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Duncan Hallas: Indomitable Revolutionary: A Tribute
360 pages, Paperback
Published June 15, 2023
About the author
Alex Callinicos
141 books73 followersAlexander Theodore Callinicos, a descendant through his mother of Lord Acton, is a political theorist and Director of the Centre for European Studies at King's College London. He holds both a BA and a DPhil from Oxford University.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 18, 2024
It would be wrong to call this a biography and thus takes "A Tribute" seriously. From human nature, to modern Trotskyism this book deepens Hallas' thought whilst weaving in personal experience and understanding of his life.
April 4, 2026
The late Duncan Hallas, along with Tony Cliff and about 30 others, was a founder-member in 1950 of the small, anti-Stalinist Marxist political group in Britain which later grew and developed into the present-day Socialist Workers’ Party (Britain), which has links with similar groups in many other countries in the International Socialist Tendency. This great book contains selected writings BY Hallas, and also sections written by others ABOUT him and his ideas.
Duncan Hallas was my favourite political speaker: he addressed meetings with marvellous clarity and sharpness. This book has reminded me that this clarity of expression applied to his writing as well as to his speaking skills.
In relation to this clarity, Alex Callinicos wrote in an obituary: “Not for Duncan the abstractions and obscurities of academic Marxism. He wrote plain English, punctuated by short pithy sentences.” And Paul Foot said that: “He was the most coherent socialist I ever knew, whether he was writing or speaking.”
Marx wrote that: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” And Duncan certainly tried to change it. He was a lifelong activist as well as a theoretician, speaker and writer. An early example was when he played a part in a mutiny in the British army in Egypt after WWII in 1946, when soldiers were demanding to be demobbed and sent home.
Like Marx, Duncan’s view of socialist revolution was that it involved the “self-emancipation of the working class”. That is, it meant a movement of the majority, collectively and democratically taking power from the hands of the exploiting minority of capitalists. (The working class today, of course, includes “white collar”/non-manual workers as well as manual workers.)
This belief that democracy and socialism are inseparable meant that Duncan did not see the so-called “communist” states as in any way genuinely socialist or Marxist. Orthodox Trotskyists also criticised the USSR etc, but they followed Trotsky’s view that Russia under Stalin was a “degenerated workers’ state”. Hallas argued - correctly in my view - that Trotsky was mistaken in this. Much more convincing is the theory that was first fully developed by Tony Cliff: that Stalinist Russia was a bureaucratic state capitalist tyranny, as were the other so-called “communist” regimes that appeared later.
But why is a revolution necessary to achieve socialism? Again, Duncan followed Marx in saying that there were two reasons for this. Firstly, because of the undemocratic power of the ruling class through its control of the economy, the media and the repressive machinery of the state. This power closes off any parliamentary road to socialism. And secondly, because it is through the process of class struggle itself that workers’ ideas change and they become open to socialist arguments. This is how a majority can be won for socialism.
In relation to this last point, Duncan would have been really pleased to see the recent revival in class struggle, with many groups of workers going on strike and starting to see through the lies and distortions of the capitalist media. But he would also have pointed to the danger of these struggles being dampened down and sold out by the full-time bureaucrats who lead the unions.
One final point. This book is not just aimed at “old-timer” socialists like myself, who met Duncan. As it says on the back of the book, “This book is a tribute to a remarkable life and a call to a new generation to enrich and deepen their understanding of revolutionary socialism through Duncan’s work.”
Duncan Hallas was my favourite political speaker: he addressed meetings with marvellous clarity and sharpness. This book has reminded me that this clarity of expression applied to his writing as well as to his speaking skills.
In relation to this clarity, Alex Callinicos wrote in an obituary: “Not for Duncan the abstractions and obscurities of academic Marxism. He wrote plain English, punctuated by short pithy sentences.” And Paul Foot said that: “He was the most coherent socialist I ever knew, whether he was writing or speaking.”
Marx wrote that: “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” And Duncan certainly tried to change it. He was a lifelong activist as well as a theoretician, speaker and writer. An early example was when he played a part in a mutiny in the British army in Egypt after WWII in 1946, when soldiers were demanding to be demobbed and sent home.
Like Marx, Duncan’s view of socialist revolution was that it involved the “self-emancipation of the working class”. That is, it meant a movement of the majority, collectively and democratically taking power from the hands of the exploiting minority of capitalists. (The working class today, of course, includes “white collar”/non-manual workers as well as manual workers.)
This belief that democracy and socialism are inseparable meant that Duncan did not see the so-called “communist” states as in any way genuinely socialist or Marxist. Orthodox Trotskyists also criticised the USSR etc, but they followed Trotsky’s view that Russia under Stalin was a “degenerated workers’ state”. Hallas argued - correctly in my view - that Trotsky was mistaken in this. Much more convincing is the theory that was first fully developed by Tony Cliff: that Stalinist Russia was a bureaucratic state capitalist tyranny, as were the other so-called “communist” regimes that appeared later.
But why is a revolution necessary to achieve socialism? Again, Duncan followed Marx in saying that there were two reasons for this. Firstly, because of the undemocratic power of the ruling class through its control of the economy, the media and the repressive machinery of the state. This power closes off any parliamentary road to socialism. And secondly, because it is through the process of class struggle itself that workers’ ideas change and they become open to socialist arguments. This is how a majority can be won for socialism.
In relation to this last point, Duncan would have been really pleased to see the recent revival in class struggle, with many groups of workers going on strike and starting to see through the lies and distortions of the capitalist media. But he would also have pointed to the danger of these struggles being dampened down and sold out by the full-time bureaucrats who lead the unions.
One final point. This book is not just aimed at “old-timer” socialists like myself, who met Duncan. As it says on the back of the book, “This book is a tribute to a remarkable life and a call to a new generation to enrich and deepen their understanding of revolutionary socialism through Duncan’s work.”
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