Dear John (if I may),

 Last evening I read your work on Marxism and the English Revolution for the second time. I should like to make some points about its arguments very briefly indeed.

1. If one looks at the late Conrad Russell's corpus of works post-1975, it is possible to see that, deeply embedded within it, there is a degree of subscription to a teleological explanation of the English Civil War, e.g. about incipient support for royalism. pre-1642. I noticed this some time ago and found myself asked not to write about it.

2. One of the key economic and social changes in Anglo-Welsh society before 1640 is the strengthened position of landowners, whether peers or gentry. This goes back to the work of W.R.Emerson and helps to account for the failure of the post-1646 regimes to consolidate themselves in power. The 'revolution' took place against one of the key economic developments of the period.

3. As a corollary to point 2, there is good evidence to show that the tenantry of landowners out in the counties were linked not just to their landlords but also amongst and between themselves, hence the coherence of the landed interests before, during and after the 1640-1660 period.

4. One of the important themes in the Stuart realms and in continental states is the retreat from traditional bargaining methods due in measure to the fiscal and military demands of post-1618 wars. In the Stuarts' kingdoms, these forms of consensus and complaint, bargaining and negotiation declined after 1603 and atrophied post-1625, even when the wars against France and Spain ended by 1630. Their Parliaments were only one means by which negotiations took place in these societies, pace Russell, but one can see how at county and borough levels, with corporate organisations, etc., this retreat took place and accelerated under Charles I.

I am not a Marxist, as you must know, but I enjoy debating the issues of the seventeenth century,

Christopher Thompson

The Well-Dressed Revolutionary: The Odyssey of Michel Pablo in an Age of Uprisings By Hall Greenland-London, Amsterdam: Resistance Books and International Institute for Research and Education, 2023, 376 pp

 

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Matthew 7:16-20 King James Version

"By your friends shall ye be known"

Proverb

“That, in a Europe blood-stained by more than four years of total war, crushed under the most hideous yoke of the imperialisms, whose prisons and concentration camps are gorged with the victims of the most savage and most systematic repression, our organization has been able to hold its European assembly, to work out and define its political line of struggle, of itself constitutes the most eloquent manifestation of its vitality, its internationalist spirit, and the revolutionary ardour by which it is animated.

Fourth International statement

“The objective prerequisites for the proletarian revolution have not only ‘ripened,’ they have begun to get somewhat rotten.”

Leon Trotsky

Michel Pablo, a renegade from Trotskyism, died at the age of eighty-four in 1996. Pablo’s betrayal of his former political principles was aptly celebrated by the Greek ruling elite at the time. When he died, the PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement) government gave him a state funeral. As the proverb says, "By your friends shall ye be known"

Hall Greenland’s biography of Pablo is the first of its kind. Alex de Jong, writing for the Pabloite International Viewpoint, believes “He’s (Pablo) finally gotten the biography he deserves.”[1]De Jong is correct because this is a politically naive account and largely absolves Pablo of his treachery. Anyone expecting anything different from a member of the Green Party is going to be sadly disappointed.

However, Greenland’s book is not without some merit, tracing Pablo’s early political life. Pablo attended the founding conference of Leon Trotsky’s Fourth International and took part alongside fellow Trotskyists in the anti-Nazi resistance in wartime France. The book describes how many Trotskyists during the war years were living on borrowed time; not only were they hunted by the Gestapo, but they were murdered in droves by the Stalinists.

Many writers, including Greenland, imply that despite some heroics, Trotskyists played “little or no part in the struggle to project a revolutionary defeatist line,”

But as the Marxist David North points out, “ outside the Fourth International, there was no other tendency in the workers’ movement that opposed the imperialist war! The Trotskyists were hounded and persecuted by a “popular front” of fascists, “democratic” imperialists and Stalinists precisely because they upheld the banner of revolutionary defeatism and proletarian internationalism.

He continues, “The French Trotskyists Marc Bourhis and Pierre Gueguen were executed by the Nazis on October 22, 1941. Their comrade Jules Joffre was shot in 1942. In October 1943, the secretary of the French section, Marcel Hic, was arrested by the Gestapo, deported to Buchenwald and then to Dora, where he was murdered. Dozens of other French Trotskyists were arrested and also perished in the Nazi death camps. Despite the repression, the Trotskyist PCI published, starting in August 1940, seventy-three clandestine issues of its newspaper, La Verité, whose circulation was 15,000 copies.”[2]

Despite describing how the Stalinists murdered Trotskyists at will Greenland follows in the footsteps of every Stalinist, Pabloite and related middle-class radical organizations, and the intellectually corrupt academic milieu of pseudo-leftists who in the words of North “continue to ignore, deprecate and deny the overwhelming evidence that the penetration of the US Socialist Workers Party SWP by GPU agents played a critical role in the assassination of Trotsky. The role of Sylvia Callen (a.k.a. Sylvia Franklin, Sylvia Caldwell, Sylvia Doxsee), the personal secretary of James P. Cannon, as a GPU spy has been conclusively established. The same is true for Robert Sheldon Harte.”[3]

There are many problems with this book. The main one being is Greenland's complete lack of understanding of the origins and nature of Pablo’s opportunism and subsequent betrayals caused by this opportunism. It is impossible to go into any great detail of Pabloite opportunism. For anyone interested, David North’s The Heritage We Defend is the best starting point.

As North points out in his book, the origins of Pablo’s opportunism began over the debate over the class nature of Yugoslavia and the Eastern European buffer states had become transformed, under the pressure of alien class forces, into a political platform for sweeping opportunist revisions of the basic Trotskyist program and its historical perspective. Pablo was the living embodiment of Trotsky’s sayings, “Without correct theory, there cannot be correct politics or more precisely, 'every sociological definition is at the bottom a historical prognosis."

North writes, “ The theories advanced by Pablo of 'generations of deformed workers’ states” and “war-revolution” articulated the pessimism and demoralisation of broad layers of the Fourth International beneath the impact of unfavourable objective conditions. The political conceptions which were to become known as Pabloism emerged as an adaptation to the restabilization of capitalism, on the one hand, and to the apparent strengthening of the Stalinist bureaucracy, on the other.

Refracted through the political prism of the Cold War, the objective situation appeared to be dominated by the global conflict between the imperialist forces, spearheaded by the United States, and the Soviet Union and those labour and national revolutionary movements dominated by Stalinism. The real underlying conflict between the world bourgeoisie and the international proletariat—of which the Cold War was only a partial and distorted manifestation—receded from the political consciousness of those within the Fourth International who were reacting impressionistically to world events.[4]

Pablo’s capitulation to hostile class forces was not a pretty one to watch and had disastrous consequences for the working class. After he rejected revolutionary politics, Pablo, up to his death, was a supporter of ecology movements and women’s liberation. Along with his other renegades from Trotskyism, Ernest Mandel Pablo, he advocated not the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism but that workers should undertake a form of Self-Management to counteract capitalism's attacks on them.

Pablo advocated ‘generalised self-management or direct democracy’. He utilised his friendship with the Algerian bourgeois nationalists to put this experiment into practice. As Peter Schwarz writes, “Pablo himself and other leading French Pabloites placed themselves unconditionally at the service of the Algerian Liberation Front (FLN), and took over organisational responsibilities, such as the printing of illegal newspapers, fake banknotes and counterfeit passports. They even set up a weapons factory in Morocco. After the victory of the FLN over the French colonial regime, Pablo entered into the service of the Algerian government. As special advisor to the head of state, Ben Bella, Pablo was responsible for the introduction in Algerian factories of the forms of “workers’ self-management” first initiated in post-war Yugoslavia.”[5]

In his book Self-management in the struggle for socialism, Pablo explains, “In the economic sphere, the purpose of the plan is to determine the general conditions under which the self-managed enterprises can act and coordinate their efforts for the ultimate interests of society as a whole. We use the term social rather than economic plan to stress the fact that the plan seeks the balanced overall evolution of the society towards socialism, and that this affects the determination of so-called economic aims; the real aim of the plan is to satisfy the real social needs of the working people and citizens, with decisions made democratically from the bottom up and vice-versa, in a process of interaction which is constantly readjusting the objectives sought, even while the plan is being executed.[6]

As the above quote shows, Pablo’s self-management plan would be introduced peacefully and with the full cooperation of the capitalists; at no stage did Pablo advocate, let alone attempt, the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.

Although Greenland’s book is the first and only biography of Pablo, it should not be the last. It is incumbent on the Trotskyist movement to write its biography of this renegade from Trotskyism to train and arm future revolutionaries as to the nature of Pablo’s opportunism and betrayals.

 

---

[1] The Revolutionary Life and Times of Michel Pablo-internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article8471

[2] The Fourth International in World War II-The Heritage we Defend-www.wsws.org/en/special/library/heritage/07.html

[3] The place of Security and the Fourth International in the history of the Trotskyist movement-https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/08/14/dujg-a14.html

[4] The Nature of Pabloite Opportunism-The Heritage We Defend

[5] The politics of opportunism: the “radical left” in France-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2004/05/lft4-m22.html

[6] Self-management in the struggle for socialism-https://www.marxists.org/archive/pablo/1972/selfman/main.htm

The Library of Augusto Monterroso

Posted bydantelianocuenta9 July, 2025

Posted inArticles Tags:Dante Liano, Monterroso

Entering a writer's library is like rummaging through the toolbox of a carpenter, a blacksmith, or a sculptor. Screwdrivers, hammers, saws, garlopa, chisel, drill, sandpaper, square and tape measure to work wood (oak, pine, walnut) with nails, screws, glue, varnish and lacquer, that concentrated universe where all the possibilities of manufacture and artefact reside. Only that in the extended world of bookcases, leaning against the wall as if they were going to fall, or as if they were going to tear down that wall, those other tools of the trade are lined up, nails and paper screws enclosed between the cardboard or leather spines. It would be an unbearable banality to say: "Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are", because you read everything, regardless of interests and hobbies, obsessions and manias, obligations and duties. Despite everything, going through the books a writer has collected throughout their life can provide clues or coincidences, perhaps clarifications that help better enjoy their books.

Unless he is a travelling writer, one of those that Dr. Arévalo portrayed in his time: "Each country, a library." All this comes to mind by reading Fragments of the Treasure Map, a beautiful title for a very special book. It was written by Leticia Sánchez Ruiz, a writer from Oviedo, after touring the library that Augusto Monterroso donated to the University of Oviedo. We are before a journey full of devotion and reverence, or, as the epigraph best recites: "with love, admiration and deep gratitude". A curiosity: the author never met this admired author in person. He was about to meet him, he confesses, at the presentation of a volume in Salamanca. Only that he arrived late, when the event was over: it was the occasion when he was closest to Monterroso. In a way, the book is a way of establishing an implied, tacit, virtual relationship.

It all likely began with the awarding of the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature to Augusto Monterroso in the year 2000. That award was the most important one received by the Guatemalan author. His stay in Oviedo will have been very pleasant, and Monterroso will have been very well impressed. When he died in 2003, he left a legacy of volumes and manuscripts of great value. His wife, the writer Bárbara Jacobs, decided, in 2008, to donate most of these books to the University of Oviedo. These works travelled from the Chimalistac neighbourhood in Mexico City to Madrid by air. From Madrid, several trucks loaded the five tons of the legacy, and they were deposited in the Library of the El Milán Campus. There, in a vast wing of the enclosure, various shelves treasure years and years of shopping, reading, searching, entertainment, reflection, everything that an author's library implies.

Leticia Sánchez Ruiz leads us through a singular reading, the reading of several readings, especially those that Monterroso made, and only the title of a work would serve to make inferences. There are also annotated books that indicate Monterroso's preferences, and there are manuscripts, letters, and photographs. Not for nothing, Sánchez Ruiz calls his adventure "fragments of the treasure map", a quote that implies an evaluation. At the beginning, he relates that, once, that treasure ran the risk of dissolving into nothingness, as Tito relates in the story How I managed to get rid of five hundred books. That narrative contains a kind of joke, because the author says that one day, he decided to dismantle his collection of books. However, shortly after starting, he regretted it. The anecdote is invented, but it serves to exercise the sarcasm of the Guatemalan author. As far as is known, he never got rid of any book, but rather accumulated copies throughout his life.

Fragments tiptoe through the orderly shelves, which, despite this concert, form a labyrinth of symbols and signs, ready to be interpreted. The path between the volumes serves the author to weave a portrait of Tito Monterroso, which mixes biography, literary anecdotes and textual quotations, and tries to make that painting as faithful as possible to the original. One of the most interesting parts is found in the notes that Titus wrote on the pages of his favourite readings. It begins with a quote from Steiner: There are two types of people, those who read with a pencil in their hand and those who do not. "There's nothing quite as fascinating as the marginal notes of great writers," he says. Tito Monterroso was reading with a pencil in his hand. His stroke is shy, not very emphatic. Sánchez points out that the characteristic of Tito's annotations is that, rather than commenting, he corrects. Who knows if that is the result of his first job in Mexico, proofreader at the Séneca publishing house. In any case, create a personal code: an X for translation errors; a question mark, like a raised eyebrow, in the face of the wrong or the incomprehensible; a bracket for what pleases him; a six-pointed star for the exceptional, and for phrases that mention flies, one of the Guatemalan author's strange obsessions.

Monterroso points out, in Henry  James's Notebook, the paragraphs in which the American complains about the excessive social life, which leaves him no time for writing, as it reflects, says Sánchez, something that Tito himself reflected on in the text Agenda de un escritor. In another book, Flaubert's Parrot, by Julian Barnes, Monterroso underlines the statement: "Flaubert did not have a very exact idea of what Emma Bovary's eyes were like." This leads him to seek, in the text, the verification of such an observation, and underlines the parts in which the protagonist's eyes appear: "her black eyes seemed blacker"; "black in the shadow and from a dark blue to full light"; "although they were brown, they looked black." This ambiguity would seem strange in an author who spent a week in search of the mot juste, but the doubt dissolves when one thinks that indeterminacy is one of the keys to literature. Monterroso also underlines the books of Borges and Cortázar, and one might think that the underlines, then, are exclamation marks, in the best sense of the term.

Leticia Sánchez Ruiz points out, as an almost metaliterary curiosity, that in Tito's library are the works of Arturo Monterroso and Porfirio Barba Jacob. He declares, with a certain astonishment, that Arturo Monterroso exists and that he is a Guatemalan writer. I can confirm that intuition: Arturo not only exists in reality, but he is an excellent writer, greatly admired by the countless students of his captivating literary workshops. His works are nothing like Tito's, and that is very good, because it removes suspicions and exploitation of literary coincidences. De Barba Jacob indicates the almost coincidence with the name of Bárbara Jacobs, Monterroso's wife. He completes the information by saying that Titus knew Barba Jacob, because he frequented his parents' house, and that Titus admired him very much. There is much more. Porfirio Barba Jacob was a Colombian modernist who settled in Guatemala, was schooled there, was a friend and enemy of Rafael Arévalo Martínez, and deserved a biography written by Fernando Vallejo. Titus was right when he kept his books. Fragments of a Treasure Map contains much more information, and reading it reveals to us the world of Monterrosian and incites us to what would be the main activity: reading Tito's work, or, what is almost the same, rereading it, because it is prose to be enjoyed over and over again.

 

 

La biblioteca de Tito

 

Entrar en la biblioteca de un escritor asemeja a hurgar de escondidas en el bolsón de instrumentos de un carpintero, de un herrero, de un escultor. Destornilladores, martillos, serrucho, garlopa, formón, taladro, lija, escuadra y cinta métrica para trabajar madera (roble, pino, nogal) con clavos, tornillos, pegamento, barniz y laca, ese universo concentrado en donde residen todas las posibilidades de manufactura y artefacto. Solo que en el extendido mundo de las libreras, apoyadas en la pared como si se fueran a caer, o como si fueran a derribar ese muro, se alinean esas otras herramientas del oficio, clavos y tornillos de papel encerrados entre los lomos de cartón o piel. Sería una banalidad insoportable enunciar: “Dime qué lees y te diré quién eres”, porque se lee de todo, independientemente de los intereses y aficiones, de las obsesiones y manías, de las obligaciones y deberes. A pesar de todo, recorrer los libros que un escritor ha coleccionado en su vida puede proporcionar pistas o coincidencias, quizá esclarecimientos para gozar mejor la lectura de sus libros. A menos que sea un escritor viajero, de esos que el doctor Arévalo retrató en su tiempo: “Cada país, una biblioteca”.

Todo esto viene a cuento por la lectura de Fragmentos del mapa del tesoro, hermoso título para un libro muy especial. Lo escribió Leticia Sánchez Ruiz, escritora ovetense, luego de recorrer la biblioteca que Augusto Monterroso donó a la Universidad de Oviedo. Nos hallamos delante de un itinerario lleno de devoción y reverencia, o, como mejor recita el epígrafe: “con amor, admiración y profundo agradecimiento”. Una curiosidad: la autora nunca conoció en persona a ese autor tan admirado. Estuvo a punto de conocerlo, confiesa, en la presentación de un volumen en Salamanca. Solo que llegó tarde, cuando el acto había terminado: fue la ocasión en que estuvo más cerca de Monterroso. De alguna manera, el libro es una manera de establecer una relación sobreentendida, tácita, virtual.

Es probable que todo haya comenzado con la asignación del Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras a Augusto Monterroso, en el año 2000. Ese premio fue el más importante recibido por el autor guatemalteco. Su estancia en Oviedo habrá sido muy agradable y Monterroso habrá quedado muy bien impresionado. Cuando murió, en 2003, dejó un legado de volúmenes y manuscritos de gran valor. Su esposa, la escritora Bárbara Jacobs decidió, en 2008, donar la mayor parte de esos libros a la Universidad de Oviedo. Esas obras viajaron del barrio de Chimalistac, en la Ciudad de México, a Madrid, por vía aérea. De Madrid, varios camiones cargaron las cinco toneladas del legado y fueron depositados en la Biblioteca del Campus de El Milán. Allí, en una vasta ala del recinto, diversos estantes atesoran años y años de compras, de lecturas, de búsquedas, de entretenimiento, de reflexión, de todo aquello que implica la biblioteca de un autor.

Leticia Sánchez Ruiz nos conduce por una lectura singular, la lectura de varias lecturas, sobre todo, las que Monterroso realizó, y solo el título de una obra serviría para hacer inferencias. Hay, además, libros anotados que nos indican las preferencias de Monterroso y hay manuscritos, cartas, fotografías. No por nada, Sánchez Ruiz denomina a su aventura “fragmentos del mapa del tesoro”, una cita que implica una evaluación. Al principio, relata que, alguna vez, ese tesoro corrió el riesgo de disolverse en la nada, según relata Tito en el cuento Cómo logré deshacerme de quinientos libros. Esa narración contiene una especie de broma, pues el autor dice que, un buen día, decidió desbaratar su colección de libros. Sin embargo, poco tiempo después de empezar, se arrepintió. La anécdota es inventada, pero sirve para ejercitar el sarcasmo del autor guatemalteco. Que se sepa, nunca se deshizo de ningún libro, sino más bien acumuló ejemplares a lo largo de su vida.

Fragmentos recorre, de puntillas, los estantes ordenados, que, no obstante ese concierto, forman un laberinto de símbolos y signos, listos para ser interpretados. El camino entre los rimeros de volúmenes sirve a la autora para tejer un retrato de Tito Monterroso, que mezcla biografía, anécdotas literarias y citas textuales, y trata de que esa pintura sea lo más fiel posible al original. Una de las partes más interesantes se encuentra en las anotaciones que Tito escribió en las páginas de sus lecturas favoritas.

Inicia con una cita de Steiner: hay dos tipos de personas, las que leen con un lápiz en la mano y las que no. “No hay nada tan fascinante como las notas marginales de los grandes escritores”, dice. Obviamente, Tito Monterroso leía con un lápiz en la mano. Su trazo es tímido, poco enfático. Sánchez señala que la característica de las anotaciones de Tito consiste en que más que comentar, corrige. Quién sabe si ese es el resultado de su primer trabajo en México, corrector de pruebas en la editorial Séneca. De todas formas, crea un código personal: una equis para los errores de traducción; un signo de interrogación, como una ceja levantada, ante lo erróneo o lo incomprensible; un corchete para lo que le agrada; una estrella de seis puntas para lo excepcional, y para las frases que mencionan a las moscas, una de las extrañas obsesiones del autor guatemalteco.

Monterroso señala, en Cuaderno de notas, de Henry James, los párrafos en los que el norteamericano se queja de la excesiva vida social, que no le deja tiempo para la escritura, en cuanto refleja, dice Sánchez, algo que el mismo Tito reflexionaba en el texto Agenda de un escritor. En otro libro, El loro de Flaubert, de Julian Barnes, Monterroso subraya la afirmación: “Flaubert no tenía una idea muy exacta de cómo eran los ojos de Emma Bovary”. Esto lo lleva a buscar, en el texto, la comprobación de tal observación, y subraya las partes en las que aparecen los ojos de la protagonista: “sus ojos negros parecían más negros”; “negros en la sombra y de un azul oscuro a plena luz”; “aunque eran pardos parecían negros”. Parecería extraña esta ambigüedad en un autor que se pasaba una semana a la búsqueda de la mot juste, mas la duda se disuelve cuando se piensa que la indeterminación es una de las claves de la literatura. Monterroso también subraya los libros de Borges y de Cortázar y uno podría pensar que los subrayados, entonces, son signos de admiración, en el mejor sentido del término.

Leticia Sánchez Ruiz señala, como una curiosidad casi metaliteraria, que en la biblioteca de Tito se encuentran las obras de Arturo Monterroso y de Porfirio Barba Jacob. Declara, con un cierto asombro, que Arturo Monterroso existe realmente y que se trata de un escritor guatemalteco. Puedo confirmar esa intuición: Arturo no solo existe en la realidad, sino que es un excelente escritor, muy admirado por los innumerables alumnos de sus cautivadores talleres literarios. Sus obras no se parecen en nada a las de Tito, y eso está muy bien, porque aleja sospechas y aprovechamientos de literarias casualidades. De Barba Jacob indica la casi coincidencia con el nombre de Bárbara Jacobs, la esposa de Monterroso. Completa la información diciendo que Tito conoció a Barba Jacob, porque este frecuentaba la casa de sus padres, y que Tito lo admiraba mucho. Hay mucho más. Porfirio Barba Jacob fue un modernista colombiano que se estableció en Guatemala, hizo escuela allí, fue amigo y enemigo de Rafael Arévalo Martínez, y mereció una biografía escrita por Fernando Vallejo. Tenía razón Tito cuando guardaba sus libros. Fragmentos de un mapa del tesoro contiene mucha más información, y su lectura nos revela el mundo monterrosiano y nos incita a lo que sería la actividad principal: leer la obra de Tito, o, lo que es casi lo mismo, releerla, porque es prosa para degustar una y otra vez.

 

 

The Fiery Spirits: Popular Protest, Parliament and the English Revolution by John Rees, Hardcover – 22 April 2025, Verso publication

 “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Tom Paine

“The sensible way to proceed — I think this is how Marx and Engels proceeded — is to develop a methodological view: historical materialism or dialectical materialism, whatever you want to call it. Then, you approach any material with that framework in mind, but you have to be able to go where the material leads you. Engels warned that you cannot start forcing the historical material into a ready-made format. I took that approach with my book. Of course, I had read a great deal of secondary material, but I wanted to go where the historical archives and contemporary material would take me. I did not wish to influence my work, nor did I intend to engage in debates with other Marxists or currents, in order to determine where history would go. After you have done that, you can demarcate it and illuminate it by — in a relatively minor way — dealing with other currents and approaches. What makes something Marxist is that it is the application of that method. “

John Rees

John Rees’s Fiery Spirits offers a new perspective on the English Revolution.  Fiery Spirits establishes Rees as the leading contemporary continuator of the Marxist tradition, initiated by Christopher Hill and Brian Manning in writing the history of the 17th-century English revolution.

The latest book complements both Rees’s PhD thesis and his The Leveller Revolution, as well as his most recent publication, Marxism and the English Revolution. Rees is a gifted historian, and his latest book is well-written and thoroughly researched. It neither downplays nor overplays the Fiery Spirits, presenting a relatively objective assessment of their role in the English Revolution.[1]

Like the great historian Christopher Hill, Rees is sensitive enough to his historical sources to detect the social currents that brought people of diverse social backgrounds into struggle against the king, and well-grounded enough in history to identify new and revolutionary ideas in the curious and archaic guise in which they appeared. The Fiery Spirits, who were some of the revolution's ideologues, ransacked the Bible and half-understood historical precedent to justify some theory that explained their actions.

Rees’s new perspective centres on a small group of highly influential MPs. These “fiery spirits” played a significant role in shaping the course of the English bourgeois revolution, which ultimately led to the establishment of an English republic. Through their radical parliamentarianism, combined with mass protest, these revolutionaries pushed the revolution forward to its conclusion.

Rees is careful not to elevate these Fiery Spirits above the role played by Oliver Cromwell, who was, after all, the leader of the English revolution. As the Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky once wrote, “ Cromwell was a great revolutionary of his time, who knew how to uphold the interests of the new, bourgeois social system against the old aristocratic one without holding back at anything. This must be learnt from him, and the dead lion of the seventeenth century is, in this sense, immeasurably greater than many living dogs.”[2]

One of the main tasks Rees had was to rescue these “Fiery Spirits” from what E.P. Thompson once wrote was the “condensation of history”. They have been buried under a large number of dead dogs, and it is to Rees’s credit that he has rescued them. Henry Marten, Peter Wentworth, Alexander Rigby, and others deserve their place in history, and this work traces the radicalism of these Fiery Spirits in some cases back to the reign of Elizabeth I.

Dominic Alexander makes an interesting point in his review of Rees’s book: He writes, “In one sense, this partial continuity is evidence of how deeply the causative factors of the English Revolution were ingrained in the nation's history. The conflict was not, as many revisionist historians have tended to argue, a mere accidental product of contingent events and personalities. The Fiery Spirits is, however, not so much a riposte to that vein of argument as it is a response to a more interesting one about the autonomy of the political sphere in the unfolding of the Revolution. The long pre-history of the parliamentary opposition faction is one proof that even granting the relative independence of the political sphere, causation there also runs deep into the history of early modern England”.[3]

Rees’s book presents a relatively orthodox Marxist understanding of the English bourgeois revolution and its leading actors. It is therefore perhaps surprising how little Rees uses the work of Leon Trotsky; there is no direct quote of Trotsky in any of Rees’s latest books. For any Marxist, Trotsky should be the basic starting point for any analysis of revolutions and their actors.

Trotsky writes, “The English revolution of the seventeenth century, precisely because it was a great revolution shattering the nation to the bottom, affords a clear example of this alternating dual power, with sharp transitions in the form of civil war. The English Revolution of the seventeenth century, precisely because it was a profound revolution that shook the nation to its core, affords a clear example of this alternating dual power, with sharp transitions in the form of civil war. Initially, the royal power, resting on the privileged classes or the upper echelons of these classes – the aristocrats and bishops – is opposed by the bourgeoisie and the circles of the squirearchy that are closely associated with it. The government of the bourgeoisie is the Presbyterian Parliament supported by the City of London.” [4]For Rees, this “dual Power began in the very early part of the 17^th century.

The hallmark of a good book is that even seasoned readers who have studied this period for ages can learn something new. Rees presents new material that highlights the extraordinary level of factionalism and revolt that preceded the outbreak of revolution. From an early period, the Fiery Spirits led this rebellion. As Alexander writes, “The connections between the activities of the radicals in the Commons and the popular movement became, as Rees shows, the key dynamic driving events in the years 1640-1. The fiery spirits were indeed a minority in the Commons. Still, the weight of popular support behind their moves, such as Henry Marten’s during the struggle over the attainder of the King’s chief advisor Earl Strafford, meant that, as in this instance, ‘the course of events proceeded on the path that Marten advocated, not that which Pym still trod’ (pp.163-4). Indeed, during this confrontation, which led to Strafford’s execution, Pym lost control of parliament. Popular mobilisations against Strafford made the difference; one MP wrote, ‘unless this Earl be sacrificed to public discontentment I see not what hopes we have of peace’ (p.165).[5]

The Great historian E. H Carr was fond of saying, "Study the historian before you begin to study the facts." This maxim should be applied to Rees. The Fiery Spirits is, without doubt, a significant addition to our understanding of the English bourgeois revolution. It contains new detailed research and reinterprets significant episodes and stages of events. Rees recalibrates our understanding of the revolution from a historical materialist standpoint. However, to what extent you could describe Rees as a revisionist is open to conjecture.

When I asked AI this question, its reply was “while John Rees engages with historical revisionism to some extent, his primary framework is that of Marxist historiography, which is distinct from the broader category of revisionist historians who challenge traditional interpretations.”  Not much help.

There is something Jesuitical about Rees’s ability to write history from a relatively orthodox Marxist perspective while retaining the political outlook of a pseudo-left. He appears to retain the ability to compartmentalise his mind and pursue a scientific Marxist approach to history, up to the point where his radical politics, to some extent, draw the line. He is perhaps aided by an approach that was further encouraged by the extreme specialisation of academic life, which enables him to concentrate on very narrow areas of history that never bring him into direct conflict with his political organisation, Counterfire, on political questions.

Speaking of which, in a previous article, I wrote this: “Rees was a member of the SWP before leaving to found the Counterfire group in 2010, as a significant split from the SWP. Counterfire specialises in providing a platform for the remnants and detritus of pseudo-left politics. The group is thoroughly convinced of the power and longevity of capitalism and is hostile to the working class and genuine socialism. Counterfire and Rees’s occasional use of Marxist phrases, and even rarer references to the Russian revolutionaries Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, are for the sole purpose of opposing the independent political mobilisation of the working class on a revolutionary and internationalist programme. Counterfire's self-proclaimed “revolutionaries” are bitterly opposed to the orthodox Marxism represented by the World Socialist Web Site, the Socialist Equality Parties, and the International Committee of the Fourth International. “[6]

While I do not personally subscribe to Rees’s political outlook, I can nonetheless recommend this book as highly as his previous work. Rees is a historian well worth reading, and it should be interesting to see what he is working on next. As Ann Talbot wrote about Hill which equally applies to Rees “A historian that stands head and shoulders above his detractors and his books deserve to be read and reread, and if with a critical eye, it should always be with the knowledge that his limitations and faults as much as his great historical insights and innovations are the product of his time. He may be bettered, but never dismissed, and only bettered by those who have studied him closely.[7]

---

[1] https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/10465/1/HIS_thesis_Rees_Thesis_2014.pdf

[2] Two traditions: the seventeenth-century revolution and Chartism-https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/britain/ch06.htm

[3] https://www.counterfire.org/article/the-fiery-spirits-popular-protest-parliament-and-the-english-revolution-book-review/

[4] Chapter 11 of The History of the Russian Revolution (1931)

[5] https://www.counterfire.org/article/the-fiery-spirits-popular-protest-parliament-and-the-english-revolution-book-review/

[6] https://atrumpetofsedition.org/2024/09/18/marxism-and-the-english-revolution-john-rees-whalebone-press-2024-15-00/

[7] "These the times ... this the man": an appraisal of historian Christopher Hill-https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/03/hill-m25.html

The Holocaust: A New History Paperback – 1 Jun. 2009 by Doris Bergen - The History Press

In the opinion, not of evil men, but of the best men, no belief which is contrary to truth can be helpful to. . .

John Stuart Mill

“Palestine appears a tragic mirage, Biro-bidjan a bureaucratic farce. The Kremlin refuses to accept refugees. The “anti-fascist” congresses of old ladies and young careerists do not have the slightest importance. Now more than ever, the fate of the Jewish people—not only their political but also their physical fate—is indissolubly linked with the emancipating struggle of the international proletariat. Only audacious mobilization of the workers against reaction, creation of workers’ militia, direct physical resistance to the fascist gangs, increasing self-confidence, activity and audacity on the part of all the oppressed can provoke a change in the relation of forces, stop the world wave of fascism, and open a new chapter in the history of humanity.”

Leon Trotsky

“Every emancipation is a restoration of the human world and of human relationships to a man himself.”

― Karl Marx, On the Jewish Question

This book is not without merit. Her study is well-researched using new sources which draw on the testimonies of both survivors and eyewitnesses, as well as rare photographs, to reveal the global nature of the genocide perpetrated by the Nazis.

Bergen’s book adds to an already very crowded market. In his excellent review of Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners, the Marxist writer David North made the following perceptive point: “For all that has been said and written about the Holocaust, it remains a strangely obscure event. It is true that a vast amount of empirical data about the Holocaust has been collected. We possess detailed information about how the Nazis organised and executed their “Final Solution,” the murder of six million European Jews. And yet the issues that are central to an understanding of the Holocaust—its historical origins, political causes and, finally, its place in the history of the twentieth century—have, with very few exceptions, been dealt with poorly. This is, really, an intolerable state of affairs. The one basic question raised by the Holocaust, “Why did it happen?” is precisely that to which it is most difficult to obtain an answer.”[1]

I want to say that Bergen attempts to answer the question “Why did it happen posed by North, but she does not even come close. Bergen’s work is strong on empirical data and incorporates the ‘voices’ of the Holocaust, but light on analysis. She says next to nothing about the betrayals of the leadership of both the Stalinist German Communist Party and the German Social Democratic Party, which allowed not only Hitler to come to power without a shot being fired and led to the crushing of the workers' movement, which was a prerequisite for the Nazis to murder 6 million jews.

Given the extent of her research and the fact that she makes little attempt to examine the betrayals of Stalinism and Social Democracy, it is not surprising that Bergen claims that there was little resistance to the rise of the Nazis to power. Daniel Goldhagen, who praises the book on its back cover, makes a similar point in his book.

Goldhagen writes: The Nazi German revolution … was an unusual revolution in that, domestically, it was being realised—the repression of the political left in the first few years notwithstanding—without massive coercion and violence. … By and large, it was a peaceful revolution willingly acquiesced to by the German people. Domestically, the Nazi German revolution was, on the whole, consensual.

David North replies, “Until I read those words, I had been inclined to look upon Goldhagen as a rather sad and somewhat pathetic figure, a young man whose study of the fate of European Jewry had left him intellectually, if not emotionally, traumatised. However, in this paragraph, something alarming emerges. Except for its treatment of the Jews, the Nazi “revolution”—Goldhagen does not use the word “counterrevolution”—was a rather benign affair. His reference to the “repression of the political left” is inserted between hyphens, suggesting that it was not all too big a deal. The claim that the Nazi conquest of power was “a peaceful revolution willingly acquiesced to by the German people” is a despicable falsification. What Goldhagen refers to as the “repression of the political left” consisted, in fact, of the physical destruction of mass socialist parties that represented the hopes and aspirations of millions of workers and the best elements of the German intelligentsia for a just and decent world. German socialism was not only a political movement: it was, for all its internal contradictions, both the inspirer and expression of a flowering of human intellect and culture. Its destruction required the barbaric methods in which the Nazis excelled.”[2]

Given the right-wing nature of Goldhagen’s work, if this were my book, I would not have him anywhere near it. There is no need for me to examine Goldhagen’s previous historiography on the matter of Genocide, as this has been more than ably covered by others, such as David North and Daniel Finkelstein.[3] It would, however, be remiss of me not to discuss recent pronouncements by several historians, including Goldhagen, on the ongoing Genocide carried out by the fascist Israeli government in Gaza.

In a recent well-written and thoughtful article, the historian Shira Klein wrote, “A chasm has formed between Holocaust scholars concerning Israel/Palestine, deepening immeasurably since 7 October 2023. Unlike previous controversies in the field, the divide is not just historical or methodological; it revolves around academics’ role in the world today, particularly the public stand they choose to take on Palestine/Israel and Zionism. Two main camps have formed. Put reductively, one camp defends Israel, while the other defends Palestinians, although differences between individual scholars within each camp make for more of a spectrum than a clear-cut divide. How, despite a diversity of ideas and foci within each camp, did two academic-political antipodes solidify over several decades, and how has 7 October and the ensuing war widened the rift between them?[4]

Klein makes the point that scholars supporting Israeli war aggression is nothing new and dates back to the illegal formation of the Israeli state.  What is a relatively new phenomenon is the equating of criticism of Israel's genocide in Gaza with anti-Semitism.  One of the leaders of this new movement is Daniel Goldhagen. Goldhagen, following the 11 September 2001 attack, wrote that “the internet and television’s biased stories and inflammatory images of Palestinian suffering” were nothing but “globalised antisemitism.” According to Goldhagen. Europe had exported its classical racist and Nazi anti-semitism.to Arab countries, which they applied to Israel and Jews in general.” Then the Arab countries re-exported the new hybrid demonology back to Europe and, using the United Nations and other international institutions, to different countries around the world.”15 In 2006, while Israel was curtailing Palestinians’ movement with a massive separation barrier, Goldhagen contended that “hostility to Israel is not, and never was, based on Israel’s policies.”[5]

In his book The Logic of Zionism: From Nationalist Myth to the Gaza Genocide, David North opposes vehemently the slander that opposition to Israel's genocide is antisemitic, saying this claim is absurd, given the significant participation of so many Jewish people in the anti-genocide protests—including, one could add, a developing movement within Israel itself.

He also points out the brazen hypocrisy of the howls of “antisemitism” given the “open alliance of the imperialist powers with the regime in Ukraine, whose principal national hero, Stepan Bandera, was a vicious fascist and antisemite, the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), which collaborated with the Nazis in the extermination of the Jews of Ukraine. The establishment of the Zionist state was not only a tragedy for the Palestinians; it was, and is, a tragedy for the Jewish people as well. Zionism never was, and is not today, a solution to the historic oppression and persecution of the Jewish people.”

He quotes the assessment of Leon Trotsky, who warned in 1938 that the Jews faced the threat of “physical extermination” in the coming war, and declared in July 1940, one year after World War II had begun: “ The attempt to solve the Jewish question through the migration of Jews to Palestine can now be seen for what it was: a tragic mockery of the Jewish people. … Never was it so clear as it is today that the salvation of the Jewish people is bound up inseparably with the overthrow of the capitalist system”.[6]

Given that Bergen has not elaborated her position openly in the press as regards the Israeli genocide, it is perhaps not surprising that she has not distanced herself from Goldhagen's blatant right-wing stance.

She did, however, sign The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which, according to its website, “ Is a tool to identify, confront and raise awareness about antisemitism as it manifests in countries around the world today. It includes a preamble, definition, and a set of 15 guidelines that provide detailed guidance for those seeking to recognise antisemitism to craft responses. It was developed by a group of scholars in the fields of Holocaust history, Jewish studies, and Middle East studies to address a growing challenge: providing clear guidance on how to identify and combat antisemitism while protecting free expression. Initially signed by 210 scholars, it now has around 370 signatories.[7]

 

 

 

 

 

---

[1] The Myth of “Ordinary Germans”: A Review of Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners-www.wsws.org/en/special/library/russian-revolution-unfinished-twentieth-century/15.html

[2] The Myth of “Ordinary Germans”: A Review of Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners-www.wsws.org/en/special/library/russian-revolution-unfinished-twentieth-century/15.html

[3] https://newleftreview.org/issues/i224/articles/norman-finkelstein-daniel-jonah-goldhagen-s-crazy-thesis-a-critique-of-hitler-s-willing-executioners.pdf

[4]  The Growing Rift between Holocaust Scholars over Israel/

Palestine www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14623528.2024.2448061

[5] Daniel Goldhagen, “The Radical Politics of Islamic Fundamentalism,” SPME, 13 March 2006, https://spme.org/

[6] The Only Salvation for the Jews (July 1940) The Militant, Vol. X No. 35, 31 August 1946, p.www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/1946/v10n35/trotsky.htm

[7] https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/

Diary Of A Nobody

The last three months have been significant in the life of the Blog, particularly in terms of the massive increase in hits the blog has received. For the first time in its history, it has had over 20,000 hits per month for the last three months, with one day last week reaching 2,500 hits.

Given the overtly political nature of the blog, the significance of this development is not just due to the Marxist nature of the articles or the increase in the number of articles posted; it reflects a massive radicalisation that is taking place in the working class and sections of the middle class.

Currently, aside from writing about contemporary developments, I am working on two projects. Firstly, it involves rewriting previously posted articles. Given that there are over 500 articles on the blog, spanning approximately 15 years, this will take some time. The second project is to undertake substantial work on the Raphael Samuel book.  The book project was a byproduct of my decision to abandon a proposed Master's in History at Birkbeck University. Aside from the prohibited cost, spending a year on a so-called expensive foundation course would not have significantly raised the level I had already achieved by writing the blog.

Books Purchased

1.   Enemy Feminism- Sophie Lewis

2.   Scam- Mark Bo

3.   The Class Struggle in Greece – G E M de Ste Croix

4.   The British Marxist Historians-Harvey Kaye

5.   A People's History of the Anti-Nazi League-Geoff Brown

6.   Strangers and Intimates-Tiffany Jenkins

7.   A Bright Cold Day-Nathan Waddell

 

 

Articles

1.   Vote No to CWU leaders’ pact with Kretinsky: a blueprint for brutal restructuring-https:www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/07/25/jxvd-j25.html

Canceled Lives: My Father, My Scandal, and Me by Blake Bailey-Skyhorse- April 2025-192 Pages

 

“Canceled Lives tells the whole sad story and the personal pain Bailey suffered. His publisher had no right to do what they did to him. This book, about accusations of terrible behaviour and their effect on a book and its author, goes beyond memoir and reveals the profound harm such assertions can cause. It deserves a wide and discerning audience."

Martin Garbus, Prominent First Amendment Lawyer

“I heed the cry of the women insulted and injured. However, I am also anxious about the nature of the tribunal that is adjudicating these charges. As a civil libertarian, I am anxious because there doesn’t seem to be a tribunal. What I see instead is a publicised accusation instantly followed by peremptory punishment.

Philip Roth

“The history of my discontent, as I remember it”

Philip Roth

“The purging of Bailey’s book sets a sinister example, intended to intimidate artists, biographers and scholars alike. The message being sent is clear: any influential figure who rubs up against establishment public opinion can be denounced and dismissed in like manner.”

David Walsh

When Blake Bailey’s excellent 900-page biography of the writer Philip Roth was published in 2021, it should have been the standard work on Roth’s life for some time to come. Unfortunately for Bailey, we were already amidst the #MeToo movement's vilification of Roth, his work and worldview. Roth was cognisant of the fact that some women had been abused, saying, “I heed the cry of the women insulted and injured. But I am also made anxious by the nature of the tribunal that is adjudicating these charges. I am made anxious, as a civil libertarian, because there doesn’t seem to be a tribunal. What I see instead is a publicised accusation instantly followed by peremptory punishment.”[1]

Bailey became a casualty in this war against Roth for essentially defending Roth’s right to his worldview. Bailey fell afoul of his publishers' “morals charge” after accusations of sexual abuse were levelled at him via social media. Some of Bailey’s former eighth-grade students at Lusher High School in New Orleans came forward with allegations that he had groomed them for sex. Two women, including one of his former students at Lusher, subsequently accused him of rape.

Although no formal charges were made against Bailey, it did not stop his so-called friends in the literary scene, who “fell over one another”, disassociating themselves from Bailey. His biography was then pulped by his publisher, W.W.Norton, an act that is akin to book burning carried out by the Nazis in the 1930s.

As David Walsh wrote, “ In a significant act of censorship, with chilling implications for democratic rights, publisher W.W. Norton has announced its decision to “permanently” remove Blake Bailey’s biography of American novelist Philip Roth (1933–2018) from print. Several individuals have accused Bailey of sexual wrongdoing, including rape, dating back to 2003. None of them has come forward with any evidence to back up the claims. Bailey’s 880-page book, well-received critically and considered one of the essential works of the year in its field, will be pulped. Norton also reported its dropping of Bailey’s 2014 memoir. In a statement dripping with hypocrisy, Norton’s president, Julia A. Reidhead, asserted that “Mr Bailey will be free to seek publication elsewhere if he chooses.” Overnight, Bailey has become a “non-person.” he has ceased to exist.[2]

Most of Bailey’s friends and fellow writers stayed silent when he was made a “non-person. It was not until the World Socialist Website marshalled some resistance that people started to speak out. Several prominent writers, historians, and film people contacted by the WSWS condemned W. W. Norton’s treatment of Bailey. Novelist, memoirist and short-story writer James Morrison wrote, “Even if Blake Bailey were charged, tried, and convicted of a crime, it would still be indefensible for W. W. Norton to pulp his book. Can American readers not have the option to think for themselves? The “#MeToo movement” might have accomplished something if it had facilitated the prosecution of cases involving harassment or assault. Still, it has resulted in something like its opposite: a bizarre spectacle of social panic, moral shaming, and public burning, based on unfounded accusations in the media. Norton’s cancellation of Bailey’s book is not the action of a free institution in a democratic society. It is the procedure of craven functionaries deep in a politburo.[3]

Author, editor and blogger Kathleen Spaltro said, “Thomas Aquinas clarified that the aesthetic value of art has nothing whatever to do with whether the artist is a good person. The artist may be a good person, or not, but that is the moral question faced by the artist as a person, not as an artist.

Film critic, film historian and author Jonathan Rosenbaum: Cancel culture, perhaps the most poisonous and befuddled offshoot of “political correctness,” is a totalitarian expression of impotence, not any real exercise of political power. It’s a way of saying that because one can’t defeat racism or misogyny or abuse in the real world, at its sources, one can pretend to defeat it symbolically, by canceling words, sounds, images and other forms of communication, thus pretending that the people and communicators one disapproves of can be “canceled” (i.e., ignored and suppressed). It’s an insult to the principles of free expression that can only be practised by defeated bigots who’ve given up on free expression and democratic processes, and by gamblers who prefer to cheat.”

It took a while for Bailey to understand what had happened to him. Canceled Lives is his attempt to process and collect his thoughts and to answer his detractors. Patrick Mullins describes the new book's journey: “Originally titled Repellent, it was scheduled to be published in April 2023. Speaking circumspectly, Bailey has explained that the executors of Roth’s estate, Andrew Wylie and Julia Golier, objected to the inclusion of Bailey’s conversations with Roth in the manuscript, arguing that the publication of these exchanges, which supposedly made up the bulk of the book, would violate the agreement Bailey signed as Roth’s authorised biographer. And so Repellent was reworked, becoming Cancelled Lives, and Bailey’s dealings with Roth were transformed into an account of his father’s death braided with chapters narrating Bailey’s disgrace.”[4]

There are many themes running through Canceled Lives. One being Bailey’s sexual activity. Bailey was no angel, and some of his relationships were questionable at best. There seems to be a period in his life where his penis did most of the thinking, but this does not mean he deserved what happened to him.

He writes, “The worst of what I was accused of wasn’t true. I did nothing illegal and nothing vicious. I’m not a rapist, I did not deliberately groom anybody; these were long-time friends. You have enterprising reporters calling hundreds of your former students, hundreds of the people you’ve mentioned in your acknowledgements. People, for various reasons, are eager to get their shots”.

A strong theme of the book is death. Bailey discusses the life and early death of his older brother, Scott, who committed suicide in his early thirties after a life of drug addiction and crime. Bailey harshly describes Scott’s suicide as doing “himself and his loved ones a favour ”. Bailey spent a significant amount of time researching his book on Roth, so much so that he must have ended up with deep feelings for Roth.

He tells how he witnessed Roth’s final moments alongside Roth’s former lovers and closest friends surrounding his hospital deathbed. It is not surprising that the book provides little information about his relationship with Roth. Given how much he had to process in his own life and to come to terms with so many devastating attacks on him. Perhaps it is just as well, as he was while Roth was still alive, unable due to disclosure limitations imposed by the Roth estate on Bailey.

As Walsh intimates in his work on Bailey, most of the attacks on Bailey are less about his sexual proclivities and more to do with the fact that he wrote a perceptively objective biography of Roth and, in the end, defended both Roth and his political worldview against his detractors in the #MeToo movement.

In a recent video call, David Walsh spoke with Bailey about his new book, "The Sexual Witch Hunt," and democratic rights, as well as briefly discussing the subject matter of his various biographies. Bailey thanked the World Socialist Website for its support, saying, “You could be speaking for me, and you did, after everything blew up. I was enormously grateful for the courage of it. Very few people spoke up. People wrote me private notes expressing their outrage, or at least chagrin, about how viciously and relentlessly I was attacked. But I can’t think of anyone offhand who was as outspoken publicly as you were. And if I didn’t say it emphatically enough before, let me say now that I was very grateful for that.[5]

It is striking that the Trotskyist movement has been left to lead the defence of Bailey and his democratic rights in the pages of the World Socialist Website. The campaign to defend Bailey has cut across the right-wing attack on him led by the #MeToo movement. It is worth noting that the movement has been ably assisted by numerous pseudo-left media organisations that have joined the attacks on both Roth and Bailey. These so-called leftists have shown their support for banning books and removing them from bookshelves. The next logical step for these organisations will be to join the book burning.

Bailey’s new book, Cancelled Lives—My Father, My Scandal, and Me, is a stunning response to his detractors and slanderers, and it deserves a broad audience. Unlike too many of the #MeToo victims, Bailey has decided to fight and set the record straight. This is an entirely welcome and healthy development, a contribution to the cleansing of the cultural atmosphere. Bailey has the right to see the world as he sees fit.

 

 

---

[1] www.the-tls.com/lives/autobiography/canceled-lives-blake-bailey-book-review-nat-segnit

[2] Book-burning comes to America-https:ww.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/04/29/bail-a29.html

[3] Writers, biographers protest W.W. Norton’s decision to “permanently” remove Blake Bailey’s biography of Philip Roth from print-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/05/04/bail-m04.html

[4] Okay, you’re hired-insidestory.org.au/okay-youre-hired/

[5] A conversation with Blake Bailey, Philip Roth biographer and author of Cancelled Lives: My Father, My Scandal, and Me: “I said ... I’m not going to take this lying down”