Britain’s Secret Files and the Assassination of Leon Trotsky: What the National Archives at Kew Reveal—and Conceal

 Leon Trotsky's assassination on August 20, 1940, was more than Stalin's brutal purge of the Marxist leaders; it was an orchestrated international operation involving the Soviet GPU, Mexican Stalinist groups, and either active cooperation or deliberate ignorance by Western intelligence agencies. Even after 86 years, the British government's records stored at Kew reveal aspects of this crime that mainstream historians and commentators, such as David Renton, tend to ignore.

The files—MI5's KV series, the Foreign Office's FO correspondence, Home Office HO surveillance records, and wartime propaganda and intelligence materials in the COI series—do more than confirm the GPU's worldwide influence. They expose the political motives of Britain's ruling elite, their awareness of Stalinist activities, and their subtle cooperation with the American government in hiding the extent of GPU infiltration into the Trotskyist movement.

These documents, in conjunction with the International Committee of the Fourth International's fifty-year investigation into Security and the Fourth International, reveal the historical fraud committed by Renton and others who have long protected Joseph Hansen and the SWP leadership from accountability.

MI5's KV Files: Britain's Intelligence Services Knew the GPU's Methods

The KV series—MI5's main intelligence records—hold extensive information on Soviet espionage networks active in Britain, Europe, and the U.S. These documents show that the British government had a thorough knowledge of GPU tradecraft, including infiltrating émigré political groups, cultivating "trusted comrades" to pass internal documents, deploying false identities and humanitarian fronts, and coordinating between Soviet diplomatic missions and secret operatives.

The documents related to the Paris rezidentura and the Red Orchestra verify the GPU's extensive infiltration into Trotskyist circles, including the activities linked to the killing of Trotsky's son, Leon Sedov. MI5's evaluations of Gregory Rabinovich—referred to as "John," the GPU's head of operations in America—correspond exactly with the ICFI's conclusions. Rabinovich was a key figure, not a minor one, and played a major role in planning the assassination in the Americas.

MI5's KV Files and the Hansen–Rabinovich Meetings: The British State's Intelligence Record Exposes the Cover‑Up

Joseph Hansen's secret meetings with Rabinovich—hidden for 37 years—are now even more incriminating. MI5's files show that Rabinovich would not have risked his cover by meeting a Trotsky secretary unless he was confident he would not be exposed. Renton's silence on this information is deliberate, not accidental.

The years-long attempt to downplay Joseph Hansen's secret dealings with the FBI and the Soviet GPU—highlighted by David Renton's evasive defences—falls apart upon examination of the British state's own intelligence archives. MI5's KV files, stored at the National Archives at Kew, offer a vital external perspective on the GPU's global operations. They reveal a truth that Hansen's supporters cannot accept: Hansen's meetings with Gregory Rabinovich ("John"), the GPU's chief for American operations, were not trivial or open to harmless interpretation, but were with one of Stalin's most dangerous and strategically important agents. The KV files do not mention Hansen directly, nor do they need to. They define the nature, methods, and operational importance of Rabinovich and the GPU networks he led. When these official evaluations are compared with records of Hansen's actions, the political implications become clear.

MI5's Assessment of the GPU: A Professional Understanding of Stalinist Tradecraft

The KV series includes thousands of pages of MI5's internal reports on Soviet espionage. These documents show that British intelligence had a deep understanding of GPU operations, such as penetrating émigré political groups, especially those opposed to Stalinism; using humanitarian or cultural organisations as cover for covert activities; deploying senior agents under diplomatic or quasi-diplomatic cover; cultivating "trusted comrades" within target organisations; and executing long-term infiltration plans that could last for decades.

MI5's files on the Paris rezidentura, the Red Orchestra, and the NKVD's London networks show that the GPU did not rely on opportunistic contacts. It built systems of penetration, using agents whose identities were carefully protected and whose movements were coordinated across continents.

This context is decisive. It means that any meeting between a Trotskyist leader and a senior GPU operative was not a casual encounter. It was an event of enormous operational significance.

Gregory Rabinovich ("John") in MI5's Files: A Senior GPU Architect

The KV files contain evaluations of Soviet agents working in the US and Europe. One of them is Gregory Rabinovich, known in GPU operations as "John." MI5's liaison reports with American intelligence describe Rabinovich as a senior NKVD officer, organiser of covert networks in the Western Hemisphere, handler of high-value agents and informants, specialist in infiltrating anti-Stalinist groups, and key player in operations against Trotskyists.

MI5's description of Rabinovich matches exactly with the International Committee of the Fourth International's findings. He was not an insignificant agent but a key asset for the GPU in the Americas. This context makes Hansen's undisclosed meetings with Rabinovich historically significant and potentially explosive.

The Hansen–Rabinovich Meetings in Light of MI5's KV Files

Hansen revealed—only after being caught—that he had met Rabinovich in New York in 1940. He kept these meetings secret for 37 years and created a false story claiming Trotsky authorised him to "milk" the GPU. He also presented a "memorandum' signed only by Cannon and Shachtman, both of whom had died by 1976. Additionally, he fabricated an invisible-ink letter exchange with Trotsky that no living witness could verify. MI5's KV files show that Hansen's alibi is not credible.

MI5's evaluations indicate that senior GPU officers did not meet political adversaries casually. They only engaged with individuals who were already compromised, cultivated, or deemed safe. As the ICFI stated in 1976: "It is beyond the realm of the possible to accept that Dr Gregory Rabinovitz … would jeopardise his valuable GPU cover … unless he was convinced that the man with whom he was meeting would not expose him." MI5's records support this professional assessment.

Hansen's meetings fit the GPU's infiltration pattern documented in KV files.

The KV series demonstrates that the GPU consistently engaged in behaviours such as approaching potential informants with benign pretexts, using "chance encounters" as operational cover, cultivating contacts within host organisations, exploiting personal vulnerabilities and political naivety, and depending on secrecy and compartmentalisation. Hansen's conduct—secret meetings, concealment, sharing internal documents, and maintaining silence for decades—closely aligns with this pattern.

 MI5's files contradict Renton's minimisation

Renton suggests Hansen might have been seeking assistance to "catch Trotsky's killer," but MI5's files show this idea is unfounded. The GPU's American residency was not a source of information for Trotskyists; it was the organiser of the assassination plot. No reputable intelligence agency would interpret Hansen's meetings as harmless. The KV files also reveal what MI5 failed to do: it did not investigate Hansen, did not address the SWP's internal security issues, did not uncover GPU infiltration of the Fourth International, and did not pursue the American side of the assassination plot.

This silence is politically significant. Britain did not investigate Hansen because the FBI was cultivating informants within the SWP, Hansen was politically useful to American intelligence, and revealing GPU infiltration in Trotskyism would have embarrassed Western agencies. The Cold War context demanded the erasure of the history of Stalinist crimes. MI5's files indicate that the British authorities understood the GPU's tactics well but chose not to expose Hansen's involvement.

The FO series contains diplomatic letters about Trotsky's exile in Norway and Mexico. These documents show that Britain knew about a Soviet-led plan to assassinate Trotsky. The Foreign Office monitored GPU activities in Scandinavia and Mexico and discussed Stalinist efforts to restrict Trotsky's mobility. After the Siqueiros raid in May 1940, Britain received reports confirming GPU participation. The FO files present Trotsky's murder not as the act of a lone fanatic but as a state operation, challenging the common view of the assassination as a minor act by Renton and others.

The HO series contains intelligence records concerning political organisations in Britain, including Trotskyist groups. These documents show that British security agencies monitored Soviet efforts to infiltrate left-wing organisations. MI5 and the Home Office exchanged information about GPU agents operating throughout Europe and America. After the war, reports pointed to GPU infiltration of Trotskyist movements as a significant intelligence challenge. The HO files support the pattern observed by the ICFI: the GPU used extensive, long-established networks rather than isolated agents. This pattern is precisely what Hansen's supporters refuse to recognise.

COI Files: Propaganda, Intelligence, and the Political Use of Silence

The COI (Central Office of Information) series includes wartime and post-war propaganda and intelligence coordination documents. These files reveal that Britain's propaganda efforts avoided publicly discussing GPU infiltration of Trotskyist groups. The British government collaborated with American intelligence to suppress politically sensitive information. The assassination of Trotsky was handled as a diplomatic matter rather than something to be publicly disclosed.

The COI files reveal that the silence was driven by political motives: admitting GPU involvement in the Trotskyist movement would have exposed the cooperation of Western intelligence agencies, like the FBI, which had informants within the SWP. This context highlights the importance of Hansen's October 23, 1940, letter—in which he wrote, "I received your letter concerning Mr Sackett … and shall visit him shortly"—as notably significant. Sackett was the FBI's chief in the New York District. Hansen's secret communication with the FBI, which began just eleven days after Trotsky's assassination, fits seamlessly with the intelligence operations described in the COI files.

What the British State Did Not Investigate: The Silence That Speaks

The Kew archives notably lack records of investigations into Hansen's contacts with the FBI or GPU, inquiries into the SWP's internal security issues, or efforts to trace the American side of the assassination plan. They also do not follow up on Robert Sheldon Harte, despite Venona confirming his GPU involvement, nor do they reveal GPU networks within Trotskyist groups. This silence suggests political motives: Britain did not investigate Hansen because he aligned with American intelligence, and SWP leaders suppressed the issue. Academic Trotskyists like Deutscher and Renton have downplayed Hansen's actions. During the Cold War, admitting GPU infiltration of Trotskyism was politically inconvenient. The archives support the ICFI's key point: the cover-up was organisational and international.

The Historical and Political Stakes

The assassination of Leon Trotsky is arguably the most consequential political killing of the twentieth century. The GPU's infiltration of the Fourth International was a calculated effort by the state, not a random act. Reviewing British archives at Kew alongside Soviet, Mexican, American, and ICFI records reveals the global scope of this crime. Renton's methods—marked by fragmentation, speculation, minimisation—are inconsistent with the archival evidence. His backing of Hansen appears to be driven more by political motives to defend a long-standing cover-up than by scholarly rigour.

The working class requires the truth, and only the ICFI's investigation makes a serious effort to find it. The Kew files, rather than undermining this investigation, reinforce its main findings: Hansen helped hide GPU operations, and both the British and American governments were prepared to support the cover-up. The effort to uncover the truth about Trotsky's murder is deeply connected to the current fight to build revolutionary leadership among the working class.

 

Laurence Rees and the Sanitisation of Fascism: A Marxist Critique of The Holocaust: A New History

Laurence Rees has carved a niche by transforming the darkest moments of the 20th century into engaging television history. His book, The Holocaust: A New History, follows this trend with refined language, compelling anecdotes, and a narrative flow that guides readers through one of humanity’s gravest crimes. However, behind this accessible storytelling is a significant political dodge. Rees’s “new history" isn’t actually new; it repeats the classic bourgeois approach—psychologizing fascism, blaming individuals, and disconnecting genocide from the capitalist crisis that caused it.

Rees’s main argument is that the Holocaust resulted from a dangerous blend of Hitler’s ideological fixations, increasing bureaucratic extremism, and the moral decay of ordinary Germans. This aligns with the common “cumulative radicalisation” concept: suggesting no single cause or dominant class, but rather a tragic slide into barbarism. This story tends to exculpate the German bourgeoisie, overlook the betrayals within the workers’ movement, and treat fascism as a moral lesson instead of a political tool. This is not genuine history; it is a form of historical neglect.

The Holocaust Without Capitalism

Rees’s book is noteworthy for what it leaves out. The Holocaust was not an isolated event; it stemmed from a political campaign aimed at dismantling the organized working class, eradicating socialism, and reorganizing society under the dominance of monopoly capitalism. Fascism was more than a mere mass psychological upheaval—it was a form of counterrevolution.

Rees’s narrative barely depicts capitalism; the German ruling class is merely in the background. Industrialists funding Hitler, agrarian elites opposing labor, and military leaders viewing fascism as a shield against Bolshevism—all disappear into a mist of “ideology,” “hatred,” and “radicalisation." This omission is deliberate; it stems from an ideological perspective.

Similar to Hitler’s Charisma, Rees is influenced by the “great man" theory, portraying Hitler as the key figure shaping history through his obsessions, resentments, and worldview. He views the Holocaust as stemming from Hitler's disturbed imagination. However, Hitler was not just a malevolent figure; he also represented particular class interests.

His racial ideology was adopted as state policy because it supported German capitalist interests during crises—encouraging expansion, forced labor, destroying socialist and Jewish intellectual hubs, and quelling political opposition. “Fascism in power is… the most ruthless dictatorship of monopoly capital.” Rees is unable to challenge this. Doing so would threaten to unravel his entire argument.

The Petty Bourgeoisie: The Missing Social Actor

Rees’s account of the Holocaust frames German society as a moral terrain—distinguishing between good people, bad people, bystanders, and perpetrators. However, it omits the underlying class structure. The petty bourgeoisie—comprising ruined shopkeepers, clerks, artisans, and farmers who supported fascism—is depicted as psychological types rather than social agents. Trotsky’s insight remains relevant: "A particle of Hitler is lodged in every exasperated petty bourgeois." Understanding the Holocaust requires examining the class panic that propelled millions toward National Socialism. Rees’s neglect of this class dynamic causes his “new history” to appear detached from the actual social and economic realities.

Rees emphasizes the Nazi bureaucracy—its rivalries, radicalization, and slide into genocidal efficiency. However, bureaucracy is not an autonomous force; it is a tool. The key question is: whose tool? The German state did not become radical on its own. The political demands of the ruling class shaped it. The destruction of European Jewry was directly linked to German imperialism's war goals: conquest, labour exploitation, and the eradication of political foes. Rees portrays the Holocaust as a bureaucratic tragedy, but the true Holocaust was a class-based undertaking.

The Moralisation of Genocide

Rees’s narrative is filled with moral terms—evil, hatred, cruelty, complicity—which typify bourgeois Holocaust historiography. It reframes genocide as a moral lesson instead of a political warning, suggesting that the Holocaust occurred because of human wickedness rather than as a consequence of capitalism's severe crisis, leading the bourgeoisie to fascism to maintain power.

This moral framing is politically convenient, as it shifts focus from systemic issues to human nature itself. It proposes that preventing future genocides depends on vigilance and education, rather than revolutionary action by the working class.

Why Rees’s Approach Is Dangerous Today

We live in a time marked by a global capitalist crisis, increasing authoritarianism, and the resurgence of fascist movements. In this context, Rees’s depoliticized Holocaust account is not only inadequate but also dangerous. It encourages readers to fear hatred itself instead of the social conditions that foster fascism. It implies that genocide results from ideology rather than class interests. "The only guarantee against its return is the building of a revolutionary party of the working class." Rees presents a different lesson: emphasizing moral vigilance, psychological awareness, and a naive belief in liberal democracy. This mindset portrays a society obliviously heading toward catastrophe.

Conclusion: A Holocaust Without History

Laurence Rees’s The Holocaust: A New History isn't truly a new history. It presents the traditional bourgeois story in contemporary language: portraying fascism as moral decay, genocide as a form of extreme ideology, Hitler as the main leader, and capitalism as the unseen foundation. This history lacks class analysis, political economy, and the revolutionary insights humanity urgently requires. It depicts a Holocaust devoid of historical context—and, as a result, offers no warning about the tragic consequences.

Bibliography: Works by Laurence Rees on the Holocaust

Books

• Rees, Laurence. The Holocaust: A New History. Viking / Ebury Press, 2017.
• Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: The Nazis and the “Final Solution”. BBC Books, 2005.
• Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. PublicAffairs, 2005 (US edition).
• Rees, Laurence. The Nazis: A Warning from History. BBC Books, 1997.
• Rees, Laurence. Their Darkest Hour: People Tested to the Limit in WWII. Ebury Press, 2017 (includes Holocaust material).

Documentary Series (Primary Sources for His Interpretive Method)

• Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution (BBC, 2005).
• The Holocaust: A New History (BBC Radio 4 series, 2017).
• The Nazis: A Warning from History (BBC, 1997).

Critical Marxist and Historical Sources

• Trotsky, Leon. The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany. Pathfinder Press, 1971.
• North, David. The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo‑Left. Mehring Books, 2015.
• Broszat, Martin. The Hitler State. Longman, 1981.
• Friedländer, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews. HarperCollins, 1997–2007.
• Aly, Götz. Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State. Metropolitan Books, 2007.

 

A Marxist Critique of Laurence Rees’s Hitler’s Charisma

 

Laurence Rees’s Hitler’s Charisma joins many works that try to explain the rise of National Socialism by focusing on Adolf Hitler's personal magnetism. Rees depicts Hitler as an exceptionally skilled manipulator whose “charisma” enchanted millions and drove him to power. However, this view is not only insufficient but also deeply misleading. It exemplifies the bourgeois “great man” approach to history, which replaces broader social analysis and political context with individual personality traits and psychology.

Rees’s argument is seen as "fundamentally flawed from a Marxist perspective" because it reverses cause and effect. Hitler’s charisma did not drive fascism; instead, it emerged from specific historical and class contexts. As Trotsky stated: “The leader is always a relation between people; the individual supplies to meet the collective demand.” Rees views charisma as an independent force beyond society, whereas Marxism considers it a social relationship—an ideological distortion reflecting class conflicts in crisis.

Rees’s framework is inherently political because it depoliticizes fascism by concentrating only on Hitler’s personality as its origin. This approach neglects the contributions of the German bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, and betrayals from the workers' party in the historical analysis. As a result, fascism is viewed more as a mass psychological phenomenon rather than a political movement rooted in class conflict. The 'charisma framework' deliberately distorts causal links—a common technique in bourgeois historiography—to conceal fascism's class roots and preserve capitalist legitimacy.

The Class Basis of Fascism

Rees’s perspective misses the social context of Weimar Germany, while Trotsky’s approach begins with class structure. Fascism arose from the fear and despair of the petty bourgeoisie—shopkeepers, artisans, clerks, and ruined peasants—caught between monopoly capital and the organized working class. Trotsky highlights: "Not every exasperated petty bourgeois could have become Hitler, but a particle of Hitler is lodged in every exasperated petty bourgeois.”

Hitler did not originate this movement; rather, the movement influenced him. His “charisma" was a mirror of the collective frustrations of a class teetering on social collapse. Rees’s book overlooks this context, instead portraying Hitler’s appeal as a psychological enigma akin to hypnotic suggestion. This distorts the historical truth.

Rees’s work fundamentally overlooks the influence of the German ruling class. Hitler's rise wasn't solely due to charisma; it was orchestrated by the bourgeoisie—including Papen, Hugenberg, Thyssen, Krupp, and Schacht—who viewed him as a tool to suppress the working class and eliminate democratic rights. As Trotsky stated, “Fascism in power is least of all the rule of the petty bourgeoisie… it is the most ruthless dictatorship of monopoly capital.”

Rees’s book cannot acknowledge this, as doing so would reveal fascism as a product of capitalism rather than Hitler’s personality. Consequently, the charisma thesis is not only incorrect but also politically misleading. 

The Frankfurt School Legacy: Psychology Over Class

Rees’s view exemplifies the postwar shift of the Frankfurt School from class analysis toward cultural and psychological explanations. “By attributing the roots of fascism to Hitler’s personal traits, Rees shifts focus away from the class forces that shaped him," illustrating how his book recasts fascism as a cultural disorder, an enlightenment failure, or a mass psychological problem. As a result, key historical figures—the German bourgeoisie, Social Democratic leaders, and Stalinist bureaucracy—are left out of the narrative.

The primary political risk linked to Hitler’s charisma is the false belief that fascism can be prevented by solely monitoring individual personalities rather than transforming society as a whole. When charismatic demagogues are viewed as the main cause of fascism, the usual 'solutions' focus on vigilance against authoritarian figures, psychological education, and media literacy. Nonetheless, fascism is not just a personality trait; it is, in fact, "a political tool of the bourgeoisie used during times when the capitalist system is no longer sustainable through democratic methods." The key lesson from the 20th century isn't simply to "beware of charismatic leaders," but to develop an independent revolutionary movement led by the working class.

Conclusion

Laurence Rees’s Hitler’s Charisma is a well-produced historical narrative designed for a general audience. However, it lacks depth in theory and may be misleading politically. By concentrating only on Hitler's personal appeal, Rees neglects the economic and social forces that facilitated Hitler’s rise and that could support similar leaders again. The key issue isn't ‘how did Hitler control millions?’ but ‘why were so many people susceptible?’ An in-depth fascism analysis should consider the crisis of capitalism, the decline of the middle class, betrayals by workers’ parties, and actions by the bourgeoisie. Rees’s work, however, avoids these crucial causes, offering merely comfort rather than insight—something society doesn't need now, as the roots of fascism are re-emerging.

 

James Harrington and the Bourgeois Republic: A Polemical Reassessment

James Harrington, born in January 1611, holds a unique and revealing role in the intellectual history of the English Revolution. Unlike Levellers, Diggers, or advocates for social equality, he was a prominent theorist of the rising gentry—the class that overthrew the old monarchy but was wary of social change extending beyond property rights. Despite his background, Harrington offered a profound insight: that "political power flows from property," highlighting the crucial link between landownership and political authority.

This single sentence, stripped of its republican veneer, reveals a truth that bourgeois political science has long tried to hide. Harrington recognised that the English Revolution was not merely a conflict between a tyrant and his rivals but a reflection of a deep shift in land ownership. The dissolution of monasteries, the sale of crown estates, and the gradual decline of feudal tenures all changed the economic foundation of English society. The monarchy did not fall simply because Charles I was stubborn; it collapsed because its economic base had eroded. As Harrington explained, “The cause lay in the soil, in who owned it and who worked it.”

This was a significant breakthrough. Harrington recognised, even if imperfectly, that political structures originate from property relations. Marx later acknowledged him—quite dryly, in a footnote—as one of the “imaginative” thinkers who had seen the link between economic systems and political authority. While Harrington did not yet see property as a social relation of production, but rather as a thing to be allocated, he nevertheless understood enough to reject the conspiratorial explanations popular at his time.

The Gentry’s Republic

Harrington’s materialism was confined to the interests of his class. He was a thinker for the gentry, not the common people. His well-known “agrarian law,” which set caps on land holdings, was more about safeguarding existing power than promoting equality. It aimed to block the return of a landed elite that could threaten the republic. Harrington sought to halt the revolution at the stage where the property-owning middle class had already gained control.

The lower orders—the copyholders, the landless labourers, the urban poor—were excluded from political life. Harrington’s commonwealth was not a democracy; it was a constitutional mechanism for stabilising the rule of property owners. His elaborate system of rotation, indirect elections, and the separation of debating from voting was designed to prevent factional domination, but equally to prevent the masses from exercising political power. It was republicanism for gentlemen.

This was the core contradiction of the English Revolution. The Levellers and Diggers derived much more radical conclusions from the same assumptions. If political authority is tied to property, then true democracy would demand the elimination of property distinctions. Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers recognised this so clearly that it scared both Cromwell and the propertied republicans. In contrast, Harrington aimed to stop the revolution right at the start of social change.

Harrington, Winstanley, Milton, Spinoza: A Comparison of Revolutionary Thought

The English Revolution and the broader seventeenth-century crisis sparked the emergence of a group of political thinkers whose ideas are closely linked to the social classes they represented. Harrington, Winstanley, Milton, and Spinoza were not merely detached intellectuals; they embodied the specific interests of different social groups and reacted to the decline of feudalism alongside the rise of bourgeois society. Their differences extend beyond ideas—they are fundamentally rooted in material circumstances, reflecting the evolving conflict over property arrangements. Comparing them dialectically reveals how each thinker sheds light on a particular aspect of a transitioning world, while also being limited by their class perspectives.

Harrington: The Gentry’s Materialist

Harrington marks a turning point in modern political science by recognising that “political power flows from property.” He saw the English Revolution not as a conflict of personalities, but as a reflection of changes in landownership. His republicanism represented the ideology of a rising gentry class aiming to secure its newfound dominance. He was the first to systematically connect property distribution with political structure, offering a proto-materialist view of the revolution: “The cause lay in the soil, in who owned it and who worked it.” His constitutional ideas sought to prevent oligarchic reassertion, but his agrarian law prioritised protecting property over promoting equality, excluding the propertyless from political participation. He aimed to halt the revolution at the point where gentry power was solidified. Consequently, Harrington is viewed as an early theorist of bourgeois republicanism—knowledgeable but ultimately limited by class interests.

 Winstanley: The Proletarian Prophet of the Revolution

Harrington voiced the ambitions of the gentry, while Gerrard Winstanley expressed the nascent awareness of the modern working class. The Diggers were more than just agrarian communists; they were the first political movement to follow Harrington’s premise logically. If power correlates with property, then democracy must mean the abolition of private property. Their radical materialism was rooted in the lived experience of dispossession and envisioned common ownership, anticipating socialist ideas. They critiqued both monarchy and bourgeois republicanism as forms of class control. Historically, their ideas were premature because the productive forces had not yet advanced enough to support a society beyond private property. They also lacked a clear organisational strategy to challenge the army and the state effectively. Winstanley embodies the revolutionary strain that the English Revolution could not fully realise. He is the negation of Harrington, representing the voice of those excluded from the gentry’s republic.

Milton: The Intellectual of the Revolutionary Bourgeoisie

Milton’s stance is complex and somewhat contradictory. Unlike Harrington, who defended property, or Winstanley, who was a communist, Milton was a poet-theorist representing the revolutionary bourgeoisie. He championed liberty, opposed tyranny, yet was ultimately reluctant to challenge the sanctity of property. His republicanism, rooted in human dignity and reason, strongly critiqued monarchy as both a spiritual and a political form of oppression. He envisioned liberty beyond narrow constitutional limits, yet maintained his republican ideals, aligned with the interests of educated, propertied citizens. Milton hesitated to accept the Leveller and Digger proposals that challenged property relations. His idea of freedom was more individualistic than social. In this way, Milton occupies a middle ground between Harrington and Winstanley: more progressive than Harrington, but less radical than Winstanley. He embodies the most idealistic phase of the bourgeois revolution.

Spinoza: The Continental Counterpart—Materialism Without Revolution

Spinoza, writing in the Dutch Republic, faced a different social context but dealt with similar contradictions. His political philosophy is the most philosophically detailed among the four, though also the most removed from immediate revolutionary action. It is based on a profound materialism grounded in natural necessity rather than divine command. He advocates for democratic participation as an expression of collective rationality and recognises that freedom is inseparable from the conditions that enable it. His materialism remains philosophical rather than rooted in history. Unlike Harrington, he did not see property as a key factor in shaping political systems. His democratic theory assumes social stability, which seventeenth-century England lacked. Thus, Spinoza can be seen as the philosophical counterpart to Harrington: both are materialists, but Harrington’s focus is on class struggle, whereas Spinoza’s is on metaphysics.

The Bourgeois Legacy

After the monarchy was restored in 1660, Harrington’s ideas did not vanish; they went underground and later influenced the radical Whig movement and shaped the American and French revolutions. However, class restrictions persisted. The American republic, grounded in Harringtonian ideas of balanced government and property-based citizenship, was constructed on slavery, the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, and a constitution—Madison openly acknowledged—that aimed to safeguard the interests of the “opulent minority” against the majority.

Harrington’s republicanism thus served as a key ideological basis for bourgeois rule: a political system that claims equality but is supported by deep economic inequality.

Why Harrington Matters Today

We revisit Harrington not due to curiosity about history, but because his identified contradiction has become most apparent. The accumulation of wealth among a global financial elite has weakened bourgeois democratic institutions. Elections are bought, legislatures are controlled, and the state operates as the capitalist class's executive arm. The fundamental myth of bourgeois republicanism—that political equality can exist alongside significant economic inequality—has broken down.

Harrington’s strength was demonstrating that this fiction was fundamentally false. Political structures are linked to property relations, and a society dominated by capital will create a state that benefits capital.

Beyond Harrington: The Socialist Resolution

Harrington was unable to conclude what history called for due to the limitations of his era. While he recognised that property influenced power, he did not believe that democracy necessitated abolishing private control over the means of production. This insight would come only with the rise of the modern working class and the theoretical contributions of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. The English Revolution resulted in a republic dominated by property owners; in contrast, the socialist revolution aims to establish a republic of cooperative producers. Only by the working class gaining political control, dismantling the bourgeois state, and socialising the means of production can the contradiction Harrington observed be resolved.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

• Harrington, James. The Commonwealth of Oceana. London, 1656.
• Winstanley, Gerrard. The Law of Freedom in a Platform. London, 1652.

Secondary Sources

• Marx, Karl. Capital, Vol. I. London: Penguin Classics, 1976.
• Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. London: Penguin, 1972.
• Pocock, J.G.A. The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.
• Wood, Ellen Meiksins. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View. London: Verso, 2002.
• Holstun, James. Ehud’s Dagger: Class Struggle in the English Revolution. London: Verso, 2000.
• Hammersley, Rachel. The English Republican Tradition and Eighteenth-Century France. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010.

 

 

Imperial Hubris Then and Now: Thucydides, Kirshner, and the Crisis of American Hegemony

Jonathan Kirshner’s essay in Foreign Affairs goes beyond just reinterpreting Thucydides. It serves as a political statement from a segment of the American foreign-policy establishment that is growing more concerned about the Trump administration’s frank declaration of the “iron laws” of imperialist violence. Kirshner is not opposed to American power. He is opposed to its stupid exercise. Therefore, his critique doesn’t reject empire entirely but seeks to reform or preserve it. By exploring the historical parallels Kirshner hints at, we can better understand what his argument uncovers—and hides—about the American imperialism crisis in 2026.[1]

Athens and the United States: Imperial Democracies in Decline

Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War serves as the fundamental work of realist international relations. It details the rise and decline of the Athenian empire, a naval power with democratic governance that also exercised brutal control overseas. Similarly, the United States has historically portrayed itself as a democratic nation whose global leadership is both inevitable and benevolent.

Kirshner’s unease with Trump stems from his removal of the ideological disguise. Stephen Miller’s statement that the world is “governed by force” and “governed by power” reflects the straightforward Athenian logic of the Melian Dialogue, expressed plainly without euphemism.

The comparison is clear: Athens operated as a democracy, managing an empire through tribute, coercion, and military strength. Likewise, the United States is a democracy that rules a global empire using financial influence, military bases, sanctions, and alliances like "coalitions of the willing." Both countries justified their dominance with universalist rhetoric—Athens with "freedom" and America with “democracy”—but enforced subjugation through significant force.

Melos and Venezuela: The Strong Do What They Can

The Melian Dialogue is a well-known excerpt from Thucydides. Athens demands that Melos submit; Melos appeals to justice; Athens responds, “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” Afterwards, the Athenians massacre the men and enslave the women and children.

The similarity to Venezuela is difficult to ignore. In 2026, the United States kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro, conducted covert operations, and threatened military intervention. These actions represent a “qualitative escalation in the criminality of American imperialism.”

The US justification—that Venezuela threatens regional stability, democracy, or human rights—serves as a typical ideological pretext that Thucydides would expose as baseless. However, Trump’s foreign-policy team went further, openly stating that force is the dominant principle in international affairs. Melos was destroyed not for its danger but for its defiance. Venezuela is targeted not due to any threat to the US but because it resists American dominance. 

Sicily and Iran: Imperial Overreach and Catastrophe

Some argue that Thucydides’ real lesson isn’t the Melian Dialogue but the Sicilian Expedition, where Athenian hubris caused catastrophe. Similarly, Trump’s reckless actions risk a comparable disaster. The analogy with Iran is strong. Athens believed its power was unlimited during the Sicilian Expedition, underestimating resistance, overextending, and facing destruction. Likewise, the US has issued repeated threats of bombing, regime change, and economic sanctions against Iran. However, Iran, a large and capable nation with regional allies and asymmetric tactics, presents a different challenge.

A potential war with Iran would be similar to the modern Sicilian disaster: it would involve a prolonged, large-scale conflict with heavy casualties, trigger a global economic shock, cause alliances to break down, and intensify domestic crises. Kirshner’s warning is pragmatic, emphasising that excessive imperial ambitions could threaten the empire's survival.

The Collapse of the “Rules‑Based Order”: From Pericles to Pompeo

The post-1945 “rules-based international order” functions similarly to the Periclean ideology, serving as a legitimising story for imperial domination. However, this order “was never a true limit on American aggression—rather, it was a tool for navigating inter-imperialist conflicts amid US dominance.” Just as Athens used democratic rhetoric to conceal its coercive empire, the US’s claim to uphold international law conceals its global dominance.

When Athens faced a crisis, its democratic facade faltered, leading to the execution of generals, the purging of dissidents, and chaos. Similarly, in 2026, the U.S. is experiencing a decline: mass deportations, press suppression, civil service purges, overt authoritarian language, and militarised police. These actions are inciting increased strikes and protests, showing that imperialism’s crisis translates into a democratic crisis.

Kirshner’s idea of a ‘real Thucydides trap” suggests that imperial overreach leads to disaster. However, this isn’t an unchanging psychological rule but rather a particular manifestation of capitalism’s inherent contradictions during its imperialist phase.

Lenin showed that imperialism is an unavoidable result of monopoly capitalism, driven by the pursuit of profit. This drive leads to expansion, which in turn causes conflict, ultimately resulting in crises. The ‘iron law’ of imperialist barbarism will be confronted with the ‘iron law’ of the class struggle. The working class is not merely a passive victim of imperial decline; it is the active force capable of overthrowing the system responsible for war.

The Lesson for the Working Class

The working class does not prefer either Trump’s blunt imperialism or Kirshner’s polished version, as both are factions of the same oligarchy. Both approaches lead to war, austerity, and dictatorship. The response to Trump’s ‘might makes right’ mentality isn’t a reinstatement of the polite imperialism associated with the Council on Foreign Relations, but rather the international mobilisation of the working class and the building of a global socialist society.

This is Thucydides' key lesson when viewed from a Marxist perspective: Empires decline not due to imprudence but because of exploitation. Imperial democracies crumble as their internal contradictions grow unmanageable. The working class alone has the power to end imperialist wars. Athens fell, and the American empire is currently facing its Sicilian moment. The responsibility of the working class is not to preserve it but to replace it.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

• Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War.
• Lenin, V.I. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.
• Trotsky, Leon. In Defence of Marxism: The Revolution Betrayed.

Secondary Sources (Classical and IR)

• Kagan, Donald. The Peloponnesian War.
• Meiggs, Russell. The Athenian Empire.
• Finley, M.I. The Ancient Economy.
• Badian, E. From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography of the Pentecontaetia.
• Gilpin, Robert. War and Change in World Politics.
• Keohane, Robert. After Hegemony.
• Mearsheimer, John. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
• Kirshner, Jonathan. “The Real Thucydides Trap.” Foreign Affairs (2026).

Marxist and WSWS Analyses

• North, David. The Crisis of American Democracy.
• International Committee of the Fourth International. The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party.
• Damon, Andre. WSWS Perspectives on US foreign policy (2025–2026).
• Walsh, Bill Van Auken, and other WSWS correspondents on Venezuela, Iran, and the “rules‑based order.”

 

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[1] The Strong Do What They Can—and Suffer What They Must: What Thucydides Really Thought About Power Jonathan Kirshner- www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/strong-do-what-they-can-and-suffer-what-they-must

Letter to T. G. Otte and The Coming Storm

Sir,

Your reply exemplifies the genre: sophisticated, polite, and carefully balanced—yet it entirely avoids addressing the central issue. You claim that your initial letter was “modest,” merely reminding readers of the “plurality” of interpretations surrounding 1914. But modesty does not equal neutrality, and plurality is not inherently virtuous when it functions to obscure decisive historical realities.

The core issue is not whether historians may legitimately differ; they always have, and they always will. The issue is why, in 2026, an expanding body of scholarship seeks to explain the origins of the First World War through vague concepts such as “complexity,” “interplay,” and “multiple explanations,” while systematically avoiding the one category that renders those explanations coherent: imperialism.

You argue that emphasising imperialism “elevates any one causal chain to the status of dogma.” Yet imperialism is not a dogma. It is a historically specific stage of capitalist development, analysed with scientific precision by Lenin, Luxemburg, and Bukharin, and confirmed by the subsequent course of the 20th century.¹ This framework clarifies why the great powers were driven into conflict, why diplomacy repeatedly failed, and why the July Crisis unfolded as it did. To treat imperialism as merely one “mode of explanation” among many is not methodological pluralism—it is historical abdication.

Your defence of Thucydides reveals further ideological implications. You claim that invoking him was simply a caution against unreflective analogies. But the very choice of Thucydides—whose narrative naturalises great‑power conflict as an eternal feature of human affairs—already performs ideological work.² It shifts attention away from the capitalist foundations of modern war and toward timeless geopolitical tragedy. This is precisely the function Thucydides serves in contemporary strategic discourse, from Graham Allison’s “Thucydides Trap” to Pentagon doctrinal literature.³ You may not intend to naturalise conflict, but the analogy does so nonetheless.

Your portrayal of Sir Edward Grey exemplifies how diplomatic history sanitises imperialism. You argue that praising Grey’s “skill” does not equate to endorsing British imperialism. Yet Grey’s diplomacy cannot be disentangled from the imperial interests it served. The London Conference of 1912–13 was not a display of statesmanship but an imperialist partition of the Balkans.⁴ Its short‑term success did not demonstrate the vitality of the Concert of Europe; it revealed the limits of diplomatic management under conditions of irreconcilable imperialist antagonisms. To describe this as a “settlement” is to adopt the perspective of the imperial powers themselves.

Your conclusion urges caution, warning against “conscripting the past into present‑day battles.” But the past is already being conscripted—by governments preparing for war, by think tanks rehabilitating great‑power rivalry, and by historians who, knowingly or not, provide intellectual cover for these developments. The relativisation of German responsibility for 1914, the elevation of “complexity” over causality, and the retreat from the category of imperialism are not neutral scholarly trends. They are ideological responses to a world in which the great powers are once again hurtling toward conflict.

The working class requires clarity, not cultivated ambiguity; analysis, not interpretative pluralism; and above all, recognition that imperialist war is not a tragic accident but the inevitable product of capitalism. To obscure this truth is not modest—it is dangerous.

Yours faithfully, 

Keith Livesey

Footnotes

1. V. I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916); Rosa Luxemburg, The Accumulation of Capital (1913); Nikolai Bukharin, Imperialism and World Economy (1915). These works established the theoretical foundations for understanding imperialism as a structural stage of capitalist development, not a diplomatic phenomenon.
2. Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War has long been used to frame great‑power conflict as cyclical and inevitable, a tendency reinforced by realist international relations theory from Hans Morgenthau to John Mearsheimer.
3. Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (2017). Allison’s thesis has been widely adopted in US strategic circles, often without critical engagement with its ideological implications.
4. For a detailed account of the London Conference and its imperialist character, see Sean McMeekin, The Balkan Wars (2012), and Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions (1969), which situate the Balkan crises within the broader imperialist rivalries of the pre‑1914 period.

 

Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation: A Marxist Analysis of Rebellion, Class, and Cultural Absorption

The Problem of the Beat Generation in Historical Perspective

Allen Ginsberg was born on June 3, 1926, in Newark, New Jersey. His centenary this year coincides with a resurgence of the conditions that inspired his most famous work — including fears of nuclear destruction, the depletion of intellectual and political engagement, and a sense of a generation caught between falsehoods and a lack of visible revolutionary options. It is valuable to explore what Ginsberg achieved, what he was unable to accomplish, and what his legacy reveals about the connection between art and the working class in the 20th century.

A rigorous Marxist examination of Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation must start with the real historical circumstances that led to their emergence. The Beats did not appear out of nowhere, nor were they merely a sudden burst of bohemian innovation. Instead, they represented the cultural response to a distinct period in American capitalism: the post-war strengthening of imperialist dominance, the dismantling of organised leftist movements, and the ideological suppression enforced by Cold War conformity.

Ginsberg appeared in the mid-1950s, a time characterised by McCarthyite witch hunts, the collapse of the Communist Party, and the dominance of the “American way of life” as a tool for class control. This era was the 'grey post-World War II doldrums, built on false material promises.' The political, organisational, and psychological defeat of the working class during this period provides the essential context for works such as Howl, Kerouac’s On the Road, and the Beat movement as a whole. Their rebellion was genuine but influenced and constrained by the conditions of its emergence.

Post‑War America: Reaction, Conformity, and the Defeat of the Left

The Second World War concluded with the United States establishing unparalleled global dominance. The development of the atomic bomb, the Bretton Woods system, and a sustained war economy laid the foundation for the post-war economic expansion. However, this prosperity was fuelled by domestic political repression and imperialist violence overseas.

The American working class, which had organised large-scale strikes in the 1930s and early 1940s, was left politically powerless. The Stalinist Communist Party, already plagued by bureaucratic decline, was fractured by McCarthyism. Meanwhile, the trade-union bureaucracy aligned itself with the Cold War state. Consequently, this led to a time of relative silence, during which authentic left-wing politics were suppressed or pushed underground.

Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs grew up amid an environment of ideological repression. Ginsberg’s mother, Naomi, a communist, was institutionalised and harmed by American psychiatry's brutal practices. This context is crucial, forming the psychological background that led to Howl, a poem reflecting both personal trauma and broader historical loss. 

The Artistic Achievement of Howl: Protest in a Time of Silence

Ginsberg's "Howl," composed in 1955 and published in 1956 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights Books, continues to be one of the most widely read poems of the 20th century — with over a million copies sold and translated into nearly every language. Its famous opening line — "I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked" — has become iconic in the literary world.

A Marxist interpretation does not negate the artistic strength of Howl. Instead, its power comes from capturing the contradictions of its era. The opening line — "I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness" — is more than a personal lament; it serves as a critique of a generation of intellectuals and artists who struggled to find their place within the rigid, conformist culture of Cold War America.

The poem’s critique of “Moloch — whose soul is electricity and banks!” serves as an early, sincere protest against capitalism. It emphasises the horror of sacrificing human lives to the gods of profit and war. Andras Gyorgy points out that Howl is a protest poem grounded in real historical experiences — including the draft, the Bomb, mental hospitals, the “scholars of war,” and young men “trembling before the machinery of other skeletons.” This is not abstract; it reflects lived reality. The 1957 obscenity trial, which concluded that the poem had “redeeming social importance,” was itself a political statement. The defenders of official culture recognised that Ginsberg’s rage, though potentially misdirected, was ultimately directed at them.

However, artistic success does not free the Beats from class analysis, as their rebellion was essentially petty-bourgeois. While they opposed American capitalist conformism, they did so through individualistic withdrawal rather than collective action. They pursued liberation via drugs, sex, mysticism, and travel instead of mobilising the working class. Their shift toward Buddhism, psychedelics, and personal transcendence mirrored the political emptiness left by the decline of the left. Without revolutionary politics, spiritualism became a substitute.

When Ginsberg mentions those “who distributed Super communist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing,” he is referring not to revolutionary activism but to a personal crisis. The reference to the “Fifth International” in the poem’s footnote is a poetic device, not an endorsement of political ideals. Ginsberg had no ties to Trotskyism and did not aim to establish a revolutionary party.

Trotsky’s analysis of Futurism in Literature and Revolution offers a useful theoretical comparison. He acknowledged the Futurists’ authentic challenge to bourgeois artistic norms, while also criticising their bohemian origins and disconnect from the proletariat. A similar dialectic exists with the Beats: their rebellion was genuine, but because of its class foundation, it stayed confined within bourgeois society.

Art and the Working Class

The centenary of Ginsberg's birth raises the question that the Beats themselves could never answer: what would a genuinely revolutionary art look like? The answer cannot be found in bohemian subcultures, however sincere their disgust with bourgeois society. It can only be found in the reconnection of artistic work to the struggles of the international working class.

The Stalinist counter-revolution in the Soviet Union and the betrayals by social democracy broke the connection between artists and the working class during the 20th century. The Beats were a consequence of this rupture. They experienced the horrors of capitalism—the atomic bomb, the conformist postwar America, and the destruction of authentic intellectual pursuits—but lacked access to a social force capable of challenging it. Their mysticism, drug use, and focus on spontaneous individual "kicks" were not strategies for change but expressions of political powerlessness.

Ginsberg's footnote to "Howl" famously proclaims, "Holy the Fifth International." It was a vision he could not realize. The Fourth International, established by Trotsky in 1938, was the body that preserved revolutionary Marxism's continuity throughout the upheavals of the mid-20th century. However, the Beats never aligned with it. Factors like the American Trotskyist movement's political marginalization, the intense pressures of McCarthyism, and the pull of the Democratic Party along with the rising "New Left" all hindered any such connection.

Ginsberg and Kerouac's journey from early rebellion to later commercialisation reflects a social process rather than a personal failure. The early Ginsberg—"the man in the Brooks Brothers jacket… desperately trying to ‘go straight’"—created work of true anguish, with 'Howl' emerging from a crisis that was both personal and historical. By the 1970s, however, Ginsberg was described as "all show biz." He had become a campus performer and a countercultural icon, chanting over Kerouac’s grave alongside Bob Dylan. The poet who once emphasised the rawness of his art had become a familiar figure within the institutions he initially condemned.

Kerouac’s decline was more tragic. The poet of the open road died as a bloated alcoholic and a conservative supporter of William Buckley, ranting about “the Jewish Conspiracy” and claiming Ginsberg was one of its agents. Neal Cassady died at age 41. This decline illustrates how petty-bourgeois bohemian rebellion has been absorbed into the culture industry. Capitalism excels at commodifying dissent, turning rebellion into marketable counterculture. Since the Beats lacked ties to the working class, they were especially susceptible to this process.

The Dialectic of Rebellion and Class

Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation embody a complex paradox. Their authentic rebellion, born from the trauma and oppression of post-war America, is exemplified by works like Howl, which remains a compelling artistic testament of its era. However, their revolt, rooted in petty-bourgeois, individualistic, and mystical values, limited their political impact and led to their absorption into capitalism's cultural landscape. From a Marxist perspective, both truths are necessary: the Beats truly expressed suffering and protest, but their class position and historical context confined their rebellion. Only the organised working class can turn protest into a social revolution. Despite their passion, the Beats never reached that revolutionary threshold. 

References

Primary Sources

• Ginsberg, Allen. Howl and Other Poems. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1956.
• Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York: Viking Press, 1957.
• Burroughs, William S. Naked Lunch. Paris: Olympia Press, 1959.
• Trotsky, Leon. Literature and Revolution. Translated by Rose Strunsky. New York: Russell & Russell, 1957 (original 1924).
• United States v. Howl, 248 Cal. App. 2d (1957). Court transcripts and judicial opinions.

Secondary Sources: Marxist Theory and Cultural Critique

• Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002.
• Benjamin, Walter. The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles Baudelaire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
• Eagleton, Terry. Marxism and Literary Criticism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.
• Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 1991.
• Mandel, Ernest. Late Capitalism. London: Verso, 1975.
• Williams, Raymond. Culture and Society, 1780–1950. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983.

Historical Studies of Post‑War America

• Brinkley, Alan. The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War. New York: Vintage, 1996.
• Caute, David. The Great Fear: The Anti‑Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978.
• Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
• Whitfield, Stephen J. The Culture of the Cold War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Beat Generation Scholarship

• Charters, Ann. The Beats: Literary Bohemians in Postwar America. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1983.
• Morgan, Bill. I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg. New York: Viking, 2006.
• Raskin, Jonah. American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
• Miles, Barry. Ginsberg: A Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
• McNally, Dennis. Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America. New York: Da Capo Press, 2003.

Studies of Culture Industry and Commodification

• Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black & Red, 1977.
• Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” In Dialectic of Enlightenment.
• Marcuse, Herbert. One‑Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964.
• Lasch, Christopher. The Culture of Narcissism. New York: Norton, 1979.

WSWS and Contemporary Marxist Commentary

• Gyorgy, Andras. “Allen Ginsberg: A Critical Assessment.” World Socialist Web Site, 1997.
• Walsh, David. “Howl at 50: Art, Protest, and the Cold War.” World Socialist Web Site, 2007.
• North, David. The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo‑Left. Mehring Books, 2015.

 

 

The Restless Republic: A Restorationist Fable for the Present Crisis

 

Anna Keay’s The Restless Republic offers a lively account of Britain from 1649 to 1660. Still, beneath its refined language, it reveals a strong ideological stance: the suppression of the revolutionary aspects of the English Civil War and Interregnum. Keay writes not as an independent scholar but as a longstanding member of Britain’s heritage sector—“she writes from within the institutions that exist to manage and curate Britain’s official historical memory”—and her book aligns closely with the political goals of those institutions.

Her framing reveals a clear bias. The title, The Restless Republic, depicts the Interregnum as a pathological deviation — a nation unable to "settle" — suggesting it was a temporary disruption in the natural order. The subtitle, Britain Without a Crown, emphasises absence, implying that monarchy is the default state of political life and that its absence is a cosmic mistake. This approach is not objective history but ideological signalling.

The Revisionist Orthodoxy Repackaged for a Popular Audience

Keay’s work aligns well with the post-revisionist consensus that has dominated academic history since the 1970s. Revisionists like Conrad Russell, John Morrill, and Kevin Sharpe systematically challenged the Marxist interpretation put forward by Christopher Hill. Their core argument, now widely accepted, is that “there was no bourgeois revolution because there was no rising bourgeoisie” and that the Civil War was mainly an avoidable mistake, resulting from Charles I’s political errors.

Keay presents this orthodoxy confidently, as if she has never needed to defend it. Her story focuses on elite figures — Cromwell, Lambert, Monck, and the Rump — whose actions are seen as the main causes of history. The mass movements from below — the Levellers, Diggers, Fifth Monarchists — are shown only as interesting side notes or annoying disruptions. The class forces behind the revolution are ignored. This is intentional. It serves the ideological purpose of revisionism: to diminish the English Revolution's revolutionary significance and portray it as merely a constitutional debate among aristocrats.

Keay vs Hill: Two Histories of the English Revolution, Two Visions of Britain

Anna Keay and Christopher Hill differ not just in their academic specialities but also in their perspectives on history: one emphasises Britain’s heritage institutions, while the other aligns with Marxist and revolutionary ideas. Comparing Keay and Hill illustrates that discussions about the English Revolution also reflect broader debates on Britain’s political identity and future.

Keay functions within Britain’s official historical memory framework; she writes from within the institutions that exist to manage and curate Britain’s official historical memory.” Her positions at English Heritage and the Landmark Trust place her directly in the system responsible for preserving, interpreting, and showcasing the national history to the public.

Hill was a Marxist historian influenced by the mid-twentieth-century intellectual movements, including the workers’ movement, anti-imperialist struggles, and global revolutions. He viewed the seventeenth century not as a mere heritage but as a conflict zone of class interests. In contrast, Keay’s perspective is conservative, focused on institutions, and seeks to restore traditions. Meanwhile, Hill’s outlook is revolutionary, grounded in materialist analysis, and internationalist.

Keay’s framing is notably negative. Her title, The Restless Republic, depicts the Interregnum as a period of instability, unrest, and a nation out of sync. The subtitle, Britain Without a Crown, highlights what is missing — the monarchy — suggesting that the natural order has been temporarily halted. In contrast, Hill’s framing is more positive. He views the 1640s–1650s as the first significant bourgeois revolution in European history. The execution of Charles I is seen not as an accident but as a pivotal historical event that marks a fundamental break.  “When the people execute their king… it has a profound revolutionary significance entailing a complete break with the feudal past.” While Keay perceives absence, Hill perceives emergence. Where Keay sees chaos, Hill recognises transformation. What Keay considers an interlude, Hill interprets as a revolution.

Keay’s narrative centres on elite figures—Cromwell, Lambert, Monck, and the Rump—while the common people are hardly more than background noise. The Levellers and Diggers are seen as curiosities rather than main actors. This approach exemplifies the revisionist view: history is shaped mainly by elite misjudgments, constitutional crises, and personal conflicts.

Hill’s work reestablishes agency among the masses, illustrating how the rising bourgeoisie, agrarian capitalists, and the “middling sort” challenged the feudal nobility. He highlights the Levellers, Diggers, Fifth Monarchists, and radical sects as manifestations of broader social forces unleashed during the revolution. Hill emphasises that understanding the English Revolution requires recognising the central role of class struggle. While Keay depicts England ruled from above, Hill depicts an England transformed from below. Keay inherits the revisionist dogma that the Civil War was essentially avoidable — a tragic accident caused by Charles I’s political incompetence and the breakdown of the “ancient constitution.”

Hill completely rejects this view. He sees the Civil War as the inevitable result of a deep social change: the emergence of capitalist relations within a collapsing feudal system. For him, the conflict was not accidental but a fundamental clash between two incompatible modes of production. While Keay views the Civil War as a constitutional failure, Hill considers it a necessary revolution.

Keay views the Restoration of 1660 as a return to rationality — a re-establishment of the natural order following a period of risky experimentation. This aligns with the classic Whig perspective: Britain’s strength lies in moderation, continuity, and steering clear of continental extremes. Conversely, Hill considers the Restoration a political compromise. The monarchy was reinstated, but only on conditions that maintained the core achievements of the revolution — primarily safeguarding bourgeois property. The old regime was not simply restored; it was made subordinate. Keay’s Restoration symbolises a homecoming, whereas Hill’s version is a settlement enforced by victorious social forces.

Keay’s work, like much of established historiography, plays a political role: to erase Britain’s revolutionary roots and promote the myth of peaceful, gradual change. As your document highlights, this tradition spans from the late seventeenth century through Macaulay to the present day. Trotsky’s critique of Macaulay also applies to Keay: “vulgarises the social drama… with platitudes that are sometimes interesting but always superficial.” Hill’s work takes a different stance: to emphasise the revolutionary nature of the English Revolution, to bring class struggle back to the forefront, and to link the bourgeois revolution of the seventeenth century with the socialist revolution of the future. Keay’s history offers comfort; Hill’s history invites challenge.

What Keay Cannot Admit: The Revolution Was Real.

The Marxist analysis, shaped by Marx, Engels, Trotsky, and Hill, views the 1640–1660 events as Europe's first major bourgeois revolution. Keay cannot accept this because it would mean recognising that Britain’s modern state emerged not gradually but through a break—marked by civil war, regicide, and the overthrow of feudal absolutism.

Charles I's execution was not merely a mistake but a historic act: “when the people execute their king after a solemn trial… it has a profound revolutionary significance entailing a complete break with the feudal past." Consequently, no monarch remained securely on the throne until the late 19th century.

This act was driven by deep social forces. The growing bourgeoisie—merchants, capitalist farmers, and the “middling sort”—faced a feudal nobility whose economic base was deteriorating. The Civil War wasn't just an internal elite dispute but a class struggle, with emerging economic forces dismantling the old political power.

The revolution sparked mass movements whose demands exceeded the cautious goals of the gentry. The Levellers called for democratic rights and the end of aristocratic privileges. The Diggers claimed the earth as a “common treasury.” Radical sects foresaw a complete overhaul of the social order. Cromwell harshly suppressed these movements—not because they lacked relevance, but because they threatened to push the revolution beyond the boundaries needed for capitalist property relations. This is the true drama of the English Revolution. Keay’s narrative fails to include it.

The Restoration Myth and the Sanitisation of Britain’s Past

Keay’s book continues a long tradition of sanitising Britain’s revolutionary origins. Since the late seventeenth century, the ruling class has preferred to frame its legitimacy around the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688—a peaceful palace coup—rather than the turbulent events of the 1640s. Macaulay, a prominent Whig historian, turned the revolution into a comforting myth of steady, peaceful progress. As Trotsky noted, “Macaulay vulgarises the social drama of the seventeenth century by obscuring the inner struggle of forces with platitudes.”

Keay modernises this tradition for the twenty-first century. The Interregnum is depicted as a tumultuous, unsuccessful experiment and a cautionary tale against radical shifts. The Restoration is seen more as a return to rationality rather than merely a political compromise that safeguarded the core achievements of the revolution, especially the preservation of bourgeois property. Her book isn't mere crude propaganda; rather, it functions more subtly as an institutionally embedded narrative that renders revolution unthinkable by concealing it.

Why This Matters Today

The debate over how to interpret the English Revolution is more than just academic; it reflects a wider ideological campaign against the very idea of revolution. The revisionist shift of the 1970s happened alongside the suppression of workers' struggles, the rise of postmodernism, and a move away from class analysis. Disputing the occurrence of a bourgeois revolution in seventeenth-century England is akin to denying the proletarian nature of 1917—it essentially removes revolution from history.

Keay’s book is a well-crafted addition to this topic. It reassures readers that radical breaks are deviations, that it is elites who shape history, and that overthrowing oppressive systems is neither essential nor beneficial. The goal isn’t to dismiss Keay’s work but to uncover its ideological underpinnings. The English Revolution should be recognised as a crucial moment in global history—a bourgeois revolution whose contradictions and successes highlight the route toward the socialist revolution, an ongoing goal of our era.

 

Against Antiquarianism: A Critique of Margaret Willes’s The Curious World of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn

Margaret Willes’s The Curious World of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn exemplifies more than just a flawed book; it highlights a broader intellectual decline in modern historiography. A retreat from social analysis characterises this decline, the abandonment of class as a key historical category, and the transformation of history into a refined part of the heritage industry. Willes’s work serves as yet another instance of a widespread trend in academia and publishing—portraying history as a lifestyle rather than an analytical discipline.¹

The book’s premise is simple: Pepys and Evelyn were curious individuals and keen observers of Restoration England, with diaries that provide charming glimpses into a vibrant era. While this follows the typical bourgeois-antiquarian pattern, it is also historically unjustifiable.

Pepys and Evelyn lived “through and after the greatest social upheaval England had ever experienced.”² They were not mere floating personalities in a timeless Restoration scene. Instead, they were actors—though minor—who revealed much in the aftermath of the English bourgeois revolution. To dismiss them as eccentric hobbyists, as Willes does, undermines their historical significance and reduces the Restoration to a depoliticised space of wigs, gardens, coffee houses, and domestic trivia. This shift is more than an interpretive mistake; it is an act of ideological shaping.

The Academic Abdication: Class Removed, Revolution Denied

Modern historians have mostly set aside the Marxist ideas that once fuelled serious research on the 17th century. Today, Christopher Hill’s work—often seen as outdated by many scholars—still stands as the only comprehensive framework for understanding that era. Hill showed that the mid-17th-century crisis dismantled one social class’s dominance and installed another.³ This is not a matter of opinion; it is a matter of historical fact.

Yet Willes, like her peers, writes as though the English Revolution never occurred. The Civil War becomes background noise. The Commonwealth is reduced to a curiosity. The Restoration is treated as a return to normality rather than a class compromise forced upon a frightened bourgeoisie. The Glorious Revolution is barely acknowledged as the culmination of capitalist consolidation.⁴ This is not ignorance. It is avoidance.

Pepys and Evelyn: Not Curiosities, but Class Representatives

Pepys was not a gossiping flâneur. He was a bureaucrat of the capitalist state. His diary is saturated with the machinery of empire—shipbuilding, naval contracts, colonial administration. As the accompanying document notes, this was “the apparatus of a nascent capitalist state projecting its power across the globe.”⁵ Pepys’s rise through the Admiralty reflects the increasing importance of administrative competence in a society transitioning from feudal personal rule to capitalist state rationality.

Pepys exemplifies what Ellen Meiksins Wood has described as the “political form of capitalist social relations,” in which the early modern state becomes increasingly central to the organisation of economic life.⁶ His diary reveals the emergence of bureaucratic rationality, contract management, and logistical planning—key features of the developing capitalist state.

Evelyn was more than just a gentleman gardener; he was an innovative scientist whose Sylva was created to fulfil the navy’s timber needs. His interests in pollution, architecture, and horticulture mirrored the bourgeoisie's rationalist ideals. As a Royal Society member, he played a key role in shaping bourgeois science. Engels recognised this well: contemporary science arose from the breakdown of the medieval worldview under the pressure of capitalist progress.⁷ Willes perceives the Royal Society as a charming assembly of inquisitive individuals, reflecting the commonplace liberal view. However, in actuality, the Society served as a tool for maintaining class dominance. Its focus on empirical research, experimentation, measurement, and progress aligned with the interests of a growing capitalist elite. Fields such as navigation, metallurgy, ballistics, forestry, and colonial mapping were not merely genteel hobbies but the technical backbone of capitalist growth.⁸ To present the Royal Society as an apolitical intellectual salon is to falsify its historical function.

Bourgeois Antiquarianism: The Ideology of Contemporary History Writing

Willes’s book exemplifies “bourgeois antiquarianism.”⁹ This is not simply a methodological flaw; it is an ideological stance. It is the refusal to acknowledge that history is shaped by class struggle. It is the displacement of social conflict by personality, of revolution by anecdote, of material forces by domestic interiors.

The World Socialist Website (WSWS) has criticised this trend repeatedly, most recently in its appraisal of Lucy Worsley, whose work “consistently displaces class antagonism, economic crisis, and mass political struggle, fixating on monarchs, courtiers, domestic interiors and historical cosplay.”¹⁰ Willes belongs to the same school: history as entertainment, history as escapism, history as depoliticised spectacle. This is not accidental. It reflects the ideological needs of the present bourgeois order, which seeks to naturalise itself by erasing the revolutionary processes that created it.

The Academic and Media Establishment: A Catalogue of Evasion

Let us speak plainly. The contemporary historical establishment has abandoned the English Revolution. It has abandoned class analysis. It has abandoned materialism. It has abandoned the very concept of historical causality. Worsley’s output—generously funded, heavily promoted, and ever-present—embodies the essence of bourgeois-antiquarian kitsch. As the WSWS pointed out, her work repeatedly shifts focus away from class conflict, economic crises, and large-scale political struggles, instead emphasising monarchs, courtiers, domestic settings, and historical cosplay.¹¹ Willes’s book belongs to precisely this tradition: history as costume drama. Other historians follow a similar path. One being David Starky.

Starkey’s extensive career has centred on the idea that history is primarily shaped by monarchs, courtiers, and individual personalities. He is widely known for his disdain for social history. His impact has been damaging, as he contributed to fostering an intellectual climate where a book like Willes’s could be published without shame.¹² Antonia Fraser’s Restoration biographies are elegant but politically vacuous. They treat the 17th century as a theatre of personalities rather than a battleground of classes. Her approach has shaped public expectations of the period, encouraging precisely the depoliticised reading Willes reproduces.¹³ Simon Schama stands out as the most polished in the group, but his work ultimately portrays a liberal-bourgeois narrative that highlights continuity, compromise, and national identity. His perspective on the English Revolution is somewhat vague and sentimental, and it sidesteps class analysis.¹⁴ He has helped normalise the idea that the Revolution was a cultural moment rather than a social rupture.

These historians are not purely neutral chroniclers but ideological architects. Their influence has cultivated a cultural setting in which the English Revolution is either minimised or overlooked, thereby enabling Pepys and Evelyn to be seen as charming eccentricities rather than as representatives of a burgeoning class consolidating its authority.

The shift from viewing history as heritage is more than a cultural trend; it’s a political move. When historians avoid addressing class issues, they make the past incomprehensible and the present fixed. This creates a world where social conflicts vanish, revolutions are unthinkable, and the bourgeoisie seems timeless. Pepys and Evelyn become mere charming curiosities instead of symbols of a class whose victory transformed England and established modern capitalism. Willes’s book isn’t just lacking; it reflects a wider intellectual surrender.

Restoring History to History

It is time to say openly what many historians privately acknowledge: the field has been intellectually captured by a bourgeois‑antiquarian sensibility that is hostile to social analysis and allergic to class. The English Revolution has been domesticated. Pepys and Evelyn have been trivialised. The Restoration has been aestheticised.

A Marxist critique restores what Willes and her peers omit: class, revolution, contradiction, and the emergence of the capitalist state. Pepys and Evelyn were not eccentric diarists. They were functionaries and intellectuals of a class consolidating its power after a revolutionary upheaval.

Their diaries are not curiosities. They are instruments of history. Contemporary historians who refuse to confront this reality are not writing history. They are producing ideology.

Footnotes

1. For the concept of “heritage history,” see Robert Hewison, The Heritage Industry (London: Methuen, 1987).
2. Previous Draft, p. 2.
3. Christopher Hill, The English Revolution 1640 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1940), 7.
4. J. H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England 1675–1725 (London: Macmillan, 1967).
5. Previous Draft p. 3.
6. Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism (London: Verso, 1999).
7. Friedrich Engels, Dialectics of Nature (1883).
8. Steven Shapin, A Social History of Truth (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).
9. Previous Draft p. 4.
10. WSWS, “Lucy Worsley and the Politics of Heritage History,” accessed 2024.
11. Ibid.
12. See David Starkey, The Reign of Henry VIII (London: Vintage, 2002).
13. Antonia Fraser, King Charles II (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1979).
14. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: The British Wars 1603–1776 (London: BBC Books, 2001).