MARXISM AND THE HERITAGE
OF CULTURE
John Strachey
THIS CONFERENCE HAS BEEN CALLED
because its initiators consider
that our cultural heritage is in danger. The remarkable assembly of
writers gathered here is evidence that on this point-though I dare say
on literally nothing else-there is a wide measure of agreement among
writers.
The question which must be in all our minds is-Can writers do
anything about this danger? Some writers, many English writers in
particular, do not think they can. I do not agree with them; but I would
most cordially agree that writers can do little or nothing to defend our
cultural heritage unless they come to understand the nature of the present
menace to that heritage and how this menace has arisen.
There must be, surely, some explanation of why, in country after
country, forces have arisen which are obviously and visibly inimical to
every form of cultural activity. The appearance of this phenomenon, in
State after State of Western Europe, cannot, surely, be a coincidence.
Is there no hypothesis even, which! fits these
~emarkable
facts and gives
us an explanation of why it is that the dominant forces in the States
ol:
Western Europe and America have, suddenly and obviously, turned against
culture. These forces are, in the most pronounced cases, attempting and–
let us admit-to some extent succeeding in destroying the very basis of
European culture: they are burning the books, exiling their authors, con–
tracting education, they are putting out, one by one, the lamps of ·reason
which have been lighted in Europe during the last five hundred years.
The fact that this kind of thing is happening or is, at any rate,
beginning to happen in one country after another cannot, I repeat, be
coincidence or mere accident. The phenomenon is too widespread and has
occurred too simultaneously over five-sixths of the world for that.
There is, as you all know, such a hypothesis. We, who accept what
is usually called the Marxist analysis of human society, are able to put
forward a hypothesis which accounts fully for what is happening. Hence
it seems to me that before writers reject that hypothesis out of hand, they
should at any rate make a serious study of it, and above all, should satisfy
themselves that there is some other, and better exrlanation of the facts.
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