Paul Sweezy’s lifework speaks richly for itself. On the present occasion I only wish to contribute a “snapshot” by reporting the main points of a letter I received from Paul many years ago. For this moving letter clearly shows that his profound insight into the complicated and often bewildering trends of our society’s development was inescapable from the concerns and dedication with which he applied his overall guiding principle - the need for a viable global socialist transformation - to the evaluation of the events and changing situations of his days.
He wrote this letter, unusually by hand, on October 21, 1987, “in Yugoslavia (in a small village near Dubrovnik named Cavtat) where an annual roundtable, ‘Socialism in the World’, is being held, attended by some two to three hundred socialists of all stripes and varieties from all points of the compass, North, South, East and West. What one observes here strongly confirms … that the crisis we are living through is not a crisis of Marxism but rather a crisis of capitalism and of the movements and parties that are to one degree or another opposed to capitalism.” Tellingly, in a relatively short time after Paul’s letter from Cavtat, all such roundtable meetings “from all points of the compass” on “Socialism in the World” came to an end, as a result of the crisis among “all stripes and varieties” of earlier self-professed socialists, as Paul sharply perceived already at the 1987 gathering at Cavtat.
His letter went on to describe the nature of the great historical crisis of our time and the challenge we must face. This is what he wrote: “No precise dating of historical turning points is possible, but I think it is not misleading to think of this crisis as having begun with the collapse of 1929-33. The global capitalist system was given a temporary new lease of life by World War II which set the stage for a quarter-century-long boom under American hegemony. But the underlying forces at work were still there, indeed in intensified form, and rose to the surface in the 70’s and 80’s as the war and postwar wave of expansion subsided. By now the capital accumulation process which is and always has been the ultimate driving force of capitalist development has settled into a profound rut of stagnation from which it could be rescued only by another orgy of violence and destruction comparable to WW I and WWII - in other words by WW III. But the irony, and at the same time the essential novelty - of the present situation is that WW III, in performing its cathartic and rejuvenating function for the capital accumulation process, would almost certainly bring to an end to civilized society as we have known it for the whole period of recorded history. In other words, it would destroy capitalism itself and hence also the possibility of a civilized successor society. This does not mean that WW III is impossible, only that it lies outside the bounds of rational discourse. Whet we can meaningfully think about is a future without WW III, hence also - and this of course is the crux of the matter - a future for a long time to come of deepening and irreversible capitalist crisis.”
Naturally, this grave - but totally realistic - diagnosis of the situation could not mean for Paul the slightest weakening in his view of how to confront the historical challenge of a magnitude never before faced by humanity, in that it projected the potential extermination of the human species. Nor was it feasible at all, as far as Paul Sweezy was concerned, to adopt the position of many who once upon a time called themselves socialists of one stripe or another. Namely, that the right way to proceed must be to accommodate oneself to capital’s existing and ever intensifying destructive constraints, instead of meeting them head-on. For such a strategy of “rational” accommodation could only multiply the dangers, bringing with them nothing short of the triumph of all-engulfing irrationality and the concomitant absolute disaster at the end of the road.
Talking about the grave new challenge and its only feasible solution Paul wrote: “In my opinion, this is par excellence a Marxist problem. And I think it has a quintessentially Marxist solution: uninterrupted revolution … A most unfortunate aspect of the present situation, it seems to me (and I am reinforced in this view by what I observe here in the assemblage of socialists from all over the globe), is that very few (if any) Marxists see the problem or the challenge in this light. Most of them seem to think, or perhaps take for granted, that capitalism will sooner of later emerge from this crisis, either spontaneously or through reformist political pressure, as it has from past crises. To the extent that this is so, it is difficult if not impossible to discuss how to go about meeting this greatest theoretical and practical challenge.”
The seventeen years that have gone by since Paul wrote this letter have fully confirmed his diagnosis in every detail, together with the validity of his radical socialist passion. Nearly two decades could offer next to nothing whatsoever as a way out of the capitalist crisis of accumulation, despite all reformist fantasies about the “long wave of upswing” which was supposed to follow, as day follows night, the “negative long wave.” We find ourselves in the midst of a deepening and irreversible capitalist crisis, not only facing the more or less remote prospect of another orgy of violence and destruction but already experiencing its devastations in different parts of the world. This the powerful message of Paul’s letter speaks to all of us.
We have known for some time that Paul was gravely ill. Even so when the news of his death came, it was a hard blow to take, bringing with it great sadness.
And yet, the sadness must leave its place to a very different feeling. For Paul’s example inspires us, and indeed invites us, to celebrate with joy a truly fulfilled life: a life dedicated to the very end to the service of our socialist future.
First appeared under the title “Remembering Paul” in Monthly Review October 2004