Facing Reality

by C.L.R. James, Grace C. Lee, Pierre Chaulieu

Very Good; Small softcover, side-stapled binding, pale gray covers decorated in blue and orange, 174 pages. *** Pro-workers rights book which explains how people's revolution happened in Hungary (1956) and how people all over the world can follow their example, organize, fight back against totalitarian state and win. (Two authors used C. L. R. James wrote as J. R. Johnson and Cornelius Castoriadis wrote as Pierre Chaulieu. Grace C. Lee is better known as Grace Lee Boggs).

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Theory

174 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

C. L. R. James (1901–1989), a Trinidadian historian, political activist, and writer, is the author of The Black Jacobins, an influential study of the Haitian Revolution and the classic book on sport and culture, Beyond a Boundary. His play Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History was recently discovered in the archives and published Duke University Press.

Reviews

[Andrea Fiore · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There is no need for these shop floor organizations to be formally organized. As soon as the men in a department know one another and go through the work together, they are organized."

"The idea that the emancipation of the workers will be the work of the workers themselves is the literal and total truth. It is not enough to say that the working class alone has the necessary force to realize its emancipation, as if the working class were the steam of an engine with intellectuals as mechanics and engine drivers. The reality is that it is the working class alone which is able to produce the organization, the forms and ideas which this emancipation demands."

"It is not the business of the Marxist organization to invent what Marx scornfully called recipes for the cookshops of the future. It is sufficient to watch carefully what the workers are actually doing, and what they are aiming at, and to draw the conclusions."

"Social upheavals bring out what already exists in society, even though only in embryonic form, or as aspiration. But they exist. It is the task of the Marxist organization to find them."

"Theory is the distillation of history and it is only by understanding the present that one is able to understand the past."

[Jnoub101 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Facing Reality is an impressive work but limited by when it was released. The book has high highs and some low lows. The interventions into philosophy are often lacking and occasionally even reactionary. However, where the book shines is in its constant assertion of the importance of independent workers power and its description of the role Marxists can play in promoting that power.

I would recommend the book for those looking to break into Autonomism, but would warn them not to expect a book as useful or relevant as those written by later thinkers.

[James Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm re-reading this now in the context of the Walmart strikes and the uptick in labor organizing going on today. I love the emphasis on worker-self activity and the embroyo of change, and find it rather unnuanced on the role of unions. Also, as much of the pamphlet was written with such an enthusiasm for the Hungarian Uprising, I'm interested in reading more about that history now.