Abstract
The “lesser evil” is an aspect of all strategic thinking, but frequently takes the form of deliberation, by revolutionaries, on when to offer conditional support to an arm of the ruling class and when to focus exclusively on building up their own forces. This dilemma already confronted Marx and Engels. It again faced the Russian revolutionary leadership, both before and after their accession to power. In constitutional regimes, “lesser evil” calculations are central to electoral activity. Finally, the question arises of how one can move from the Lesser Evil to the Greater Good. The lesser-evil argument has recently been used to defend capitalist regimes by ascribing an agenda of terrorism to any force that would challenge them.
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Notes
- 1.
Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 3, ch. 48, sec. 3.
- 2.
August H. Nimtz, Jr., Marx and Engels: Their Contribution to the Democratic Breakthrough (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000), 67ff, 93ff.
- 3.
Neue Rheinische Zeitung (NRhZ), 14 June 1848 (Marx-Engels Werke [MEW] 5: 65).
- 4.
NRhZ, 18 Feb. 1849 (MEW 6: 298) (Marx’s emphasis).
- 5.
NRhZ, 29 June 1848 (MEW 5: 136).
- 6.
MEW 7: 251.
- 7.
Ibid.
- 8.
See Hal Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, vol. II: The Politics of Social Classes (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1978); Nimtz, Marx and Engels.
- 9.
Draper, Karl Marx’s Theory of Revolution, vol. II, 240.
- 10.
Preface to Marx’s Class Struggles in France, MEW 22: 522.
- 11.
Paul Le Blanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1993), 150.
- 12.
V.I. Lenin, Collected Works (CW) 25: 307. For background on the various parties, see, e.g., Alexander Rabinowitch, The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2004).
- 13.
Leon Trotsky, Lenin: Notes for a Biographer, trans. Tamara Deutscher (New York: Capricorn Books, 1971), 103. Cf. Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder, CW 31: 36.
- 14.
“The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government” (April 1918), CW 27: 248f.
- 15.
“Immediate Tasks,” CW 27: 265.
- 16.
Lenin, Report to 10th Congress of the CPSU, 16 March 1921, CW 32: 265.
- 17.
See above, Chap. 3.
- 18.
Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism, CW 31: 38.
- 19.
Ibid., 37 (Lenin’s emphasis).
- 20.
David Beetham, Marxists in the Face of Fascism (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1983), 162.
- 21.
Ibid., 253.
- 22.
Leon Trotsky, “For a Workers’ United Front Against Fascism” (8 Dec. 1931), in Trotsky, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1971), 136.
- 23.
Michael Parenti, Democracy for the Few, 9th ed. (Boston: Thomson-Wadsworth, 2011), ch. 14.
- 24.
Mark Crispin Miller, Fooled Again: The Real Case for Electoral Reform (New York: Basic Books, 2007), xii.
- 25.
Georg Lukács, Interview, New Left Review, 1st series, no. 68 (July/August 1971).
- 26.
Gilles Perrault, “Communisme, les falsifications d’un ‘livre noir’,” Le Monde diplomatique (December 1997), 22f.
- 27.
Helmut Dubiel and Gabriel Motzkin, eds., The Lesser Evil: Moral Approaches to Genocide Practices (London: Routledge, 2004), 2.
- 28.
Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969); Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism (Boston: South End Press, 1979); David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: Columbus, Christianity, and the Conquest of the Americas (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2003).
- 29.
Michael Ignatieff, The Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004).
- 30.
Howard Friel and Richard Falk, The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy (London: Verso, 2004), 151ff.
- 31.
See Ellen Ray and William H. Schaap, eds., Covert Action: The Roots of Terrorism (Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2003).
- 32.
Victor Wallis, “Socialism and Democracy during the First 20 Years of Socialism and Democracy,” Socialism and Democracy, 20:1 (2006), 18.
- 33.
See Victor Wallis, Democracy Denied: Five Lectures on U.S. Politics (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2019).
- 34.
John Pilger, “A World War has Begun: Break the Silence,” Counterpunch, 23 March 2016, http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/03/23/a-world-war-has-begun-break-the-silence/.
- 35.
It was under this assumption that Democrat strategists unwisely rejoiced in having Donald Trump as their target in the 2016 election. See my column, “The Trump Phenomenon” (25 Nov. 2015), http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2015/wallis251115.html.
- 36.
It should be added that the supposed lesser evil is not always “lesser.” The parties in question may pursue identical policies, but a Democrat president, being perceived as the lesser evil, will elicit less protest than would a Republican president for doing exactly the same thing. Examples are given in Glen Ford, “Why Barack Obama is the More Effective Evil” (21 March 2012), http://blackagendareport.com/content/why-barack-obama-more-effective-evil. For historical background on the Democrat party, see Leni Brenner, The Lesser Evil (Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart, 1988).
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Wallis, V. (2020). The Politics of “Lesser Evil”: Historical Reflections. In: Socialist Practice. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35066-6_8
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