A Personal Remembrance of Comrade Herma Huber(1949–2026)

When I think of Herma, I do not first think of the long arc of her political biography—though it is immense, and though she devoted her entire adult life to the struggle for Trotskyism. I think instead of the quiet moments in which her character revealed itself: the way she listened, the way she explained, the way she made younger comrades feel that they were part of something serious, principled, and profoundly human.

I met Herma on numerous occasions during my early life in the party. Those encounters were not dramatic; they were not marked by grand speeches or sweeping gestures. They were marked by her presence—calm, steady, patient, and deeply committed. She had a way of making you feel that the work you were doing mattered, that your questions were worth answering, that your uncertainties were part of a process she herself had lived through decades earlier.

The Educational Camps

My fondest memories of Herma come from the educational camps organised by the BSA and later the SEP. These camps were formative experiences for many of us: intense days of lectures, discussions, reading groups, and political debates, punctuated by shared meals, late-night conversations, and the sense of being part of a living international movement.

Herma was always there—never at the centre, never demanding attention, but always present. She had a gift for creating an atmosphere of seriousness without heaviness, of discipline without rigidity. You could sit with her after a lecture, perhaps over a cup of coffee or during a break in the afternoon, and she would speak with a clarity that made complex historical questions feel accessible.

She never rushed. She never dismissed a question as naïve. She understood that young comrades were not simply learning facts; they were learning how to think politically, how to orient themselves in history, how to understand the world in order to change it. And she took that responsibility seriously.

Herma’s Warmth

There was a warmth to Herma that is difficult to describe without risking sentimentality. It was not the warmth of someone who tries to be liked or who seeks emotional closeness for its own sake. It was the warmth of someone who genuinely cared about the development of younger comrades, who wanted them to succeed, who wanted them to understand the political tasks before them.

She had a gentle humour—quiet, understated, but always present. She could laugh at the absurdities of daily life, at the bureaucratic madness of the post office, at the petty hypocrisies of official politics. But she never laughed at people. Her humour was never cruel. It was part of her humanity.

Herma’s Political Depth

What struck me most, even as a young comrade, was the depth of her political understanding. She did not speak in slogans. She did not repeat formulas. Her grasp of Trotskyism was lived, experiential, rooted in decades of struggle, study, and reflection.

When she spoke about the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, she spoke not as someone recounting historical facts, but as someone who had lived through the moral shock of discovering the truth about fascism in a society that wanted to forget. When she spoke about the split with the WRP, she spoke with the seriousness of someone who had endured the crisis and participated in the re‑armament of the movement. When she spoke about internationalism, she spoke with the conviction of someone who had travelled, studied, and fought alongside comrades from around the world.

Herma’s Quiet Strength

Herma’s strength was quiet, but it was unmistakable. She was not easily discouraged. She did not waver. She did not retreat into private life when confronted with illness or hardship. Even in her final years, when cancer made every day a struggle, she continued to attend meetings, participate in educational work, and discuss political developments with comrades. She believed deeply that the principles she had adopted in her youth were becoming more relevant than ever. And she was right.

What She Leaves Behind

Herma leaves behind more than a political legacy. She leaves behind a memory of what it means to be a revolutionary in the fullest sense: principled, disciplined, generous, and humane. She leaves behind the example of someone who devoted her life to the working class without ever seeking recognition or reward. She leaves behind the imprint she made on younger comrades—comrades like me—who learned from her not only the history of the Fourth International, but the meaning of commitment.

Herma was a comrade in the truest sense of the word. Her presence enriched the movement. Her example will continue to guide those who follow.

I will always remember her with affection, respect, and gratitude.

 

Freerein61’s Response to Steven Bamlett’s Reflections on Geoff Andrews’ Radicals

Steven Bamlett’s blog post on Geoff Andrews’ Radicals initially appears to be notably honest. It's uncommon for a reviewer to openly admit the tension between enjoying a book—based on shared background, memories, and politics—and recognising its shortcomings on its own terms. His statement that Andrews’ work is “as deeply flawed a book as my enjoyment of it” reflects sincere self-awareness and merits acknowledgement. However, the post also serves as a record of a political deadlock, prompting us to explore why this deadlock exists, how it developed, and what it reveals about the broader historical path of the British left. 

The Eurocommunist Formation: A Political and Historical Context 

Bamlett mentions attending CPGB summer schools led by Martin Jacques, reading miners’ notebooks in Swansea under Raphael Samuel’s supervision, and maintaining an ‘inclination to [Eurocommunism’s] openness.” These facts are crucial for understanding why he appreciates Andrews’ book but also why he cannot completely abandon its framework. 

Eurocommunism was not simply a benign shift towards new cultural or political ideas within Marxism. Instead, it embodied the final phase of the Stalinist Communist Parties’ integration into their capitalist states. Trotsky had noted as early as 1938 that these parties depended dualistically: on Kremlin funding and on the super-profits of their own imperialist societies, which they channelled through trade-union and social-democratic bureaucracies. By the 1970s, with the Soviet connection becoming more problematic, Eurocommunist factions—such as Berlinguer’s PCI, Carrillo’s PCE, and the Marxism Today branch of the CPGB— abandoned even the rhetoric of revolution, openly endorsing a “parliamentary road to socialism.” 

The historical record clearly shows that the PCI’s Historic Compromise disarmed a working class moving left, setting the stage for austerity and the party’s eventual fall. During the 1980s, the CPGB’s Euros, such as Jacques and Hobsbawm, offered ideological support for Neil Kinnock’s efforts to dismantle Labour’s reformist agenda. As the WSWS has noted, Marxism Today served as the ideological precursor to New Labour. 

This tradition, which Andrews has dedicated his career to rehabilitating, is characterised by a focus on Eurocommunism. His earlier work on the CPGB and PCI, as freerein61 notes, is mainly about restoring their reputation: rescuing Eurocommunism from historical disgrace. Bamlett still describes this tradition as emphasising “openness.” But openness to what? In reality, Eurocommunism’s version of openness included support for various forms of class collaboration: forming alliances with Christian Democrats, partnering with Labour modernisers, exploring cultural avenues away from class struggle, and abandoning the revolutionary principles of Marxism. 

The Vagueness of “Radicalism” 

Bamlett agrees with freerein61 that Andrews’ use of “radical” is vague and lacks a clear definition. However, he challenges the main point: that this ambiguity is deliberate rather than the result of scholarly error, and that it carries important political implications. Andrews groups Chartists, Fabians, trade unionists, suffragettes, Eurocommunists, and identity-politics activists under the label "radical," intentionally merging the concepts of reform and revolution. He effectively blurs the clear divide between the two, equating the 1839 Chartists' armed march on Newport with the Fabians' advocacy of municipal gasworks. The revolutionary potential of the working class—their ability to challenge not just specific injustices but the entire system of wage labour—is reduced to a general “ethos” of progressive reform. 

This is not objective history; it acts as a political tactic to erase the revolutionary legacy. Portraying all “radicals” as fundamentally the same suggests that the working class doesn't need its own independent party, a revolutionary platform, or a break from bourgeois politics. As a result, groups such as the Labour Party, the trade-union bureaucracy, and NGOs are viewed as legitimate outlets for “radicalism.” Andrews strictly aligns with this Eurocommunist viewpoint. 

Strategic Omissions: The Politics of Erasure 

Phillip Green’s Morning Star review points out Andrews’ oversights: omissions. Mary MacArthur and the 1910 women chain-makers’ strike, omitting Arnold Wesker, misidentifying Jayaben Desai, and overlooking Hall and Stead’s A People’s History of Classics. Bamlett questions whether these are small errors or part of a larger intentional plan. 

They are strategic. Consider Mary MacArthur: the 1910 Cradley Heath strike was more than a typical labour conflict—it was a militant, well-organised, class-conscious movement of women workers that demonstrated the capacity of the most exploited to unite and fight collectively. This example challenges Andrews’ idea that “ethos" is more important than class struggle or the belief that individual autodidactic ambitions outweigh collective action. As a result, it is often overlooked or dismissed. The same reasoning underpins Andrews’ dismissive attitude towards The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Bamlett cites freerein61’s excellent defence of Tressell’s novel: “Socialist consciousness is not an abstraction imported from outside the working class… but something that emerges from the working class’s own experience.” 

Andrews cannot accept this because his framework insists that working-class consciousness originates outside of class struggle—stemming from liberal education, Arnold’s idea of “sweetness and light,” Methodism, and an “ethos” that is beyond class. Consequently, Tressell is diminished: his “proletarian authenticity" is questioned, his vision labelled “mystical," and his book portrayed as a “minority vision." This is not genuine literary criticism but an effort to disconnect working-class experience from socialist consciousness—the very link that has kept Tressell’s work alive within the working class for over a century. 

Stuart Hall and Raphael Samuel: Heroes of What?  

Bamlett cites Raphael Samuel and Stuart Hall as “heroes” of Andrews’ book, which is insightful. Both figures emerged from the turmoil of British Stalinism’s decline in 1956. After Khrushchev’s revelations and the suppression of the Hungarian uprising dismantled the CPGB, most who departed either disengaged from politics altogether or integrated into the Labour Party and trade-union structures. 

The emerging “New Left”—including groups like New Reasoner, Universities and Left Review, and the early New Left Review—did not renew Marxism but instead challenged it. Stuart Hall’s Cultural Studies shifted social critique from class to identity. At the same time, Raphael Samuel’s History Workshop movement, despite its valuable recovery of “history from below,” replaced Marxist class analysis with a romanticised “people’s history.” Bamlett’s political journey—from CPGB summer schools to Open University blogging—reflects this environment: a genuine commitment to working-class culture and history, paired with a reluctance to accept the revolutionary changes that history calls for. 

The Political Impasse: Knowing the Truth but Not Acting on It 

Bamlett concludes his post with a sense of urgency: “There is. Too much – and it will, it must start soon before it is too late, for the planet itself could yet give up on what capital continues to subject it to.” This reflects a genuine awareness that capitalism is an existential threat and urgent action is needed. However, Andrews’ book fails to provide any solutions. Bamlett himself admits, “There is no sense of what the role of the working class might be, or if indeed it exists in any pertinent way in politics, in the future of Modern Britain.” The book dismisses working-class radicalism as a relic of the past—more of a nostalgic object for retired academics than a dynamic force capable of societal change. 

What Is To Be Done?  

Bamlett cannot bring himself to give the answer that aligns with the Eurocommunist, New Left, and History Workshop traditions that shaped him. This answer, as highlighted by freerein61’s blog, is that the working class remains the revolutionary subject. It has not been “integrated into capitalism." Its defeats are due to betrayals by its leadership—whether Stalinist, social democratic, or trade-union—not because of any flaw within the class itself. What is required is not vague "radicalism” or an expanded “ethos,” but the development of a revolutionary party equipped with the programme of the Fourth International. 

 

 

Jonathan Healey and the Liberal Falsification of the English Revolution

Jonathan Healey’s The Blazing World is more than just a flawed book; it functions as an ideological effort to undermine historical understanding, oversimplify class conflict into basic stories, and portray revolution solely as chaos. It reflects a declining liberal order that fears revolution because of its fear of the working class.

Healey has become one of Britain’s most admired popular historians, recognised for his “fresh” and “vivid” portrayal of the seventeenth century. However, the positive reception of his work is deliberate. His narrative serves an important ideological purpose for today's ruling elite: it dismisses the English Revolution's revolutionary essence. It presents it as a period marked by chaos, chance, and constitutional happenstance. This isn’t just poor history; it constitutes political falsehood.

Healey’s main argument that the English Revolution wasn't truly a revolution but a “crisis of governance" caused by miscommunication, local grievances, and the emotional atmosphere of the time — represents the latest effort in a long-standing attempt to minimise the global significance of the English Revolution. This approach continues the revisionist trend begun in the late twentieth century, which aims to dismiss the Marxist view of the Revolution as the first major bourgeois revolution. Healey’s perspective reflects a society that has lost faith in its future and, as a result, struggles to recognise the revolutionary events that shaped its history.

Healey’s opposition to revolution is based on structural reasons rather than personal bias. He functions within an academic and political sphere that views revolution as dangerous, irrational, and destabilising. Consequently, the English Revolution is seen not as a crucial turning point in capitalism’s development but as a tragic mistake. This ideological fear is rooted in forty years of political backlash—such as the decline of the post-war welfare state, the rise of neoliberalism, the discrediting of social democracy, and the deepening crisis of global capitalism.

In this context, the concept of revolution—even one that's been around for three and a half centuries—becomes unacceptable. Healey’s book isn’t just a historical account; it's a political statement aimed at reassuring modern readers that neither logical nor structural factors drive revolutions. Instead, they occur when people are confused, scared, or overwhelmed.

Another weakness—rooted in the ongoing focus on national history in British historiography—is Healey's neglect to place the English Revolution within the wider international crisis of the seventeenth century. This revolution was not an isolated event but part of what Marxist scholars refer to as the "general crisis of the seventeenth century," a series of revolutionary upheavals spanning from the Dutch revolt and the Fronde in France to the Thirty Years' War in Germany.

Although these conflicts appeared in different national contexts, they all revealed the same fundamental contradiction: the progress of capitalist productive forces versus the persistence of feudal-absolutist political systems. The English Revolution was the most successful, largely because England's capitalist class was more developed than in continental countries and because it successfully dismantled the absolutist state. The central message of The Blazing World is that history lacks a clear direction, class struggle is meaningless, and revolution is a mistake.

The Historiographical Context

To properly evaluate Healey's book, it is essential to understand the intellectual context it engages with. A significant contribution by the Marxist historian Christopher Hill, discussed in Ann Talbot's detailed 2003 obituary on the WSWS, was to identify the upheavals of the 1640s as a bourgeois revolution: the overthrow of feudal-absolutist rule by a burgeoning capitalist class, paving the way for England's later capitalist growth. Despite his political limitations as a former Stalinist who never fully embraced Trotskyism, Hill showed that the execution of Charles I, the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords, and the creation of the Commonwealth were not mere mistakes or temporary anomalies, but a big social change where one class replaced another in state power.

Starting in the 1970s, a revisionist school led by figures like Conrad Russell and John Morrill systematically challenged this framework. They argued that since there was no rising bourgeoisie, a bourgeois revolution did not occur. According to them, the Civil War was a temporary collapse of the Tudor-Stuart state, driven by war financing, religious rigidity, and Charles I's personal failings — a "war of religion," not a class struggle, nor a revolution. This revisionism was politically motivated. It coincided with a rightward shift among British intellectuals after setbacks in the 1970s-80s and the fall of the USSR. It aimed to erase the revolutionary aspects of English history, paralleling the ruling class's efforts to forget the revolutionary elements of the twentieth century.

Healey is part of a "post-revisionist" generation that aims to go beyond sterile denial while avoiding the Marxist categories discredited by revisionists. His book offers a popular synthesis, attempting to strike a balance: he describes the period as revolutionary, emphasises the role of ordinary people and radical movements, and captures the drama and scale of the events — all without presenting a clear class analysis.

Having said that, Healey's book has notable strengths. It vividly narrates the era's social history for general readers. The Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, and Quakers—the remarkable surge of radical ideas and working-class activism that Hill helped restore—are thoroughly discussed. Healey emphasises that the 1640s and 1650s were more than elite disputes; they marked a time when ordinary men and women began to think and act in radically new ways, challenging not just the monarchy but the entire social hierarchy. The title, borrowed from Margaret Cavendish's 1666 utopian book The Blazing World, highlights Healey's focus on the creative and intellectual fervour during the political upheaval.

He also cautiously challenges the revisionist denial, asserting that a truly revolutionary event took place—one that turned the world upside down—and that the century saw a fundamental shift in the English state and society. This serves as a helpful correction for readers who have been influenced by the revisionist view that the Civil War was merely an unfortunate accident.

The core issue is that Healey seeks the revolution's benefits without understanding the class analysis behind it. He enumerates the observable events—such as the breakdown of censorship, the rise of radical groups, the king's trial and execution, the founding of the Commonwealth, and the 1688 Glorious Revolution—yet fails to identify the fundamental problem the revolution addressed. Healey does not label the English Revolution as a bourgeois revolution nor systematically examine the class forces that propelled it.

This isn't just a minor omission; it's the key difference between merely describing events and truly explaining them. A revolution isn't just a time of upheaval and change; it is a distinct historical event where contradictions between the development of productive forces and existing relations of production — specifically, a rising class clashing with an outdated ruling class — lead to political and military conflict. The English Revolution reflected this conflict: a rising capitalist class, allied with parts of the gentry focused on commercial agriculture and trade, versus a feudal-absolutist monarchy that aimed to rule without Parliament, impose arbitrary taxes, and sustain monopolies that hinder capitalist progress.

The Marxist perspective, based on Marx's writings on primitive accumulation and the English Revolution, argues that the monarchy had to be overthrown because it hindered the development of capitalist social relations that had been unfolding within feudal society for over a century. Cromwell's New Model Army was more than just a military force; as Trotsky noted, it was the organised political tool of the revolutionary bourgeoisie—regularly purging Parliament to align with its class interests and ruthlessly suppressing the Levellers and Diggers when they threatened to extend the revolution beyond the limits necessary for capitalism to thrive.

Healey, in contrast, presents a revolution lacking a revolutionary class. He outlines the clash between Crown and Parliament, religious fervour, popular movements, and the eventual constitutional agreement—yet the driving force behind these events remains unclear. Why did these conflicts emerge at specific times, in particular forms, and lead to certain outcomes? Revisionists, at least, offered a straightforward (though incorrect) explanation: it was all due to random chance. Healey's post-revisionist view offers a vivid picture of revolutionary upheaval but fails to clarify what was being changed, by whom, or for what purpose.

This argument is absurd. The English Revolution resulted from deep-rooted structural conflicts: the growth of agrarian capitalism, the expansion of merchant capital, the transformation of the gentry into a capitalist class, the crisis of feudal institutions, and the emergence of new political ideas among small producers, artisans, and labourers. Healey cannot accept this, as doing so would mean acknowledging that the Revolution was a class struggle between the rising bourgeoisie and the declining feudal system, rather than merely a chaotic crisis. Instead, he reduces class to vague notions like “ordinary people,” “local grievances,” and “messy complexity.” This isn’t analysis; it’s avoiding the real issues.

The Levellers, Diggers, and Fifth Monarchists—the most progressive democratic movements of their time—are now seen merely as colourful footnotes. Their agendas, which reflected the developing political awareness of the rising working class and petty producers, are dismissed as curiosities rather than viewed as vital expressions of historical development. Healey’s account is thus not just incomplete but also ideologically distorted. 

Cromwell Without History

Healey’s depiction of Cromwell highlights his method by portraying Cromwell as a conflicted character troubled by doubt, fear, and religious concern. Rather than examining his political decisions through the lens of class struggle, Healey attributes them to psychological factors. This aligns with the liberal tendency to reduce historical figures to individuals, stripping away class context and explaining behaviour in terms of personal traits. Nonetheless, Cromwell was more than an individual; he represented a segment of the bourgeois class—the agrarian bourgeoisie—aiming to overthrow feudal absolutism. To fully grasp his actions, it is essential to consider this wider class framework. Consequently, Healey’s Cromwell is a fictitious figure: a person without class, a leader without a social foundation, a historical actor devoid of history.

The Revisionist Tradition and Its Political Purpose

Healey is part of a tradition of revisionists such as Conrad Russell, John Morrill, and Mark Kishlansky, all of whom aim to challenge the Marxist view of the English Revolution. His approach is especially influential because it is more accessible, making revisionist ideas more widely understood. The political goal of revisionism is evident.

To deny the origin of revolutions from structural contradictions, the role of class struggle in history, the agency of the working class, or the revolutionary rupture through which capitalism emerged is to reject fundamental Marxist ideas. Revisionism parallels neoliberalism by viewing history as accidental, politics as gradual, and revolution as unjustified. Healey’s book thus goes beyond historical debate; it participates in a wider ideological campaign aimed at diminishing awareness of historical forces.

The Marxist perspective remains clear in opposition to Healey’s liberal distortion. The English Revolution was: a bourgeois revolution paving the way for capitalist growth; a class struggle between the emerging bourgeoisie and the feudal aristocracy; a phase of radical popular action in which subordinate classes articulated independent political agendas; and a pivotal event that significantly influenced the evolution of modern capitalism. This revolution was neither accidental nor chaotic, nor driven by fear or confusion. Instead, it was the inevitable result of deep structural contradictions within English society.

Healey and the Politics of Historical Amnesia

The Blazing World is a readable, engaging, and in important respects welcome contribution to the popular historiography of seventeenth-century England. Its willingness to call the period revolutionary is a partial break from the revisionist orthodoxy that has impoverished historical understanding for decades. But it is a break that stops halfway. Healey has restored the drama without restoring the analysis. He has given us a revolution without a revolutionary class, upheaval without explanation, transformation without a motor force.

The result is a book that can satisfy neither the serious student of history nor the politically conscious worker seeking to understand the dynamics of social revolution. The former will find too much description and too little explanation; the latter will find a revolution stripped of the very class content that makes it relevant to the struggles of the present. For a genuinely scientific understanding of the English Revolution — its class character, its driving forces, its achievements and its limits — one must return to the Marxist tradition that Healey's post-revisionist framework cannot accommodate: the work of Hill at his best, and beyond Hill to the classical analyses of Marx, Engels, and Trotsky, who grasped that the execution of a king by his subjects was not a misunderstanding but a world-historical act of class struggle.

 

 

 

 

Stuart Hall and the Petty-Bourgeois Revolt Against Marxism: From 1956 to New Labour The Memoir as Historical Evidence

Stuart Hall’s autobiography, Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands (2017), examines his identity as a colonial outsider navigating between Britain and Jamaica. Its most significant contribution is not in its explicit claims but in what it inadvertently uncovers. Hall describes himself as a “familiar stranger,” which conceals the crucial detail that he was “a non-native petty bourgeois—someone who encountered racism as an obstacle to upward mobility within established power structures. His goal was not revolutionary change but to reform British social democracy to better include people like him.

The memoir serves as an important resource for understanding the petty-bourgeois opposition to Marxism in Britain post-1956. Hall’s path—from the New Left to Cultural Studies, then to Marxism Today and New Labour—demonstrates a deliberate intellectual development. It reflects the ideological stance of a social class whose interests contrast sharply with those of the working class. This review seeks to place Hall within this wider historical context.

1956 and the Crisis of Stalinism 

The year 1956 marked a major crisis for Stalinism, highlighted by the Moscow Trials. Khrushchev’s “secret speech” and the Hungarian workers’ uprising shattered the illusions held by Communist Parties across Europe. In Britain, the CPGB lost nearly one-third of its members. For revolutionary Marxists—especially Trotskyists of the International Committee of the Fourth International—1956 confirmed Stalinism’s counter-revolutionary character. They opened an opportunity to attract confused CP members to a truly internationalist outlook.

Hall arrived at Oxford in 1951, coinciding with the onset of this crisis. His memoir describes his political awakening, which focused on opposing authoritarianism and dogmatism. However, it is important to clarify that his real political shift was marked by his rejection of Leninism, which was based on a pseudo-leftist critique of the vanguard party.

Hall did not align with the Trotskyists, who sought to clarify Stalinism and uphold the continuity of Marxism. Instead, he became a founding editor of Universities and Left Review, which later merged with E.P. Thompson’s New Reasoner to create the New Left Review. This environment openly rejected the Leninist idea of the revolutionary party, criticising it for Stalinism’s atrocities.

The Role of Jock Haston

During this period, Hall's mentor was Jock Haston, a former Trotskyist who abandoned the Fourth International and pledged his allegiance to the Labour Party, which he regarded as "one of the most democratic workers’ organisations in existence." Haston’s shift—from revolutionary Marxism to Labourism— symbolised the petty-bourgeois response to 1956: a withdrawal from the working class and an attempt to find a “third way” between Stalinism and Trotskyism that, in fact, represented a step back into social democracy. Hall absorbed this outlook completely.

The British New Left didn't revive Marxism; they outright rejected it. Their core belief was that Leninism inevitably led to Stalinism, so they argued the revolutionary party should be abandoned. This perspective falsely reverses historical facts — Stalinism was a betrayal of Leninism, not its successor. Yet, the petty-bourgeois intellectuals of the New Left equated Leninism with words like “authoritarianism,” “dogmatism,” and “sectarianism.” Hall’s memoir can't challenge this ideological stance because it was the foundation of his entire political perspective.

The New Left emerged from a specific social layer: middle-class intellectuals disillusioned with Stalinism but hostile to the working class as a revolutionary force. They sought a politics that would preserve their moral radicalism while avoiding the discipline and programmatic clarity required by Marxism.Hall’s own background—“middle-class Jamaican upbringing,” Rhodes Scholarship, Oxford intellectual circles—placed him squarely within this layer. His political development was not a break with his class position but its ideological expression.

Cultural Studies  

Hall’s key institutional contribution was leading the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at Birmingham from 1972. While Cultural Studies is frequently seen as an innovative academic field, Hall reportedly referred to it as “politics by other means” Cultural Studies was effectively an intellectual framework created to supplant class as the primary focus of social analysis.

Cultural Studies emphasized race, gender, sexuality, nationality, and “subcultures” as separate areas of struggle that are "relatively autonomous." This focus complicated viewing capitalist exploitation as a unified system. As a result, the working class was replaced by shifting identity-based 'agencies' as the main revolutionary subjects. This shift was not a supplement to Marxism but a rejection of it. Cultural Studies laid the ideological groundwork for current identity politics that now dominate the pseudo-left.

The emergence of Cultural Studies coincided with the decline of the traditional labour movement and the increasing involvement of petty-bourgeois intellectuals within the growing university sector. Hall’s theoretical innovations were not politically neutral; instead, they reflected the aims of a social class eager to gain influence in both the state and academia, rather than promote revolutionary change.

Marxism Today 

By the late 1970s, the CPGB adopted Eurocommunism, forsaking any claim to revolutionary politics. Marxism Today, the publication of the Eurocommunist faction, became the main platform for this ideological shift, with Hall being its most prominent contributor. His 1979 essay, “The Great Moving Right Show," is often regarded as visionary. However, its true importance lies in its adaptation to Thatcherism rather than a critique of it. Hall suggested that Labour needed to move away from its traditional working-class roots and fight elections on the same "conjunctural” terrain established by Thatcher. This approach served as the ideological basis for New Labour. By 1990, Blair was using Marxism Today to float the ‘New Labour’ project. Hall later expressed mild misgivings about Blair, but this is irrelevant. He had already supplied the theoretical justification for Labour’s rightward turn: the working class was in decline, class politics were obsolete, and Labour must become a party of the “modernising” middle class.

Hall’s contributions to Marxism Today played a role in weakening the working class during the neoliberal era. By claiming that class politics were outdated, he offered ideological support for Labour’s move away from socialism and towards market reforms. His innovative theories—such as Cultural Studies, the “New Times” thesis, and conjunctural analysis—laid the groundwork for identity politics. By breaking down social analysis into individual identities, Hall fostered a politics naturally opposed to the interests of the working class.

Identity politics benefits the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia by shifting focus away from class as the main political axis, emphasizing subjective experience over objective social relations, dividing the working class into competing identity groups, and granting moral justification for middle-class progress within capitalist structures. Hall did not create identity politics, but he laid out its theoretical framework.

Hall’s memoir is the autobiography of a man who spent his entire career constructing an anti-Marxist intellectual apparatus. History will judge him more harshly: as someone who helped disarm the working class at the very moment it needed revolutionary leadership.”

Notes

 

1.           Stuart Hall and Bill Schwartz, Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands (London:                Penguin Books, 2017).

2.           Paul Bond, “Stuart Hall: A Political Obituary,” World Socialist Web Site, 2014.

3.           E.P. Thompson, “The Peculiarities of the English,” Socialist Register (1965).

4.           Stuart Hall, “The Great Moving Right Show,” Marxism Today (January 1979).

5.           Geoff Andrews, Endgames and New Times: The Final Years of British Communism                      (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2004).

6.           Alex Callinicos, The New Mandarins of American Power (Cambridge: Polity, 2003).

7.           David North, The Heritage We Defend (Detroit: Labour Publications, 1988).

 

Class, Revolution, and the Limits of Bourgeois Democracy: Cromwell, the Levellers, and the English Revolution

Revised Preface

This dissertation is the product of a long engagement with the English Revolution — the first great bourgeois revolution and the foundational rupture of the modern world. My aim is not simply to recount familiar events but to interrogate the class forces that propelled them, the ideological forms through which those forces became conscious, and the historical limits that shaped the revolution’s trajectory and ultimate settlement.

The English Revolution has often been narrated as a constitutional drama or a struggle for religious liberty. Yet beneath these forms lay deeper social antagonisms. The Putney Debates of 1647, the suppression of the Levellers, and the fleeting emergence of the Digger communes were not marginal episodes but moments in which the revolution revealed its underlying contradictions. In the arguments exchanged at Putney church — about sovereignty, property, political rights, and the meaning of equality — we encounter the earliest explicit articulation of tensions that would come to define capitalist society.

This dissertation proceeds from the conviction that these questions remain unresolved because they cannot be resolved within the framework of bourgeois democracy. The English Revolution inaugurated a new social order, but it also exposed the limits of that order. The Levellers’ demands for political equality, the Diggers’ insistence on common ownership, and the broader popular struggle for substantive democracy all collided with the imperatives of emergent capitalist property relations. The revolution achieved the political supremacy of the bourgeoisie, but only by suppressing the very democratic energies it had unleashed.

For this reason, the English Revolution is not merely a past event but a living contradiction. Its legacy is incomplete; its unresolved questions continue to shape the present. The debates of the 1640s still echo in contemporary struggles over representation, economic power, and the meaning of democracy. To study the English Revolution is therefore not an antiquarian exercise but an inquiry into the origins of our own world — a world still marked by the tensions first articulated in that moment of rupture.

This dissertation is offered in the hope that revisiting those debates with clarity and historical precision can illuminate the structural limits of bourgeois democracy today and help us understand why the aspirations voiced by the Levellers and Diggers remain both unfinished and urgent.

 

The American Revolution and the Crisis of Historical Consciousness: A Defence of 1776 Against the Pseudo Lefts

The Battle Over 1776 in the Present Crisis

The discussion on the importance of the American Revolution has become a central ideological conflict in the early 2000s. The elite, struggling with a legitimacy crisis, tries to both absorb and undermine the democratic ideals of 1776. At the same time, the pseudo-left has completely abandoned these traditions, reducing the Revolution to a moralistic list of hypocrisies, exclusions, and crimes. In this context, defending the American Revolution as a key bourgeois democratic movement is not just an academic issue but a crucial political stance.

The latest article, published by the British Socialist Workers Party, illustrates what happens when a pseudo-left view tackles a historic issue without a solid Marxist basis. The article exemplifies the pseudo-left's failure to clearly answer key questions, swinging between praising the revolution's "radical" aspects and criticising its shortcomings, concluding with a vague moral call to "make true" its promises—without explaining how or through which social forces. This is not representative of Marxism. It is political tourism through the past.

Currently, the only political organisation capable of providing a historical materialist perspective on the American Revolution is the ICFI and its online publication, The World Socialist Website. It rejects the vague "on the one hand, on the other' approach used by the SWP and instead employs the method of historical materialism to uphold the revolutionary legacy of 1776.

A Marxist viewpoint sees the American Revolution differently. It views it as an important bourgeois-democratic movement in global history. The working class ought to rekindle the democratic ideals of 1776 — not as a patriotic legend, but as a vital part of the ongoing struggle for universal emancipation.

The Historical Necessity of the Bourgeois Democratic Revolution

Marxism does not view bourgeois revolutions as moral issues but as necessary historical stages in the evolution of capitalist society and the modern working class. The American Revolution was not just an accident, an enslaver’s conspiracy, or a simple colonial uprising. Instead, it symbolised big changes in property relations, class structure, global trade, ideological awareness, and the growth of Enlightenment universalism. The pseudo-left fails to understand this because it dismisses historical materialism, replacing analytical reasoning with moral outrage and current feelings without historical context.

By the mid-18th century, North American colonies had developed a distinct social landscape, including a petty-bourgeois class, a rising capitalist elite, and a literate, politically engaged artisan and labourer population. These colonies were also characterised by frontier society in conflict with aristocratic land claims and a political culture influenced by republicanism, dissenting Protestantism, and Enlightenment ideas. These factors made the colonies particularly receptive to revolutionary ideas. The Revolution was not a top-down imposition; rather, it was driven from the bottom up by a broad social coalition whose demands went beyond those of the elite.

 The American Revolution marked the first significant break in the global system of absolutist monarchy. It came before and played a role in sparking the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, the Latin American wars of independence, and the worldwide spread of republican ideas. Tom Paine recognised this when he stated that “the cause of America” was “the cause of all mankind.” The Revolution’s universalist language was more than mere rhetoric; it reflected an ideological shift of world-historical importance.

As David North points out in his essential formulation, the Declaration “indicted the existing social and political order and called for its overthrow in the most sweeping and universal terms. “This is the key to understanding 1776. The Declaration’s assertion that “all men are created equal” was not a description of existing social relations. It was a revolutionary negation of the entire edifice of hereditary privilege, monarchy, aristocracy, and divine right.

What the Revolution Was

The American Revolution was a bourgeois democratic movement, not a socialist one, and no Marxist has ever suggested otherwise. This term is a precise, scientific description, not an insult. As David North noted in his opening remarks at the WSWS's 250th anniversary webinar, the Declaration of Independence "condemned the existing social and political order and called for its comprehensive overthrow." It challenged monarchy, hereditary privileges, and colonial dominance. The statement that "all men are created equal" and have "unalienable rights" was revolutionary in a world dominated by lords and kings who claimed divine right.

The Socialist Worker article hints at this but quickly shifts to moral judgment: acknowledging that the revolution was progressive yet noting that enslavers also participated, Indigenous peoples were dispossessed, and power remained in the hands of the wealthy. This 'pros and cons' approach fails to offer real insight. As North pointed out: 'Calling the founders hypocrites does not explain why a revolution happened, why the Declaration gained significance beyond their intentions, or why its words resonated with abolitionists, enslaved people, workers, socialists, and civil rights activists."

The American Revolution was founded on contradictions. Its promises excluded enslaved individuals, women, Indigenous peoples, and those without property. However, the democratic ideals it promoted went beyond the limitations of its era. This creates a dialectic: the Revolution was both rooted in its time and forward-looking. It inspired the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, anti-colonial efforts in South America, the abolitionist movement, and later democratic and socialist campaigns. As Tom Paine stated, "the cause of America" was "the cause of all mankind."

The Socialist Worker article views the 1788 Constitution as merely the end of a story — a compromise between Northern capitalists and Southern enslavers that temporarily masked divisions until the Civil War. However, this perspective overlooks a key point: the Civil War was not accidental or secondary. Instead, it was the second American Revolution, completing the first. As North pointed out, "The transition from the first to the second stage of the bourgeois democratic revolution proceeded rather rapidly. Thaddeus Stevens, the most prominent radical Republican, was born in the early years of George Washington's presidency."

The end of slavery and the Radical Reconstruction represented the realisation of the democratic ideals established in 1776, rather than their betrayal. The subsequent defeat of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow laws served as counter-revolutions that reversed the Civil War's progress. This perspective is missing from the pseudo-left, which replaces class analysis with racial theory.

Why This Matters Now

The question "Should we celebrate the American Revolution?" is not purely academic; it has become a highly political issue in 2026. The Trump administration is intensifying its assault on democratic rights, with the president openly discussing dictatorial governance. The fundamental idea of popular sovereignty—government of, by, and for the people—is now under threat.

Under these circumstances, abandoning the revolutionary democratic tradition in favour of reaction would be a devastating political mistake. Unfortunately, that is what much of the pseudo-left effectively does when it dismisses 1776 as merely an enslaver's plot or dismisses the Declaration's language of equality as mere hypocrisy. As North warned: "If the left abandons the revolutionary-democratic tradition, viewing equality, rights, popular sovereignty, and universal emancipation as deception, it risks handing that tradition over to reaction. And that is precisely what is occurring."

The working class must safeguard the democratic ideals of the American Revolution, viewing them not as complete but as unfulfilled. The goals of 1776 cannot be achieved under capitalism; instead, they demand a socialist overhaul in which the working class seizes power and the capitalist system—which accumulates wealth and authority in fewer hands—is abolished. As Andre Damon noted in 2016: "The American Revolution provided the ideological and political impetus for the French Revolution and all subsequent democratic, egalitarian and socialist movements."

The significance of the American Revolution extends beyond mere history; it is a crucial political issue today. By 2026, democratic institutions face exceptional pressures, with the executive branch increasingly flirting with authoritarianism and democratic norms eroding rapidly. The pseudo-left’s rejection of 1776 as a conspiracy by enslavers dismisses the progressive aspects of the bourgeois revolution, rejects universal principles, weakens the ideological basis for democratic rights, and leaves the working class without political power.

Yes, we should honour the American Revolution—not as a patriotic myth, a completed achievement, or by ignoring its contradictions—but as a significant historical milestone whose democratic principles are still revolutionary today. Its unfulfilled promises can only be realised through socialist revolution, and the working class must protect its legacy against the current authoritarian threat. The ambiguous, moralistic, and politically inconsistent tone of the Socialist Worker article offers no guidance.

The democratic principles established in 1776 — such as equality, rights, and popular sovereignty — are still revolutionary. However, they cannot be fully realised within capitalism and instead demand a socialist revolution. The American Revolution was a major bourgeois-democratic revolution of global historical importance. While it had contradictions, these do not diminish its significance; rather, they highlight the need for continued revolutionary progress.

The working class must uphold the democratic legacy of 1776, not as a myth but as a historical fight for universal emancipation. Achieving the Revolution's promises requires a socialist restructuring of society.”

 

Set My Heart on Fire: Izumi Suzuki, Petty Bourgeois Despair, and the Ideology of Her Revival

A Literary Resurrection as Political Symptom

The reissue of Izumi Suzuki’s Terminal Boredom and Set My Heart on Fire by Verso Books is more than just a literary event; it is a political gesture. Suzuki’s portrayal as a “radical feminist icon” by the #MeToo movement and the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia reflects the ideological needs of the ruling class facing the most severe crisis of global capitalism since the 1930s. Her fiction—branded as rebellious, provocative, and visionary—is actually a reflection of political defeat, social fragmentation, and petty-bourgeois despair.

The fact that a publisher, claiming to be "left-wing," is now promoting this kind of work serves as a warning: identity-driven pseudo-radicalism has become a cultural tool used to redirect social anger away from capitalism and into pointless, apolitical dead ends. Suzuki’s resurgence should be viewed in a historical context. It is motivated more by ideological convenience than by literary value.

Historical and Class Context: Literature Born of Defeat

Suzuki’s worldview wasn't born from personal eccentricity or a tragic life story. Instead, it stemmed from the devastating defeat of Japan's working class after the war—a loss managed, justified, and upheld by the Stalinist Japanese Communist Party (JCP). The JCP’s cooperation with the American occupation, its nationalist stance, and its suppression of revolutionary efforts resulted in a political void. This vacuum left sections of the intelligentsia feeling alienated, pessimistic, and inward-looking.

Suzuki’s shift away from the working class was not merely a personal eccentricity but a result of both objective historical failures and subjective betrayals. This is the core idea. Suzuki’s writing does not symbolise progress; instead, it reflects a tired generation that lost hope and stopped seeking. The aftermath of defeat heavily influences her stories: they reject collective action, show a breakdown in historical awareness, and elevate individual trauma to a metaphysical level. This background forms the foundation of her fiction.

Suzuki’s Worldview: Gender War as Ersatz Politics

Suzuki’s stories centre around themes of gender conflict, misanthropy, and personal grievances. They portray worlds where men are imprisoned, women wield power through bureaucratic oppression, and social conflict is replaced by personal domination. This does not represent feminism or radical ideas. Instead, it reflects the ideology of a petty-bourgeois class that has lost faith in the working class, resorting to identity categories rather than class analysis.

Her dystopias mirror oppressive systems rather than challenge them. They don't provide a route to human freedom, only a reshuffling of the prison hierarchy. The uploaded document states: “Suzuki’s focus on gender classifications and identity… aligns with a petty-bourgeois movement that replaces collective class action with individual grievances.” This explains why the #MeToo movement supports her. As it's rooted in upper-middle-class circles, it emphasises personal trauma over social analysis and views gender identity as the main political focus. Suzuki offers a simplified mythology: a world where men are naturally oppressive, women are inherently victims, and social change is reduced to interpersonal power struggles. Her writings reflect a resignation rather than resistance.

The Philip K. Dick Comparison: A Category Error

Calling Suzuki 'Japan’s Philip K. Dick” is not just inaccurate but also politically telling. Dick, despite his contradictions, wrestled with major 20th-century issues such as fascism, technological power, the vulnerability of democracies, and the manipulation of consciousness. As the uploaded document mentions, The Man in the High Castle explores themes of historical memory and the political fallout of losing.

Suzuki, in contrast, completely withdraws from history. Her worlds are sealed off, lacking social conflict, class distinctions, or collective action. They feel claustrophobic, introspective, and politically inert. Comparing Dick and Suzuki blurs the lines between pessimism and depth. Dick explores the roots of alienation, while Suzuki depicts alienation as an aesthetic. This comparison unfairly favours Dick and misrepresents Suzuki.

Her work risks falling into psychologism, but her personal experiences—marriage to Kaoru Abe, violence, the toe-cutting incident, and suicide—should not be seen as explanations for her writing. Instead, they reflect the same social pathology that influences her fiction: the isolation of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, disconnected from the working class and overwhelmed by personal despair.

A Marxist review should reject the liberal approach that treats biography as direct causation. Instead, the focus is not on pathologising Suzuki but on uncovering the social forces that shaped her art and tragedy. Both her personal life and her fiction originate from the same source: the political defeat of the working class and the ideological collapse of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia.

A polemical review must do more than reject; it needs to establish clear standards. What sets progressive science fiction apart is not its optimism but its awareness of history. It portrays humans as active participants within a social whole, capable of changing their circumstances. It acknowledges that alienation stems from social class rather than being a metaphysical constant. Writers like Dick, Lem, and certain aspects of New Wave SF understood this. Their work, despite certain flaws, engages with the social and historical forces influencing human life. Suzuki, however, does not. Her fiction reflects paralysis rather than potential. A Marxist critique should explicitly define this criterion.

Why Suzuki, and Why Now? The Ideological Function of Her Revival

This is the key question. Suzuki’s resurgence is motivated more by ideological usefulness than literary quality. Bourgeois publishers—including Verso—have adopted identity politics as a replacement for true social critique. They favour stories of personal trauma, gender conflict, and apolitical melancholy because these types of “dissent” do not challenge capitalist property systems.

Suzuki’s fiction resonates now because it lets readers feel “radical” without having to take political action. It diverts social frustration from capitalism to personal relationships. By framing the crisis of bourgeois society as a gender conflict, it shields the ruling class from criticism. Her revival functions as a cultural strategy: elevating a petty-bourgeois perspective exactly when many are mobilising against capitalism.

Conclusion: A Literature of Political Defeat

Suzuki’s fiction is neither revolutionary, feminist, nor progressive. It represents the artistic voice of political defeat. Verso's revival is a concession to the ruling class's ideological needs, aiming to redirect social anger into identity-based dead ends. A Marxist review must critically expose this process. The goal is not to mourn Suzuki but to understand her: to situate her work within the broader historical crisis that shaped it and to oppose the ideological forces seeking to weaponise it against the working class.

Her fiction is a thing of the past. The future will be shaped by a working class that refuses to accept the petty-bourgeois despair that Suzuki mistakenly took as truth.

 

The Living Declaration: A Review of Edward L. Widmer’s Biography of America’s Founding Text

 

The Declaration as a Battleground of Historical Memory

Edward L. Widmer’s The Living Declaration is framed as a “biography” of the Declaration of Independence. This genre has grown popular in recent years amid the commercialisation of the American founding. In mainstream liberal scholarship, these biographies often serve not as critical examinations of revolutionary ideas but as tools to reinforce the current ideological framework. Despite its engaging writing style and clear narrative, Widmer’s book fits well within this tradition.

The Declaration of Independence isn't a neutral document; it serves as a revolutionary manifesto. Its core principles—equality, popular sovereignty, and the right to revolution—have significantly influenced major social conflicts throughout American history. Any in-depth analysis must address the radical implications of these ideas for today's society. However, Widmer avoids this challenge, presenting a cleaned-up, heritage-focused version that downplays the Declaration’s revolutionary significance and reframes it as a civic symbol aligned with capitalist elites.

The Declaration as a Product of World-Historical Crisis

The Declaration of Independence was more than a philosophical concept created by Jefferson and his team. It signified a profound global crisis: the fall of the ancien régime, the rise of capitalist social relations, and the emergence of a revolutionary bourgeoisie. This new class's struggle against feudal absolutism drastically changed the world.

A Marxist reconstruction starts not with Jefferson’s writing or Locke’s essays, but with the material changes in Atlantic capitalism during the eighteenth century. The Declaration served as the ideological manifestation of a society in flux, during a period when the emergent bourgeoisie aimed to dismantle feudal political structures while maintaining their economic base in private property. Its roots are deeply intertwined with the inherent contradictions within bourgeois society.

By the mid-1700s, the North American colonies had become deeply connected to Atlantic capitalism. The production of commodities such as tobacco, wheat, timber, and rum, as well as the use of enslaved labour, created a class of colonial merchants, planters, and professionals whose interests increasingly conflicted with those of the British imperial government.

Britain’s victory in the Seven Years’ War resulted in a substantial imperial debt. The Crown sought to increase revenue from the colonies via taxes and tighter administrative oversight. This was not driven by ethical concerns but by a material conflict between a growing bourgeois class and a declining imperial system.

The colonies operated as economically capitalist entities but remained politically subordinate to a monarchical and aristocratic state. This contradiction—capitalist economic relations existing under feudal political structures—was the root of the revolutionary crisis. The Declaration represents the ideological resolution to this conflict.

The Declaration’s phrases—“self-evident truths,” “unalienable rights,” “consent of the governed”—embody the core principles of Enlightenment rationalism. However, Enlightenment ideas were not purely abstract philosophy; they formed the ideological foundation of an advancing bourgeois class.

Locke’s theory of natural rights mainly served to justify private property. His well-known idea that property comes from labour isn't an absolute truth but rather a bourgeois rationalisation that supports capitalist accumulation. Jefferson’s version— “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”—also reflects this classical perspective. The rights declared in the Declaration appear universal in structure but are bourgeois in substance.

The statement that “all men are created equal” was not a philosophical assertion. Instead, it served as a political tool to oppose aristocracy, monarchy, and inherited privilege. In this context, equality referred to equal legal status within a capitalist system, not equal social or economic conditions.

The Declaration’s reference to “self-evident truths” embodies the Enlightenment belief that society could be restructured based on rational principles. This expressed the bourgeoisie’s desire to overthrow irrational feudal systems. Reason was a revolutionary force—yet its revolutionary potential was confined within the bounds of bourgeois society.

The main authors of the Declaration were members of the colonial bourgeoisie, including lawyers, merchants, planters, and intellectuals. They articulated grievances related to taxation, trade restrictions, and imperial oversight, which were rooted in class interests. While artisans, small farmers, and urban labourers also significantly contributed to the revolutionary movement, their interests differed from those of the bourgeois elite. However, the imperial crisis temporarily unified these diverse groups with a shared purpose.

The Declaration’s universalism intentionally excluded enslaved Africans and indigenous peoples, reflecting a deliberate choice tied to the bourgeois revolution within a slave society. The tension between universal equality and racial slavery is not merely moral but also reveals a core contradiction in bourgeois property relations. Its most radical claim—that people can "alter or abolish” any government threatening their rights—appears revolutionary but fundamentally aligns with bourgeois interests.

The right of revolution was aimed at overthrowing monarchy and aristocracy, serving as the ideological basis for dismantling feudal political structures. While the bourgeoisie endorsed this right, they also feared it might threaten their own class interests. Interestingly, the same individuals who supported the right to overthrow oppressive governments also suppressed Shays’ Rebellion and slave uprisings.

The Declaration’s revolutionary ideas could not be fully put into practice within bourgeois society. Its focus on universal principles extended beyond capitalism itself. This is why the Declaration served as the ideological basis for the Civil War—the second American revolution—and why its principles are still not fully realised today.

The Declaration’s ideological roots are in the bourgeois revolution, but its future is with the working class. As the Socialist Equality Party states, the true successors of 1776 are not the representatives of the American ruling class, but the workers and youth fighting against inequality, war, and the erosion of democratic rights. The Declaration remains vital—not merely as a historical artefact, but as a revolutionary document that demands a socialist transformation of society.

The Ideological Function of Gordon Wood in American Historiography

Gordon S. Wood holds a unique place in American historical scholarship. He is both the most renowned interpreter of the American Revolution and a key defender of bourgeois ideological continuity. His introduction to Edward L. Widmer’s The Living Declaration exemplifies this duality. Wood describes the Declaration of Independence as the “most profound manifesto of democratic revolution in history," but his framing diminishes its revolutionary significance for today.

Wood’s prose is refined and erudite, yet his approach remains largely conservative. He presents the Declaration as a victory of enlightened thought, deliberately sidestepping the societal contradictions that led to it and the volatile implications of its principles for modern capitalism. His introduction doesn’t advocate for revolutionary change but instead honours a heritage that has been safely preserved.

Wood’s opening highlights that the United States is “unique because it was founded entirely on a set of philosophical ideas rather than shared heritage or ethnicity.” This reflects Wood’s overall historiographical approach: emphasising ideology over material conditions and portraying the Revolution as a victory of enlightened ideas rather than as a struggle rooted in class, colonial economics, or imperial crises.

The issue isn't that ideas had no role—they did. Instead, Wood overlooks how social forces shaped these ideas. He views the Declaration as a result of philosophical agreement, not a revolutionary break. That's why Wood claims Jefferson’s statement that “all men are created equal” reflected the mainstream enlightened thought of the time. But this is historically questionable and politically telling. Equality wasn't just a conventional idea; it challenged the entire hierarchical order dominated by monarchy, aristocracy, and hereditary privilege. Wood’s approach trivialises the Revolution by framing its most radical principle as a polite, common belief.

Wood emphasises Jefferson’s belief in a universal “moral sense,” even among enslaved people, implying that this shared empathy helped shape abolitionist arguments. This reflects Wood's typical approach: a moral-philosophical interpretation that conceals the harsh material realities of slavery and the economic motives behind it. Jefferson’s moral sense did not stop him from enslaving people, nor did it prevent the new republic from establishing a constitutional framework that protected slave property for nearly a century. Wood’s reference to moral sense acts as a liberal justification—an effort to reconcile the universal ideals in the Declaration with the founders’ active participation in a slaveholding society.

A Marxist analysis begins from the opposite premise: the contradiction between universal equality and private property in human beings is not a moral paradox but a structural contradiction of bourgeois revolution. Wood cannot confront this because his method is idealistic rather than materialistic.

Wood’s introduction notably omits key points. He does not mention the Declaration’s claim that people can “alter or abolish” governments that threaten their rights. Additionally, he overlooks the relevance of this principle during the Civil War, which Lincoln viewed as the embodiment of the Declaration’s revolutionary ideas. Moreover, he neglects to consider how this principle applies in a society controlled by a financial oligarchy.

Wood’s introduction celebrates the ideals of the Declaration rather than analysing their outcomes. He commends the Revolution’s opposition to aristocracy but overlooks the rise of a new wealthy aristocracy. While praising equality, he ignores the significant inequality present in modern America. This is intentional, as Wood’s purpose in American historiography is to uphold the established order by framing the founding as a completed, accomplished event rather than an ongoing revolutionary process.

The Political Context: Wood vs the 1619 Project, and the Limits of Liberal Defence

Wood has been a notable critic of the New York Times’ 1619 Project, rightly pointing it out as a racialist distortion of history. However, his critique is constrained by his ideological biases. While he defends the Revolution against racial reductionism, he does so from a liberal perspective that fails to recognise the class struggles inherent in the Revolution or the enduring importance of its principles.The WSWS has shown that rejecting 1776 as a pro-slavery conspiracy, as the 1619 Project does, is both historically inaccurate and politically reactionary.However, Wood’s alternative—an idealist praise of enlightened ideas—falls short.It defends the founders but weakens the Declaration's revolutionary significance.

Wood criticises the racialist distortion of history but fails to challenge the capitalist distortion. His introduction overlooks that today's ruling class openly disregards every right listed in the Declaration. He is unable to admit that the Declaration’s revolutionary ideals condemn the social order he aims to maintain.

The Declaration as a Living Document: Wood’s Title, Widmer’s Book, and the Marxist Alternative

Wood agrees with Widmer’s idea of a “living declaration,” but he sees “living” as more conservative. To Wood, it’s alive because it continues to inspire civic pride and a sense of democracy. Widmer, however, believes it remains alive because each new generation has reinterpreted it. In contrast, Marxists see the Declaration as alive because its ideals remain unfulfilled, and achieving them would require a revolutionary societal change.

The Declaration remains alive not due to admiration but because it continues to reveal the contradictions within capitalist society. It stays relevant by affirming equality in a world marked by inequality and by declaring the right to revolution against oligarchic rule. Wood, however, cannot recognise this. His introduction romanticises the Declaration with reverent language while diminishing its revolutionary power.

Gordon Wood’s introduction to The Living Declaration is a refined, knowledgeable and ultimately conservative piece. It extols the ideals of the Declaration while toning down their implications. It defends the Revolution from racialist distortions yet sidesteps the class conflicts that influenced it. While praising equality, it overlooks the capitalist system that makes such equality unachievable. Overall, Wood’s introduction is not a genuine living declaration but a sanitised version that serves the interests of the ruling class.

Widmer’s Method: Liberal Antiquarianism in the Service of the Present Order

Widmer’s “biography” approach exemplifies the heritage industry in American historiography, as the WSWS frequently criticises. Instead of placing the Declaration within the ongoing dialectical evolution of bourgeois revolution, Widmer regards it as a cultural artefact whose “life” is shaped by how it has been received, reinterpreted, and symbolically employed over time.

This approach yields three distinct effects: First, the Revolution becomes depoliticised, as Widmer emphasises anecdotes, personalities, and textual idiosyncrasies, while minimising the Declaration’s significance as the ideological source of significant social change. Second, the contradictions of the Revolution are viewed through a psychological lens, transforming questions about class tensions, property rights, and slavery into moral or personal dilemmas rather than material disputes. Third, the current situation is presented as natural.

The Declaration as Revolutionary Manifesto: What Widmer Cannot Confront

Widmer’s account cannot encompass the Declaration’s most radical claim: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…”

This is not just a decorative element; it forms the heart of the document. As David North stated, the principles of the Declaration "were obtained through the application of scientific thought, i.e., Reason,” and their revolutionary power remains because they express universal, not just colonial, claims.

Widmer’s biography treats this passage as a historical footnote rather than an active critique of today’s capitalist oligarchy that rules the United States. He fails to recognise that the Declaration’s underlying logic extends beyond bourgeois society itself—suggesting that the promise of equality conflicts with a social system in which a few billionaires possess more wealth than the entire bottom half of humanity. Addressing this would mean acknowledging the Declaration’s role in the Civil War—the so-called "second American revolution”—and its ongoing significance to modern working-class struggles. Yet, Widmer completely sidesteps this connection.

Widmer’s book comes at a time when the Declaration faces fierce political debate. Two main forces drive this contest: The New York Times’ 1619 Project criticises the Declaration as a hypocritical document meant to defend slavery. As the WSWS has shown, this view is both historically inaccurate and politically reactionary. It ignores the revolutionary significance of 1776 and reduces the American Revolution to a racial myth. Widmer does not oppose this false narrative; instead, it sidesteps it.

The ruling elite claims the Declaration as a patriotic symbol while simultaneously ignoring every right it guarantees. Patrick Martin pointed out that “Every basic right enumerated in it is openly flouted.” The right to revolution is dismissed as sedition, extreme inequalities undermine equality, and due process is compromised through widespread surveillance and militarised policing. Widmer does not challenge this contradiction; instead, he aestheticises it. In both instances, Widmer’s silence aligns with the ideological interests of the current order. His biography does not defend the revolutionary ideals of the Declaration but rather contributes to their neutralisation.

Bourgeois Scholarship and the Neutralisation of Revolution

Widmer’s book highlights the wider limitations of bourgeois historiography. It lauds the Declaration as an element of America’s “heritage" but neglects its revolutionary core. This aligns with James P. Cannon’s warning: “Nobody can sell me the Fourth of July speeches which represent the start as the finish and the promise as the fulfilment.” Widmer’s biography resembles a Fourth of July speech in book form, presenting the Declaration as a finished accomplishment instead of an ongoing revolutionary effort.

A truly critical biography of the Declaration would place it in the context of the global crisis of the ancien régime and the emergence of bourgeois revolution. It would examine its Enlightenment roots—drawing from Locke, Scottish moral philosophers, and 18th-century scientific rationalism. It would reveal contradictions in its founding, such as slavery, property relations, and class conflicts. The biography would track its lasting revolutionary influence, particularly in the Civil War and abolition movements. It would also show its incompatibility with modern capitalism, where equality cannot exist under private ownership of the means of production. The biography would highlight the working class as the agent capable of realising its promise. However, Widmer's biography does none of these; it is not a living Declaration but an embalmed one.

Conclusion: The Declaration Lives—But Not in Widmer’s Book

Widmer’s The Living Declaration is a refined, accessible, and ultimately conservative account. It provides a biography of the Declaration that is suitable for corporate publishers, university lectures, and Fourth of July celebrations. It avoids addressing the Declaration’s revolutionary potential today or recognising the social forces that could bring its promises to fruition. The Declaration endures—though not within Widmer’s family-friendly narrative. It persists in the working class's struggles against inequality, war, and the erosion of democratic rights. Its principles serve as a critique of tyranny and a rallying cry for revolutionary change. Widmer’s book is a biography; the working class will author the sequel.

 

 

The Political Bankruptcy of Psychopathy Theory and the Reactionary Dead End of Anti Vaccine Conspiracism

Dear Chris,

In addressing your analysis, it is crucial to treat these issues with the highest political seriousness. The concerns you mention—such as state criminality, the character of the ruling class, and the decline of American democracy—are not about personal psychology or spiritual growth. Instead, they reflect the objective crisis of global capitalism and the challenges faced by the international working class. This is where your framework fails.

The Correct Premise: The Crisis Is Systemic, Not Personal

You are right to emphasise that the criminality of the American state extends beyond Donald Trump. As has often been stated, Trump is not an anomaly but a reflection of a corrupt social system. Trump’s administration is “a government of, by, and for the oligarchy.” This is not about individual personality; it’s about the class structure and rules.

Similarly, your suspicion that the Democratic Party intervened in the protests is justified. The Democrats often act as the graveyard for social movements, with their role—illustrated by Bernie Sanders’ opportunistic appearance at the demonstrations—being to suppress the emerging radicalism and steer it back into conventional bourgeois politics. These observations are accurate. However, the framework you build around them is flawed.

Where Your Analysis Breaks Down: Psychopathy Is Not a Category of Scientific Socialism

The main mistake is replacing the concept of class with psychopathy. This isn't a minor error; it's a shift away from scientific socialism toward a moralistic and pseudo-explanatory approach. The capitalist class's dominance isn't due to psychological flaws among its members but because they control the means of production. Their power is based on property ties, not on personality issues. As your own document notes, “A ‘moral’ capitalist is still a capitalist. A ‘sane’ ruling class would still exploit workers.”

Psychopathy theory actually exemplifies the individualism you oppose. It simplifies the complex, historically developed system of capitalist domination to supposed mental flaws in a few individuals. This approach isn’t Marxist; instead, it reverts to pre-scientific moral categories that hide the true dynamics of class.

Marx and Engels debunked these ideas over 175 years ago. The capitalist state is not merely "a conspiracy of psychopaths"; as the Communist Manifesto states, it is "a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” Swapping class analysis for psychological speculation abandons the revolutionary perspective of the working class.

The COVID Question: A Necessary Political Clarification

You must directly address your invocation of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories—such as "mass poisoning" and "genocide." These assertions are not just false; they are also politically reactionary.

Research has shown that far-right groups, including fascist militias and anti-Semitic conspiracy promoters, largely influenced anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown movements. Embracing their narratives can mislead workers and pave the way for dangerous political shifts. The COVID pandemic was a social crime—not because vaccines were harmful, but because capitalist governments prioritized corporate profits over public health. The response should not be based on conspiracy theories, but on advocating for a rational, science-based public health system managed democratically by workers.

The Actual Path Forward: The Independent Mobilisation of the Working Class

Your suggested approach—personal moral awakening, spiritual guides, individual enlightenment—is ineffective politically. It resembles self-help seminar politics rather than class struggle. The only force that can resolve capitalism's crisis is the international working class. It creates all social wealth but owns nothing. It is the only class with a vested interest in ending the profit system. Additionally, it has the power to halt production, overthrow the capitalist state, and rebuild society democratically, equally, and rationally.

This involves establishing rank-and-file committees at every workplace, school, and neighbourhood. These committees should be coordinated globally via the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees. They should openly embrace a socialist program that recognises capitalism as the root cause of war, dictatorship, and inequality. This is not “hope porn" but the scientific conclusion derived from Marxist analysis and the historical experience of the class struggle.

Conclusion

You start with a valid premise: the crisis is systemic, not individual. However, your approach leads to a political dead end, relying on psychopathy theory, conspiracism, and spiritual individualism. These frameworks conceal the true mechanisms of capitalist control and weaken the political power of the working class. The goal is not to diagnose the ruling class but to overthrow it.