in his piece of writing Socialism: Utopian and Scientific .
The inclusion of this quote in such a prominent position establishes the political stance of The Left Review, albeit in an indirect way. This indirectness of true political affiliation in the first issue of The Left Review can be found throughout, and is perhaps due to the fact that the Left Review was “charting completely new territory” . With no other Marxist literary criticism in the English language to follow on from, the Left Review would have been, understandably, unsure as to how to go about making their views known in their debut publication in a way that was direct and yet not so direct as to appear unappealing. This hesitation was forgotten in later issues as the Left Review became more “politically engaged” , but reservations can be found in texts such as Stefan Zweig’s The Tower of Babel, featured in the October 1934
issue.
Stefan Zweig’s retelling of the Genesis story of The Tower of Babel acts largely as an allegory which can be read into as being contemporarily relevant to the cultural and political concerns of the 1930’s.
Zweig defines the Book of Genesis as describing “the doings of man soon after he...had emerged out of chaos” , a description that holds a double meaning. The first of those meanings – the meaning held within the reality of the story’s narrative - being the literal chaos from which man emerged according to the teachings of the Bible, and the second being a more contemporary reading that Zweig is using the former reading as an allegory for the population of the 1930’s, having emerged from the ‘chaos’ of the First World War and, most recently, the worldwide economic crash. The use of this double entendre within the first paragraph of the text introduces the idea that this piece by Zweig is intended to be read in a new way, using the symbols and themes of the original, age old story as a way in which to read the new ideas forming at the time of writing. In using this familiar story as his basis, Zweig has allowed himself to conceal more complex concepts in a way which is far more comprehensible, and not outwardly political.
The instinctual ‘doings of man’ after the original ‘chaos’ of the world’s creation was to build the Tower of Babel, a manual task in which men of all creeds worked together for a united goal. When read as symbolic of the social and political events of the 1930’s, this instinct of man then can be read as encouraging workers now to once again come together as one for a mutual goal.
Throughout the text, there is a consistent theme of “men join[ing] hands for a common task” , a theme that can indeed be found in the original Tower of Babel story in Genesis, but that also is reminiscent of the call by Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto for “Working men of all countries unite!” . The story of the Tower of Babel tells of men of many different countries - and later of different languages - uniting as one to complete a great task, “to build...a tower whose top may reach unto heaven” . The theme of unity as being of utmost importance to the success of their endeavours is highlighted in God’s observation that “[men] showed themselves so strong when...they were a unity” . The strength of the workers as a unity is a key theme of Zweig’s narrative and also of the Communist ideal that it shall be men of all countries that shall unite in order to achieve their shared goals.
With the worker characters of Zweig’s Tower of Babel holding associations with the proletariat workers so familiar to the Communist party of the 1930’s, it can be read that this identity is their allegorical equal within the narrative. If this is so, then there must also be an allegorical equal to the proletariat’s adversary, the Capitalist. “The ruling classes” are identified by Marx in his Communist Manifesto as being the enemy of the Communist proletariat. In the Tower of Babel narrative, the ‘ruling class’ – namely, the character who exercises power over the working classes - is God, making God, in this allegorical sense, the enemy of the worker.
The identification of God as the Capitalist protagonist of this narrative is highlighted further in the description of how he views the common man. The image of God looking down upon “these creatures of his, little bigger than insects” indicates God’s disregard of humans as being anything other than ‘his’ property, his ‘creatures’ who hold no more importance than that of insects. The likening of mankind to insects here creates the implication that the ruling classes view the workers as being nothing but small, insignificant creatures of which there are many. This imagery sympathises with the opinions of the working classes of the time, and works towards “arousing class consciousness” , albeit in an extreme metaphorical fashion. However, yet again this is not done so in an obvious manner; rather, the allegories found throughout the narrative of The Tower of Babel are applied on a subconscious level, with no direct allusions made as to the relevance of the story’s themes to the present day (present day in this sense being the 1930’s, the present day of the Left Review).
That is, of course, until the final paragraph of the piece, which begins “Such is the dread moment at which we are now living” . In this sentence, Zweig brings the narrative out of the past and straight up to date, changing the tense from past to present and ever referring to what may come in the future – “It will undergo the same fate” . In this discussion of the past in terms of how it affects the present and future, Zweig’s The Tower of Babel becomes a work of historical fiction, exploring the past to understand the present. Also employed by Stephen Spender in his poem I Think Continually, this is a technique undertaken by other writers of the time in order to explore how their present – the 1930’s – is simultaneously affected by the past and different from it. The “easy picture of the world” known to previous generations had been destroyed by the early ‘disasters’ of the twentieth century, creating a new generation in which “everyone is a politician” and the past must be used in order to propel forwards to a better future.
It is in this final paragraph that the “arousing [of] class consciousness” takes place in a concrete form. As explained by Jack Lindsay, in order to deal with the class war of the 1930’s, a writer must not simply explain the working class situation to the working classes, but must instead offer them a way out . Stefan Zweig does this in his retelling of The Tower of Babel, and does so with an incredibly grand metaphor. The final paragraph of the piece speaks of a new Tower of Babel within Europe which, “without joyful labour” , will fall to ruin, thus inciting the reader to once again take up their manual labours alongside their fellow workers in order to achieve the goal of building “a tower whose top may reach unto heaven” . It is this metaphorical goal that offers the working classes a way out. However, even in this encouragement of class consciousness, Zweig holds back from all out provocation and instead warns the reader that “the hour has not yet struck for the resumption of fellowship” . Once again, Zweig displays caution in presenting claims too outwardly political. The piece instead concludes with the rather more passive moralistic statement of
Nevertheless, if each strives in his own place with the old ardour, the building of the Tower will continue, and upon its summit the nations will assemble once more in amity.
The inclusion of this piece in the October 1934 edition – the first edition – of The Left Review reflects that the editors of The Left Review at this time (Montagu Slater, Amabel Williams-Ellis and T.H. Wintringham) were aware of their limited audience and, in an attempt to widen this readership, were hesitant about the publication of outwardly political pieces so early on. “The journal was no propaganda sheet” , and this is proven in Zweig’s text. Rather than outwardly and obviously stating far Left propaganda, the text instead addresses issues that are of general concern to many working class members of English society. The metaphorical aspect of the entire Zweig piece, concealing what could be read as Communist views and allusions within a traditional Biblical story, allows The Left Review to include their views and interests within this text and still appear relevant to the common man without being too overtly political.
Of course, what must be considered when examining Stefan Zweig’s piece in the Left Review is to what extent Zweig’s own views matched that of the Left Review as a whole. As David Margolies makes a point of the fact that “there was no uniformity...there was no line” in the political opinions of all contributors to the Left Review. In context of the journal’s broader political and cultural concerns, Zweig did not necessarily share its Communist ideals – all Left Review editors were party members - but rather supported an Internationalist stance , a view which can be found in The Tower of Babel within its themes of humanity joining as one in spite of differences of language, country and race. The story’s themes, when placed in the wider context of the Left Review and its other texts, can then be read as Communist.
Stefan Zweig’s piece The Tower of Babel speaks to a population of varying political consciousness; the layered aspect of the narrative’s themes and meanings allow the readers of the Left Review to become aware of the ever-changing politics around them without becoming a purely propagandist piece, thus confirming the statement that the Left Review “was no propaganda sheet” .
With its primary cultural concern being to “ally themselves more closely with the class that will build socialism” , the Left Review not only connects with the working classes on an comprehensible level in The Tower of Babel, but also shifts their views towards Socialism thus fulfilling the very point of the Left
Review.