I recently had the misfortune of being quoted in a recent article ‘Britain’s young communists are ready for revolution’ in the New Statesman – a supposedly ‘progressive’ left-leaning magazine, which has its roots in middle-class ‘Fabianism’.
Ostensibly covering our recent massively-successful Revolution Festival, readers are treated to commentary on burning political issues, such as the attendees’ fashion sense and hairstyles.
When the author gets bored of making fun of appearances, she proceeds to misrepresent, downplay, and belittle the most important aspect of the event: Marxist ideas.
With a dry, sarcastic tone, the author reiterates the same identity politics which continues to plague the so-called ‘left’. She recalls a conversation with one of our members, where she “refutes” the Marxist explanation for the rise of women’s oppression:
“The idea that class is the root of sexism – as opposed to, say, I don’t know, men – is the sort of thing revolutionary communists like.”
To reduce the whole history of women’s oppression since the beginning of class society to simply “men” exposes the ideological bankruptcy of these liberal ‘progressives’.
Twisting the truth
During the event, I was asked about how I became a communist. I was quoted saying that I became radicalised after my mum lost her job for “bullshit reasons”. Naturally, the following explanation of those “bullshit reasons” is conveniently absent. So I’d like to take the opportunity to fill in the gaps.
My mum was a groundskeeper at the local zoo, until one third of the staff were laid off during the pandemic. While allegedly doing this for budgetary reasons, the owners’ and managers’ pay was left untouched. Scandalously, they didn’t cut a penny off of their “research trips” to Dubai during the lockdowns!
Stories like this have driven thousands – potentially millions – of young people to anti-capitalist and revolutionary conclusions.
But as the journalists say, why let the facts get in the way of a good story? The writer set out to make young people look naïve and stupid for being radical, and the truth is a trifling thing compared with the editorial line.
The liberal journalists can mock us and sneer at us all they like. It’s proof that we can’t be ignored! We would have thanked the New Statesman for the free publicity, but unfortunately the only people who read it are centrist dads, policy wonks, and Labour bureaucrats.
Liberal bubble
In Where is Britain Going?, Leon Trotsky described the Fabian trend from which the New Statesman traces its roots as “the most useless, and certainly the most boring, type of literary activity.”
The Fabian socialists, he continues, live in “an exceedingly cloistered little world, deeply provincial, despite the fact that they live in London.” How little things change!
These ladies and gentlemen can’t make heads or tails of why the Revolutionary Communist Party is on the rise, because, sitting comfortably in their liberal bubble, they are completely out of touch with the real, revolutionary mood in society.
But it makes no difference. Workers and young people won’t stop to ask for the enlightened opinions of these ‘left’ intellectuals before taking the path of class struggle.
We can only hope, for their sake, that the stormy events of the coming British revolution will at least make their articles slightly more interesting.
