Cultural Capital

Reflections on books and the arts from the New Statesman culture desk

Eric Hobsbawm, 1917-2012

Marxist historian dies at the age of 95.

By Jonathan Derbyshire Published 01 October 2012 11:10

Eric Hobsbawm in January 1976 (Photograph: Getty Images)

The Marxist historian and intellectual Eric Hobsbawm has died at the age of 95. Raised in Vienna and Berlin, Hobsbawm came to Britain in 1933, when his Jewish family fled the Nazis. He read history at Cambridge and served in the Royal Engineers during the Second World War.

Hobsbawm joined the Communist Party in 1936, remaining a member after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, an event which led many of his contemporaries to leave the party. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Hobsbawm was a key figure in the "Eurocommunist" current inside the CPGB that gathered around the party's theoretical journal, Marxism Today. His 1978 essay in that organ, "The Forward March of Labour Halted", inaugurated a highly influential revisionist analysis of the strength of the working-class movement in Britain.

His work as an academic historian of the 19th and 20th centuries, including such books as The Age of Revolution and The Age of Extremes, is among the finest fruits of the Marxist tradition in historiography. The late Tony Judt wrote of Hobsbawm:

Hobsbawm doesn’t just know more than other historians. He writes better, too: there is none of the fussy “theorizing” or grandiloquent rhetorical narcissism of some of his younger British colleagues (none of the busy teams of graduate researchers, either—he does his own reading). His style is clean and clear. Like E.P. Thompson, Raymond Williams, and Christopher Hill, his erstwhile companions in the British Communist Historians’ Group, Hobsbawm is a master of English prose. He writes intelligible history for literate readers.

For ten years, between 1956 and 1966, Hobsbawm also moonlighted as the New Statesman's jazz critic, writing under the pseudonym "Francis Newton". This summer, the magazine republished an article of his from 1960, looking back on developments in jazz during the preceding decade.

Hobsbawm remained active as a writer well into his nineties. His final book, How to Change the World: Tales of Marx and Marxism, was published last year. I spoke to Hobsbawm about the book in January 2011. Of the fate of Marx's work, he said:

Marx, I suppose, was saved by the collapse of the Soviet Union - but not necessarily Marxism, because the Soviet Union was a Marxist state only of a kind. It is quite clear that, for some time, the great bulk of people interested in Marx and Marxism were critical of the Soviet Union andregarded it as a diversion from the original path. On the other hand, you've got to remember that Marxism, as a political as well as an intellectual phenomenon, depends on the political atmosphere. And all socialists were hurt to some extent by the fall of the Soviet Union, simply because the example of having some part of the world which claimed to be socialist inspired them, and had inspired them for most of the 20th century. It wasn't until the beginning of this century that interest in Marx revived again.

Tags: Eric Hobsbawm History Marxism

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19 comments

Fri, 2012-10-05 02:01 — visiting_reader_doug (not verified)

Headline should read: Eric Hobsbawm, Soviet sycophant, court historian, apologist for mass murderer. Oh, and terrible, turgid writer.

Tue, 2012-10-02 16:11 — neeko (not verified)

Handing a CH to Hobsbawm was a complete disgrace. He was the worst kind of so-called intellectual who could high handedly dismiss the tyranny and appalling mass murder of the Stalinist model from his comfortable NW3 observation post.

Good riddance

Tue, 2012-10-02 13:44 — hugh markey (not verified)

Aren't there enough apologists for the British Empire, the Roman Empire for that matter and any empire, not forgetting the Fascist states in Europe and Asia, to be going on with.
A little balance please.
Shakespeare if we believe the majority view was a Catholic and yet all Catholics were traitors in the eyes of the Tudor elite. Thomas More who went to the block as a traitor has a building at the High Court named in his honour.
And let's not forget Iraq. This was the catalyst that brought to the surface many neo-cons whose allegiance was to countries other than the UK.
The Conservatives were spoiling for a fight but became coat-holders when things turned nasty for HM's Forces. Will Ditherer Dave ever make a decision besides reducing HM's Forces to squad numbers and picking a fight with his disabled subjects?

Romanticist

Tue, 2012-10-02 06:43 — Colin Sloss (not verified)

As a fan of E.P.Tomphson, I must admit I never read Hobbawn. The fact that he never potested at Soviet Union communism is not in his favour.

Tue, 2012-10-02 07:56 — Herbert (not verified)

This is true. But Hobsbawm remains worth reading as a historian.

Tue, 2012-10-02 06:42 — Colin Sloss (not verified)

As a fan of E.P.Tomphson, I must admit I never read Hobbawn. The fact that he never potested at Soviet Union communism is not in his favour.

Mon, 2012-10-01 22:34 — plain john snith (not verified)

Hobsbawm was an apologist for mass murder. His soul was as ugly as his face. It says a lot for Blair that he would offer a gong to this ghastly specimen and it says a lot for Hobsbawm that he would accept such a bauble. His daughter seems to have embraced capitalism fairly fully as a Cameroonesque PR shill, so his preaching of revolution can;t have had such a huge effect on his own offspring. But like all over privileged bourgy Marxists, he lived in Hampstead and never met a worker in hiis life: same as Milliwierd's old man really.

I can only refer you to Nick Cohen;s piece in the Spectator website: the comments underneath it are better still.

Tue, 2012-10-02 07:58 — Herbert (not verified)

It's difficult to disagree with much of what you say. However, Hobsbawm managed at the same time to be a historian with much of interest and importance to say. How you resolve that paradox, I don't know.

Mon, 2012-10-01 22:03 — Armin ius (not verified)

A Marxist historian and intellectual is one description but boiled down, he was a supporter of and apologist for a murderous ideology responsible for the deaths of untold millions. Just a dead Communist of which the World is well rid.

Mon, 2012-10-01 21:32 — plain john snith (not verified)

Ghastly person. An apologist for tyranny.

Mon, 2012-10-01 20:08 — Swavesey Sage (not verified)

A fellow traveler masquerading as an Historian. Much loved by the liberal/socialist
nomenclatura who inhabit too many of our Universities.

Tue, 2012-10-02 07:59 — Herbert (not verified)

No, a genuinely interesting and important historian who was also an apologist for a regime that made the name of socialism stink. We can separate the two, difficult as it is.

Mon, 2012-10-01 18:13 — hugh markey (not verified)

Of course, now we have only celeb historians. And instead of Jean Plaidy-type historical fiction we have historical fantasy based in imaginary kingdoms. Even hybrids such as 'Game of Thrones' are very popular Teen vampires and youthful werewolves abound - oh, sorry - these are current excitements. The facts, m'am, just the facts!
Some of us back from Greater Germany met several Easties who had nothing but praise for Stasi East Germany.
These were disabled citizens of the defunct Communist state who claim they were in receipt of disability benefits, special services, special accommodation and full employment.
Sounds like fantasy to us.

Teutonic Myths

Mon, 2012-10-01 18:12 — hugh markey (not verified)

Teutonic Myths

Mon, 2012-10-01 17:43 — Dave Crouch (not verified)

He was another 'usefull idiot'.

Mon, 2012-10-01 19:08 — TS (not verified)

Oh Dave Crouch , massive fail.

Mon, 2012-10-01 19:07 — TS (not verified)

Oh Dave Crouch , massive fail.

Mon, 2012-10-01 19:10 — TS (not verified)

Ooops, fail for me too....

Mon, 2012-10-01 12:54 — Herbert (not verified)

Like many people on the left I've always been a bit ambivalent about the man: good to read, but that loyalty to Stalinism was hard to stomach. Nevertheless, when I was going to start a PhD I asked him if he woud be my supervisor. He said he couldn't as he was about to retire. As if Hobsbawm could ever have retired from thinking and writing.