1. Overview
Ralph Miliband (born Adolphe MilibandFrench) was a prominent British sociologist and Marxist political theorist, widely regarded as one of the most influential academic Marxists of his generation. Born in Brussels, Belgium, to Polish Jewish immigrants, he fled to Britain with his father in 1940 to escape Nazi persecution. Miliband dedicated his life to critical social analysis and the pursuit of social justice, becoming a leading figure in the New Left movement in Britain. His intellectual legacy is marked by significant works such as Parliamentary Socialism, The State in Capitalist Society, and Marxism and Politics, which offered profound critiques of capitalism, social democracy, and the nature of state power. His commitment to socialist principles and his engagement in key political debates of his time, including his strong opposition to the Vietnam War, solidified his reputation as a committed intellectual and activist.
2. Life and Career
Ralph Miliband's life was shaped by the tumultuous events of the 20th century, from his family's flight from Nazi persecution to his influential academic and political career in Britain.
2.1. Early Life and Background
Ralph Miliband was born Adolphe Miliband in Brussels, Belgium, on 7 January 1924. His parents, Samuel Miliband (1895-1966) and Renia (or Renée, née Steinlauf 1901-1975), were working-class Polish Jews who had migrated westward from Warsaw, Poland, after the First World War. Samuel, a skilled leather craftsman, had been a member of the socialist General Jewish Labour Bund in Warsaw. Renia, who sold women's hats, often concealed her profession due to societal embarrassment, though her income was crucial during the Great Depression. While Renia was fluent in Polish, Samuel, with a basic education, likely spoke mostly Yiddish but taught himself French by reading newspapers.
In 1939, at the age of 15, Miliband joined Hashomer Hatzair ("Young Guard"), a socialist-Zionist youth group. In May 1940, as Nazi Germany invaded Belgium, the Jewish Miliband family decided to flee. Adolphe and his father, Samuel, managed to catch the last boat from Ostend to Britain, arriving on 19 May 1940. His mother and younger sister, Anna Hélène, remained in Brussels and were later hidden by a French family on a rural farm to escape the Holocaust, eventually reuniting with Samuel and Ralph after the war. Tragically, several of Miliband's relatives and his best friend, Maurice Tan, perished in the Holocaust.
Upon arriving in London, Adolphe changed his name to Ralph, rejecting its association with Adolf Hitler. He and his father initially worked in Chiswick, removing furniture from houses damaged during the Blitz.
2.2. Education and War Service
Despite encountering antisemitism in London, Miliband dedicated himself to learning English. With assistance from the League of Nations' Commission for Refugees, he gained a place at Acton Technical College (now Brunel University) in January 1941. He then secured funding from the Belgian government in exile to study at the London School of Economics (LSE). It was during this period that he developed a keen interest in Marxism and revolutionary socialism, making a personal commitment to "the workers' cause" at the grave of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery. He studied under Harold Laski, a prominent historian and socialist theorist at the LSE, who significantly influenced his political views.
Miliband volunteered for service during World War II, aiming to assist the Belgian Resistance. After passing his medical in January 1942, he faced delays due to his Polish nationality requiring consent from Polish authorities. With Laski's intervention, he joined the Royal Navy in June 1943. He served for three years in the Belgian Section of the Royal Navy, achieving the rank of chief petty officer. As a German-speaking radio intelligence officer, he intercepted German communications in the Mediterranean. He participated in supporting the Normandy landings in June 1944, describing it as "the biggest operation in history," and later saw action at the Toulon landings.
2.3. Academic Career
After the war, Miliband resumed his studies at the LSE in 1946, graduating with a first-class degree in 1947. He began his doctorate in 1947, focusing on Popular Thought in the French Revolution, 1789-1794, which he completed in 1956. Following a Leverhulme Trust research scholarship, he taught at Roosevelt College (now Roosevelt University) in Chicago. He became a naturalized British subject on 28 September 1948. In 1949, he was offered an assistant lectureship in political science at the LSE.
Miliband left the LSE in 1972, partly due to the controversies surrounding the institution's response to student protests in the late 1960s. He then took up a position as Professor of Politics at the University of Leeds. This period proved challenging for Miliband; he suffered a heart attack shortly after the move and found the administrative responsibilities as a head of department particularly taxing. He resigned in 1978 and subsequently accepted various academic posts in Canada and the United States, including a professorship at Brandeis University in 1977, and lectureships at York University in Toronto and the City University of New York. Despite these international roles, he remained based in London.
3. Major Works and Intellectual Contributions
Ralph Miliband made profound contributions to Marxist theory and political sociology through his extensive writings, which critically examined social inequality and power structures within capitalist societies.
His first major work, Parliamentary Socialism: A Study of the Politics of Labour, published in 1961, analyzed the role of the Labour Party in British politics from a Marxist perspective. In this book, Miliband argued that the Labour Party, despite its socialist origins, had largely failed to challenge the fundamental structures of capitalism due to its commitment to parliamentary processes and its lack of radicalism. This work is often considered one of his finest.
In 1969, he published The State in Capitalist Society, a seminal work in Marxist political sociology. In this book, Miliband rejected the prevailing idea of pluralism, which suggested that political power was widely dispersed among various groups in Western democracies. Instead, he maintained that power remained concentrated in the hands of a dominant capitalist class, influencing state policies and institutions.
Other significant books include Marxism and Politics (1977), Capitalist Democracy in Britain (1982), Class Power and State Power (1983), and Divided Societies: Class Struggle in Contemporary Capitalism (1989). His final work, Socialism for a Sceptical Age, was published posthumously in 1994. Miliband also edited the "Writings of the Left" series, further contributing to the dissemination of critical socialist thought. His works were translated into various languages, including Japanese.
4. Political Thought and Activism
Ralph Miliband was a central figure in the British New Left movement, which emerged in the late 1950s and was critical of both traditional social democracy and the established socialist governments of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. He joined the Labour Party in 1951, initially aligning himself as a reluctant Bevanite in the early 1950s. However, he ended his membership in the mid-1960s, remaining independent of formal political affiliation thereafter. He increasingly argued that socialists in Britain needed to work towards building a genuinely revolutionary socialist alternative.
In 1958, he joined the New Reasoner alongside figures like E. P. Thompson and John Saville, which later merged to become the influential New Left Review in 1960. In 1964, he co-founded The Socialist Register with John Saville. Miliband was also significantly influenced by the American sociologist C. Wright Mills, with whom he was a friend.
Miliband was a passionate opponent of American involvement in the Vietnam War. In a 1967 article for the Socialist Register, he vehemently condemned the United States for "the wholesale slaughter of men, women and children" and its "catalogue of horrors" against the Vietnamese people, asserting that these actions were carried out "in the name of an enormous lie." He also sharply criticized then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson for his defense of U.S. actions, calling it "the most shameful chapter in the history of the Labour Party," and noting the political importance the U.S. government placed on the unwavering support of the British Labour Government.
In his later years, Miliband remained politically active, particularly within the Socialist Society, alongside friends such as Tariq Ali and Hilary Wainwright. In 1985, his essay "The New Revisionism in Britain" appeared in the 25th-anniversary issue of the New Left Review, where he responded to writers associated with the Marxism Today magazine, including Eric Hobsbawm and Stuart Hall, despite his long-standing friendship with Hobsbawm.
5. The Miliband-Poulantzas Debate
One of Ralph Miliband's most notable intellectual engagements was his significant academic dispute with the Greek Marxist theorist Nicos Poulantzas. This debate, often referred to as the Miliband-Poulantzas debate, primarily concerned the concept of the **relative autonomy of the state** within capitalist societies.
Miliband, representing an "instrumentalist" view, argued that the state, while appearing neutral, largely serves the interests of the dominant capitalist class through the actions of individuals who occupy positions of power within state institutions. He emphasized how the social backgrounds, connections, and shared ideologies of state officials align them with capitalist interests.
Poulantzas, on the other hand, advocated for a "structuralist" perspective, contending that the state's capitalist character is embedded in its very structure and functions, rather than solely depending on the social composition or intentions of those who administer it. He argued that the state's form and its inherent logic compel it to reproduce capitalist relations, granting it a degree of "relative autonomy" from direct class control, which allows it to mediate class conflicts and ensure the long-term stability of the capitalist system.
This debate profoundly influenced contemporary political theory, particularly in the fields of Marxist state theory and political sociology, by sharpening the analysis of the relationship between the state, class power, and capitalist accumulation.
6. Personal Life
Ralph Miliband married Marion Kozak in September 1961. Marion, who was also Polish-born and of Polish Jewish heritage, was the daughter of a steel manufacturer and had been one of Miliband's former students at the LSE. The couple established their home first in Primrose Hill and later in Bolton Gardens, South Kensington. They had two sons: David, born in 1965, and Edward (Ed), born in 1969.
7. Death
Ralph Miliband suffered from cardiac problems in his later life, undergoing a bypass operation in 1991. He died on 21 May 1994, at the age of 70, survived by his wife and sons. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery in north London, close to the grave of Karl Marx, a figure who profoundly influenced his life's work. His final book, Socialism for a Sceptical Age, was published posthumously later that year.
8. Legacy and Influence
Ralph Miliband's legacy is multifaceted, encompassing his significant academic contributions, his unwavering commitment to social justice, and the unique impact he had on his sons' political careers.
8.1. Assessment
Miliband is widely recognized as one of the most prominent academic Marxists of his generation, often compared to intellectual giants such as E. P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, and Perry Anderson. His work provided rigorous and critical analyses of the state, capitalism, and the dynamics of class power, consistently advocating for a more just and egalitarian society. His dedication to socialist principles and his intellectual integrity earned him a distinguished place in the history of social and political thought.
8.2. Criticism and Controversy
Despite his academic acclaim, Miliband's legacy also faced criticism and controversy, particularly concerning his perceived patriotism. In September 2013, the British newspaper Daily Mail published an article with the headline "The man who hated Britain," which disputed Ralph Miliband's patriotism. His son, Ed Miliband, then the leader of the Labour Party, responded to the article, describing it as a "character assassination" of his late father. The Daily Mail subsequently reiterated its claims and refused to apologize, leading to a public dispute.
Ed Miliband's defense of his father garnered support from across the political spectrum, including from then-Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. Further controversy arose when a reporter from The Mail on Sunday intruded on the private funeral of Ed Miliband's uncle, prompting an apology from the newspaper group's proprietor, Jonathan Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere. The incident highlighted the intense scrutiny and debate surrounding Miliband's political views and their portrayal in the media.
8.3. Influence on Subsequent Generations
Miliband's writings and ideas have had a lasting impact on subsequent generations of scholars, social activists, and political thinkers. His critical approach to understanding power structures and his insistence on the enduring relevance of class analysis continue to inform contemporary debates in political sociology, Marxist theory, and the study of the state. His work encouraged a deeper, more nuanced understanding of how capitalist democracies function and how social change might be achieved.
8.4. Impact on Sons' Political Careers
Ralph Miliband's influence extended directly to his sons, David Miliband and Ed Miliband, both of whom became prominent politicians in the Labour Party. In 2007, they made history as the first siblings to serve together as cabinet ministers since 1938.
David Miliband served as the Labour MP for South Shields from 2001 to 2013, holding cabinet positions from 2005 to 2010, including Foreign Secretary from 2007 to 2010. Ed Miliband was elected Labour MP for Doncaster North in 2005. He served as Minister for the Third Sector from 2007 to 2008 and then as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change from 2008 to 2010.
Both brothers contested the 2010 Labour Party leadership election (UK), which Ed narrowly won, becoming the 20th leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2010 to 2015. After stepping down from leadership, Ed returned to government in 2024, resuming his previous portfolio as Energy Secretary in Keir Starmer's Cabinet. The journalist Andy McSmith observed that while Ralph Miliband's life had a "nobility and a drama," his sons pursued "steady, pragmatic political careers," highlighting a generational shift in political approach.
9. Commemoration
In 1974, Ralph Miliband's friend, Michael Lipman, established the Lipman Trust as a progressive funding body dedicated to socialist education. Miliband served as the Trust's first chair until his death. He invited notable scholars and experts in socialist education, including John Saville, his wife Marion, Hilary Wainwright, and Doreen Massey, to join the Trust. Following Miliband's passing, the organization was renamed the Lipman-Miliband Trust, in recognition of his many years of dedicated work. The Trust continues to be an important funding body, providing regular grants for various educational projects aimed at fostering socialist education.