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Professor Eric Hobsbawm
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The greatest historian ever, and still a radical
He is 88 and experienced the dark days of Euopean history, but Professor Eric Hobsbawm is still a believer in radical solutions, writes Matthew Lewin
PROFESSOR Eric Hobsbawm, the famously “unrepentant communist”,
is now 88 years old. He is a little hard of hearing, and perhaps
his jogging days are over, but his mind is razor sharp and the
French economist Jacques Attali is going to have to be on his
mettle when the two meet to debate the stature and legacy of
Karl Marx on March 2.
Hobsbawm is president of London University’s Birkbeck College,
a post which he feels is much more important than his other
title of Professor Emeritus of Economic and Social History at
the university.
“Emeritus just means that I used to do something once,”
he said at his home in Nassington Road, Hampstead. But the fact
remains that he is one of the most important, and acclaimed,
historians Britain has ever produced.
He has written many seminal books, and his autobiography, Interesting
Times, is a must-read for anyone willing to see our recent history
through the eyes of a deeply committed socialist.
Hobsbawm was born in Egypt, in 1917, the son of a Viennese mother
and a father who came from the East End.
After World War I the family moved to Vienna where Eric went
to school. But his parents died tragically young, and he and
his sister were taken in by an uncle and aunt who lived in Berlin.
Having been a Jewish schoolboy in Berlin during Hitler’s
rise to power is at the very core of Eric Hobsbawm’s lifelong
commitment to radical political solutions. “It was such
a dramatic time,” he says. “It was very difficult
for anyone living in central Europe between 1931 and 1933 not
to realise that they were living through some major turning
point of history.”
“I became enormously politicised in Berlin as the Weimar
Republic was going to pieces and Hitler was coming up –
and that’s when I became a communist. And I stayed that
way. Moderate political solutions like liberalism were of absolutely
no interest to me.
“I could understand why anyone would want a radical solution,
and I could see that if I had been a passionate German I might
have looked for a radical German nationalist, or Nazi, solution.
But I was regarded as English, and I was Jewish, so they wouldn’t
have had me in any case.” The family came to England in
1933, and young Eric joined the Communist Party as soon as he
left home to read history at Cambridge three years later. He
remained a member for the next 53 years, until letting his membership
lapse just before the British party fell apart in 1991. Did
he ever regret joining?
“Never, although I think it would be true to say that after
the first 20 years, in the mid-1950s, the situation changed
a lot, and I no longer gave the party such a huge proportion
of my time.
“I don’t think I ever expected much from the British
Communist Party, which never seemed to have much of a future,
but I did support some of the other parties, particularly in
places like Italy and Spain.
“The point is that there is no longer a world revolutionary
communist movement in the way that there was, and there hasn’t
been, really, for the past 40 years. From the 1950s onwards
it became clear that whatever communists were doing in countries
like Britain, France and most of Europe, it wasn’t making
revolution.
“But I am still a believer that there has to be a better
society than capitalism, and it would be nice if it would turn
out to be a socialist society.”
Does he accept that terrible things were done in the name of
communism?
“Yes, awful things, horrifying things. But, remember, horrifying
things were done in the name of everything. If you look at the
amount of suffering and massacre that went on in the first half
of my lifetime all over the world, it’s unbelievable.
“Unless you are a complete pacifist, there are times when
you have to decide: ‘When is enough?’. The real test,
for me, is World War II. Could you say winning World War II
wasn’t worth it, bearing in mind that it killed and maimed
more people than at any other time in world history? Was it
really worth it?
“I’m an old man now, but I belong to a generation
which cannot be asked that question. Future generations will
have to form their own judgements, but for us, the alternative
would have been Hitler in charge of Europe, and my generation
finds that unthinkable.
“It is perfectly possible to feel awful about, and indeed,
to denounce what happened in Russia, and still to say that on
the world scale it was worthwhile to be a communist.”
His Jewish identity is very strong, although he is not at all
observant, and he is certainly not a Zionist. He has a powerful
memory of his mother exhorting him never to forget that he was
Jewish and never to be ashamed of it.
Yet he has described Israeli policies as “disastrous and
evil”. Does he still feel that way?
“Oh yes, but there are many other Jews, and indeed Israelis
saying that too. I just do not accept the idea that Jews have
to align themselves with Israel – that is not the case
and has never been the case. I believe very strongly that it
is possible to be Jewish without being pro-Israel.”
Many Jews who have taken that stance have been accused of being
‘self-hating’.
“Yes, that has been said of me, but whatever I am I am
not a self-hating Jew. I may not be a very good Jew in terms
of being observant, but nobody can tell me that I hate myself
or that I am ashamed of being Jewish.”
The other great passion in Eric Hobsbawm’s life is music,
and particularly jazz, which he enjoys occasionally at the Jazz
Cafe in Camden Town.
“One of the proudest moment of my life was to receive an
honourary degree, alongside Benny Goodman, from Bard College,
a small liberal arts university in upstate New York. The other
greatest moment in my life was spending an evening with the
gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson. She was a very great artist,
and she didn’t trust many men, let alone foreign white
men. It was a great moment.”
Jewish book week
THE biggest annual book festival in London kicks off this
month and features some of the leading thinkers in British letters.
It features over 50 events and includes such names as historians
Eric Hobsbawm and Antony Beevor, film maker Mike Leigh, writers
David Grossman and Jonathan Freedland and a discussion chaired
by leading QC Baroness Helena Kennedy.
Although primarily featuring events based on Jewish themes,
its wide boundaries mean it is a secular occasion. According
to Gail Sandler, the chairwoman of the festival council who
lives in Swiss Cottage, the aim is to produce thought-provoking
events. In the following four pages we take a look at some of
the highlights.
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