The Universities and Left Review (1957–1959): A Marxist Analysis of Class, Politics, and Intellectual Formation

 I. Introduction: The ULR as a Historical and Political Problem

The Universities and Left Review (ULR), established in 1957 by Raphael Samuel, Stuart Hall, Gabriel Pearson, and Charles Taylor, has long been viewed within British historiography as the origin of the “first New Left.” Its editors are praised for their cultural innovation, rejection of Stalinism, and their perceived renewal of socialist ideas. However, the historiography of the ULR is predominantly written by those sharing its assumptions, environment, and political boundaries. What remains lacking is a historical-materialist perspective on the ULR as a political entity: an analysis that places it within the class dynamics of post-war Britain, the 1956 Stalinism crisis, and the broader development of petty-bourgeois radicalism during the second half of the twentieth century.

This chapter addresses that task directly. Its core argument is simple: the ULR should be evaluated not by its rhetoric of renewal but by the social content of its politics, the forces it represents, and the tangible impacts of its actions on the working class. From this perspective, the ULR is seen not as a revolutionary departure from Stalinism but as a petty-bourgeois reaction to Stalinism's crisis. It replaced class struggle with cultural critique and moral protest for political organisation, and contributed to the ideological groundwork for the subsequent pseudo-left.

Raphael Samuel’s role in this formation is crucial. (1934–1996) would later become a leading British historian, pioneering “history from below” and founding the History Workshop movement. His research illuminated working-class life, popular culture, and daily experience, making it essential to socialist historiography. However, his outlook often favoured cultural memory over class struggle, local activism over revolutionary tactics, and moral critique over clear programs. Samuel’s time at the ULR exemplified these tendencies.

The ULR’s politics did not happen by chance. They openly expressed the beliefs of a specific social group: university intellectuals, former Communist Party members, and radical students who were neither proletarian nor bourgeois but petty-bourgeois and professionally dependent. This group, which emerged after 1956, aimed at a politics that preserved the moral intensity of Stalinist radicalism while rejecting its organisational discipline and its often distorted ties to the working class. The outcome was a form of cultural radicalism lacking a class-based strategy, a trend that later evolved into Cultural Studies, identity politics, and the academic left.

This chapter contends that the ULR was a dead end for socialist politics. Its dismissal of Marxism was not a move towards clearer revolutionary thinking but a fallback into culturalism, moralism, and academic radicalism. Its antagonism towards Trotskyism—shown in its handling of the Socialist Labour League (SLL) and the Labour Review—was the clearest sign that its editors had not genuinely broken away from Stalinism, at least conceptually. As Brian Pearce noted at the time, the ULR’s failure to critically examine Stalinism left it “unconsciously open to influence by false ideas absorbed during their period in the Stalinist camp.” That prediction proved to be accurate.

A historical-materialist approach should steer clear of idealising the Trotskyist movement. Gerry Healy’s influence in the late 1950s was both politically crucial and progressive: the SLL aimed to attract the thousands shifting from the CPGB to the Fourth International's program. However, Healy’s later decline—culminating in the 1980s with the collapse of the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP)—must also be recognised. The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) acknowledged and opposed this degeneration. A dialectical perspective must, therefore, place both the ULR and Healy within the conflicting pressures of their historical context.

This chapter argues that the ULR’s politics were petty-bourgeois in class origin, anti-Marxist in theory, and ultimately conservative historically. Its cultural innovations are tied to its political shortcomings. The focus on “new readers and new writers” concealed a decline in support for the working class. Its incorporation of Gramsci and the Frankfurt School offered a theoretical framework that facilitated the abandonment of revolutionary politics. The resulting legacy—Cultural Studies, identity politics, and the academic left—demonstrates the long-term effects of this retreat.

Marxist historiography's goal is not to dismiss Samuel or the ULR, but to situate them in their historical context, understand the social forces they represented, and extract key political lessons. Only by doing so can the authentic accomplishments of “history from below” be incorporated into a revolutionary approach, rather than being co-opted by capitalism's ideological framework.

II. The Class Basis and Social Composition of the ULR

Any Marxist analysis of the Universities and Left Review should start with its class roots. The ULR did not develop naturally from the working class nor from the industrial struggles that characterised post-war Britain. Instead, it was created by a specific petty-bourgeois intellectual layer—comprising university lecturers, postgraduate students, cultural workers, and ex-Communist Party intellectuals—whose material situation influenced both their political approach and content.

This layer held a paradoxical role within British capitalism. While it became more proletarianised through the post-war expansion of higher education, the casualisation of academic jobs, and increased managerial oversight of universities, it also preserved access to cultural capital, professional connections, and institutional prestige. These conflicting influences led to a politics that was oppositional in rhetoric but conciliatory in practice: it criticised capitalism’s cultural aspects without challenging its economic base.

The ULR’s editors exemplified this intellectual community. Raphael Samuel, Stuart Hall, Charles Taylor, and Gabriel Pearson were all influenced by the post-1956 Stalinism crisis. Their departure from the Communist Party was motivated more by emotional and organisational concerns than by theoretical shifts. They opposed the CPGB’s bureaucratic authoritarianism while still maintaining its core ideas: replacing class struggle with cultural analysis, distrust of revolutionary organisation, and the belief that socialism could be renewed through moral critique rather than through political mobilisation of workers.

The ULR’s stance aligned with its social class position. Instead of focusing on the industrial working class—whose struggles were growing more urgent in the pits, docks, and factories during the 1950s—the ULR targeted students, ex-CP intellectuals, fellow travellers, radicalised middle-class youth, and cultural critics searching for a new ideological base.

This was not an accidental choice. It expressed the editors’ belief that the working class was no longer the central agent of revolutionary change. As Samuel himself later admitted, even during his time in the CP, he did not view the working class as a revolutionary force; he saw it as a repository of radical traditions, not as the subject of socialist transformation. This distinction is crucial. It explains why Samuel’s later “history from below” celebrated working‑class culture while avoiding the strategic questions of class power, political organisation, and revolutionary leadership.

The ULR’s class basis also shaped its political method. Its analyses tended to elevate questions of culture, identity,  representation, curriculum, “democratisation” of institutions, and moral critique over the Marxist categories of production, class struggle, and the state. This was not simply a theoretical preference; it was the ideological expression of a social layer whose own position was rooted in the institutions of bourgeois civil society—universities, publishing houses, cultural organisations—and whose political horizon rarely extended beyond reforming those institutions.

The outcome was a politics that replaced class-based interests with cultural radicalism. The ULR’s editors criticised the CPGB's limited perspective, the Labour Party's traditionalism, and the complacency of post-war British society. However, they expressed these critiques from a viewpoint still confined within the ideological limits of the petty-bourgeois intellectual class. Their form of radicalism leaned more towards moral and cultural aspects than towards strategic or political change, and was more reformist than revolutionary.

This also clarifies the ULR’s hostility towards Trotskyism. The Socialist Labour League (SLL), led by Gerry Healy, embodied a different tradition—one grounded in the industrial working class, dedicated to the principles of the Fourth International, and focused on building a disciplined revolutionary party. For the ULR’s editors—who rejected the organisational discipline of the CP but remained wary of revolutionary Marxism—the SLL symbolised what they sought to avoid: politics centred on class struggle, clear programmatic aims, and internationalism.

Samuel’s dismissive comment about the increasing number of inner-party groups and the dozen ‘vanguard’ parties vying to lead a “non-existent revolutionary working class” was not just a rhetorical flourish. It reflected the ULR’s core political stance: rejecting the working class as the driver of socialist change and turning inward to the cultural politics favoured by the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia.

The URL's class background thus influenced its political path. Its editors aimed to foster a new socialist culture, but from within bourgeois institutions. They opposed Stalinism but did not fully adopt Marxism. While criticising capitalism, they refrained from questioning its core principles. Their political stance was influenced by the contradictions inherent in their social position, which ultimately shaped the direction of the British New Left.

III. 1956 and the Crisis of Stalinism: The Political Conjuncture of the ULR’s Formation

The Universities and Left Review did not arise in a political vacuum. Its creation in 1957 was directly linked to the 1956 crisis of Stalinism. This year undermined the ideological bases of Communist Parties throughout Europe and triggered a significant political shift among intellectuals, students, and parts of the working class. To understand the ULR from a historical-materialist perspective, one must start with the specific historical context that led to its emergence.

1. The Shock of Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech”

In February 1956, Nikita Khrushchev delivered his “Secret Speech” at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, partially acknowledging Stalin’s crimes in a self-serving manner. The speech was more a bureaucratic move than an act of political bravery: it aimed to stabilise the Soviet regime by separating the leadership from Stalin’s most extreme actions. Despite this, the speech had a profoundly explosive effect.

In Britain, the CPGB faced an unprecedented crisis, with thousands of members resigning. This included many prominent historians, such as E. P. Thompson, Christopher Hill, and John Saville, as well as a sizable group of younger intellectuals. Raphael Samuel, who had joined the CP in his teens and was active in the Communist Party Historians Group, was among those who departed.

Samuel later looked back on his years in the CP with a sense of romanticism, recalling a “powerful sense of apartness" alongside a desire for acceptance. Yet, this nostalgia masked a deeper political truth: he had never thoroughly critiqued Stalinism nor engaged with Trotskyist perspectives on the Soviet bureaucracy. His departure from the CP was motivated by moral outrage over Stalin’s atrocities, not a major ideological break from Stalinism. This point is important because it clarifies why Samuel and his colleagues later reproduced many of the Stalinist ideological assumptions in new cultural forms, despite believing they had left that world behind.

2. The Hungarian Revolution and the Collapse of Stalinist Legitimacy

If Khrushchev’s speech began to unravel the illusion of Stalinist authority, the Hungarian Revolution of October–November 1956 broke it down entirely. The uprising—organised by workers’ councils, students, and intellectuals—represented the most significant challenge to the Soviet bureaucracy since the 1920s. The brutal suppression by Soviet tanks revealed the counter-revolutionary nature of Stalinism with stark clarity.

For many CP members, the Hungarian events were a turning point. The CPGB leadership supported the Soviet invasion, condemning the revolution as a “fascist counter-revolution.” This stance was morally unjustifiable and politically disastrous. It hastened members' leaving and left a void among disillusioned intellectuals and students.

The ULR arose directly from this vacuum. Its founders aimed to develop a new socialist politics that rejected Stalinism's authoritarianism while maintaining the moral passion and cultural radicalism that initially attracted them to the CP. However, because they did not view Stalinism as a bureaucratic counter-revolution against October 1917, they struggled to abandon its fundamental theoretical foundations.

3. The Missed Opportunity: Trotskyism and the Labour Review

The 1956 crisis provided a historic chance for the Trotskyist movement. Under Gerry Healy's leadership, the British section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) started the Labour Review in January 1957 to address the political confusion among former Communist Party members and to attract them to revolutionary Marxism.

The Labour Review had a vastly different political stance compared to the ULR. It was centred on the industrial working class, aimed to develop a disciplined revolutionary party, and was based on Trotsky’s theoretical fight against Stalinism. Its goal was to transform the spontaneous split from the Communist Party into a deliberate political shift toward the Fourth International.

The ULR rejected this stance, with its editors dismissing the SLL as one of the “mushrooming” vanguard groups vying to lead a “non-existent revolutionary working class.” While this comment is often cited to highlight the ULR’s realism, it actually reveals its petty-bourgeois pessimism and its refusal to recognise the working class as the driving force of socialist change.

Brian Pearce, a former CP historian who later joined the SLL, warned that the ULR’s hostility to Trotskyism clearly indicated that its editors had not conceptually distanced themselves from Stalinism. They had abandoned the CP’s organisational structure but still harboured the same ideological distrust of revolutionary Marxism. Pearce’s warning proved to be insightful. The ULR’s refusal of the SLL set in motion a path that, via the New Left Review, eventually led to Cultural Studies, identity politics, and the academic left—a shift characterised by the replacement of class politics with cultural critique.

4. The ULR’s Interpretation of 1956: Stalinism as Marxism

A key insight into the ULR’s politics was its view on Stalinism. Charles Taylor, writing in the ULR, claimed that Stalinism “grew out of Communism” rather than being a separate deviation. This view—common among many former CP intellectuals—was a serious theoretical error. It blurred the line between Marxism and its bureaucratic distortion, offering an ideological excuse to abandon revolutionary politics entirely.

Eric Hobsbawm, who stayed in the CPGB, made a similar argument. The editors of ULR, despite splitting from the CP, shared this perspective. Their opposition to Marxism was not because of Stalinism but because they disavowed the revolutionary tradition that Stalinism had compromised.

This interpretation of 1956 had significant implications. It enabled the ULR to frame its cultural shift as a needed reaction to the perceived "failure” of Marxism, rather than as a step back from the working class's strategic goals. This perspective justified replacing class analysis with cultural studies, favouring moral critique over political organisation, and abandoning the proletariat as the central subject of history.

5. The Political Conjuncture and the ULR’s Formation

The ULR originated from a particular historical background: the 1956 Stalinism crisis, confusion among petty-bourgeois intellectuals, absence of a mass revolutionary party, rising managerial control over universities, and the prevailing ideological influence of cultural radicalism. These conflicting factors shaped its political position. It sought to create a new socialist culture but within bourgeois institutions. While criticising Stalinism, it did not fully embrace Marxism. Likewise, it critiqued capitalism but did not challenge its fundamental principles. Therefore, the ULR was both a reflection and a catalyst of the larger political change associated with the British New Left—a move from class-based politics to cultural issues, from political economy to identity, and from revolutionary tactics to moral protest.

IV. Culturalism, the Frankfurt School, and the Theoretical Foundations of the ULR

If the Universities and Left Review was influenced by its editors' class background and the political climate of 1956, its intellectual focus shifted toward culturalism. This change replaced traditional Marxist concepts of class, production, and political economy with an emphasis on culture, identity, and ideology. This shift was deliberate, reflecting the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia's search for a new political stance following the decline of Stalinist authority. Its theoretical basis draws from two related traditions: the Frankfurt School and a selective adaptation of Gramsci.

1. The Frankfurt School: Pessimism as Theory

The Frankfurt School, associated with figures such as Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse, arose from the setbacks faced by the European working class during the interwar years, the ascent of fascism, and the strengthening of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Its strong sense of intellectual pessimism was not just philosophical but also reflected the beliefs of a group of exiled intellectuals who had lost faith in the revolutionary potential of the proletariat.

The Frankfurt School argued that advanced capitalism had incorporated the working class into a system of mass consumption and ideological control, directly opposing the Marxist view of the proletariat as the revolutionary agent. Marcuse clarified this in his later writings, claiming that the working class in developed capitalist societies had developed a “proto-fascist syndrome," which made it incapable of revolutionary awareness. He believed that liberation would instead stem from students, intellectuals, and marginalised groups.

This was not just a theoretical mistake; it reflected a specific class stance. It revealed the disdain of a confused petty-bourgeois intelligentsia for the working class and its shift toward cultural radicalism as a replacement for political activism. The ULR adopted this pessimism, with its editors supporting the Frankfurt School’s critique of mass culture, distrust of economic determinism, and focus on ideology and consciousness. However, they failed to recognise the class roots of these ideas. Consequently, their politics viewed culture as the main battleground and the working class as a passive subject of analysis rather than as a revolutionary agent.

2. Gramsci and the New Left: A Selective Appropriation

While the Frankfurt School offered the ULR a theoretical framework rooted in cultural pessimism, Antonio Gramsci supplied it with a vocabulary centred on cultural activism. The ULR’s editors adopted Gramsci’s concepts of hegemony, civil society, and the war of position as strategic tools to reframe socialist approaches within cultural contexts.

However, the version of Gramsci they adopted was not the one from the early Communist International, where he supported the dictatorship of the proletariat and the need for a revolutionary party. Instead, it was the Gramsci of the Prison Notebooks, selectively interpreted from the perspective of post-war Western Marxism. This view highlighted cultural struggle, ideological leadership, and gradual changes within civil society. He was portrayed as an alternative to Leninism, rather than as its continuation.

The ULR’s use of Gramsci fulfilled several political purposes: it justified replacing class struggle with cultural struggle, offered a theoretical basis for concentrating on universities, media, and civil society instead of workplaces and unions, enabled the editors to dismiss the Leninist idea of a vanguard party while keeping a radical language, and connected the ULR with the wider New Left’s rejection of the working class as the primary agent of socialist change.

Gramsci’s limitations—such as his critique of “economism,” his opposition to Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution, and his acceptance of Stalinism’s nationalist framework—made him especially appealing to the ULR’s editors. As Gramsci stated, “the point of departure is national,” a phrase that aligned well with the ULR’s focus on cultural nationalism.

3. Culturalism as a Political Project

The ULR’s shift towards culturalism was not just an intellectual change; it was a political initiative. It aimed to forge a new socialist culture that would go beyond the “dogmatism” of the CPGB and the “economism” of traditional Marxism. However, by rejecting the Marxist analysis of class and the strategic importance of the proletariat, this project was fundamentally limited. Culturalism provided critique without a plan of action, radicalism without organisation, moral protest without a political agenda, identity without class consciousness, and culture without the aim of revolution.

This enabled the ULR’s editors to uphold a sense of radical identity without engaging in the challenging tasks of creating a revolutionary movement—such as confronting trade-union bureaucracies, organising workplaces, and fighting for the political independence of the working class. The cultural shift also set the stage for the emergence of Cultural Studies in the 1960s and 1970s, which became a key academic discipline of the British New Left. More than just a neutral scholarly field, Cultural Studies embodied the political goals of the ULR, shifting focus from class analysis to identity politics, replacing political economy with discourse analysis, and turning socialist critique into a form of academic radicalism.

4. The ULR’s Cultural Politics in Practice.

The early issues of the ULR featured articles on youth culture, literature, film, popular music, education, and the “democratisation” of cultural institutions. While these topics were significant, they were treated as separate spheres, isolated from the influences of capitalist production and class conflict. The ULR’s editors criticised British society’s cultural conservatism but did not examine the capitalist relations behind it. They praised youth culture’s creativity but failed to link it to the material realities of working-class life.

The outcome was a politics that seemed radical in appearance but was actually conservative in its impact. It questioned the cultural aspects of capitalism while maintaining its economic base. It targeted the symptoms of capitalist society without addressing the underlying causes.

5. Culturalism and the Retreat from Marxism

The ULR’s cultural shift was both a sign and a driver of the wider decline of Marxism on the British left. It indicated the confusion of a petty-bourgeois intellectual class that had lost faith in the working class and was searching for new sources of radical identity. Additionally, it played a role in the ideological shift that shaped the New Left: replacing class with culture, political economy with identity, and revolutionary tactics with moral critique.

This retreat had enduring impacts. It influenced the development of Cultural Studies, identity politics, and the academic left. It laid the ideological groundwork for the rise of New Labour and the managerial politics of the 1990s. Additionally, it left the working class politically powerless in the face of neoliberal restructuring. The ULR’s focus on culturalism was thus not a renewal of socialism but a retreat from it. It embodied the ideological stance of a social class that had abandoned the working class's strategic tasks and instead sought refuge in the cultural institutions of bourgeois society.

V. Raphael Samuel, “History from Below,” and the Limits of Cultural Radicalism

Raphael Samuel’s later legacy is primarily built on his pioneering role in 'history from below” and as a founding figure of the History Workshop movement. These efforts were meaningful, challenging the elitist tendencies of traditional historiography, uncovering the experiences of working people, and broadening the scope of socialist historical awareness. However, from a Marxist perspective, Samuel’s historiographical innovations are intertwined with certain political constraints. His “history from below” was not aimed at revolutionary change but served as a cultural-democratic initiative, rooted in the same petty-bourgeois environment that gave rise to the Universities and Left Review.

1. Samuel’s CP Background and the Persistence of Stalinist Assumptions

Samuel’s involvement with the Communist Party Historians Group (CPHG) significantly influenced his subsequent work. This group was responsible for nurturing notable British Marxist historians of the twentieth century, such as E. P. Thompson, Christopher Hill, and Rodney Hilton. However, their work was rooted in Stalinist ideology. Their historiography focused on themes such as national traditions, popular radical movements, moral heroism, and the enduring nature of “progressive” struggles over centuries.

This approach echoed the CPGB’s Popular Front strategy, which placed the working class under the influence of 'progressive' bourgeoisie factions and replaced internationalist ideals with national-popular narratives. Samuel internalised this framework thoroughly. His later nostalgia for the CP—shown in The Lost World of British Communism—was not just sentimental; it also exposed his difficulty in breaking away from the Stalinist view of history.

Samuel’s memoirs of the CP are notable for their omissions. He notably “stays silent on Stalin’s murderous purges of the 1930s” and does not discuss the conflict between Trotsky’s Left Opposition and Stalin’s bureaucracy. His narrative leans more toward cultural memory than political analysis. This omission is deliberate, reflecting the enduring influence of Stalinist ideas in Samuel’s later work: replacing class struggle with cultural tradition, favouring national radicalism over international socialism, and steering clear of strategic debates about revolutionary leadership.

2. “History from Below” as Cultural Recovery, Not Revolutionary Strategy

Samuel’s approach of "history from below” aimed to democratize history by highlighting the experiences of ordinary people—workers, artisans, women, migrants, and local communities. This methodology expanded historical understanding and questioned the elitist tendencies of academic historiography. However, it did not address the underlying material relations of capitalist society. While it celebrated working-class culture, it stopped short of challenging the political systems that oppress the working class.

From a Marxist view, the problem isn't just documenting working-class experiences—an important step—but rather the absence of a clear strategic plan. Samuel’s work recorded the lives of workers, celebrated their agency, and critiqued elite narratives. However, it failed to link these histories to revolutionary objectives. It treated the working class as a cultural entity rather than a political force. Although it offered a detailed mosaic of popular memory, it did not connect that memory to capitalist production dynamics, class struggle, or the need for a revolutionary party. Thus, Samuel’s “history from below” was the historiographical equivalent of the ULR’s cultural politics: seemingly radical but ultimately politically conservative.

3. The History Workshop: Institutionalisation and Absorption

The History Workshop movement, established in the late 1960s, aimed to democratise the practice of history by engaging workers, activists, and community organisations in the creation of history. Its core principle—“history from below, for the people, by the people”—embodied a truly democratic spirit. However, the movement's institutional development highlights the boundaries of cultural radicalism within a capitalist framework.

By the 1980s, the History Workshop had become part of the mainstream academic system. It served as a credential for advancing careers in universities, a space for cultural radicalism within bourgeois institutions, and a training ground for the academic left. Its radical spirit was tamed, and its democratic principles were turned into a participatory teaching approach. Its critique of elite historiography was absorbed into the very institutions it aimed to challenge. This transformation was not unique to the History Workshop but reflected a broader pattern where universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions incorporated the cultural innovations of the New Left.

From a Marxist perspective, this absorption was unavoidable. Without a revolutionary approach, cultural radicalism remains subject to the influence of bourgeois institutions. It essentially becomes a type of institutional dissent, accepted because it doesn’t challenge the core structures of capitalist power.

4. Samuel’s Critique of Classlessness and His Theoretical Limits

Samuel’s essay “Class and Classlessness” is often cited as evidence of his commitment to class analysis. In it, he criticises Stuart Hall’s claim that class was becoming obsolete in post‑war Britain. Yet Samuel’s own conception of class was shaped by the CPGB’s cultural‑nationalist framework. He recognised the historical radicalism of the working class but did not view it as a revolutionary force in the present.

This restriction was not just theoretical but also political. Samuel’s work consistently sidestepped crucial Marxist questions: the working class's role in overthrowing capitalism, the need for a revolutionary party, the international scope of socialist revolution, and the importance of political economy in historical analysis. Instead, he concentrated on culture, memory, and daily life, creating a detailed historical record but leaving the working class politically passive.

5. The Political Consequences of Samuel’s Historiography

Samuel’s historiographical project had significant long-term effects. While it helped shape British leftist intellectual culture, it also inadvertently supported the shift away from Marxism. It played a role in the emergence of Cultural Studies, the move from class to identity politics, the academic focus of radical politics, and the division of socialist consciousness. Although Samuel wasn’t solely responsible for these trends, his work contributed to the ideological environment that enabled them. His “history from below” offered cultural material for a left that had abandoned core strategies of the working class and instead relied on bourgeois civil society institutions.

VI. The ULR, the New Left, and the Historical Verdict: A Marxist Conclusion

The Universities and Left Review holds a central position in post-war Britain's intellectual and political history. It served as the birthplace of the first New Left, bringing together ex-Communist intellectuals, radicalized students, and cultural critics as they sought to develop a new socialist politics following the 1956 crisis. However, from a Marxist perspective, the ULR’s importance is less about its innovations and more about its limitations—limitations rooted in its class origins, theoretical approach, and political direction.

1. The ULR as a Petty‑Bourgeois Response to the Crisis of Stalinism

The ULR arose from a petty-bourgeois intelligentsia's confusion after losing faith in the Communist Party but not adopting Marxism. Its editors denounced Stalinist authoritarianism yet kept their ideological doubts about revolutionary groups and shifted focus from class struggle to cultural analysis. Their break with the CPGB was rooted in emotional and moral reasons rather than in theory or politics.

Failing to interpret Stalinism as a bureaucratic counter-revolution against October 1917 made the ULR’s editors susceptible to the very ideological influences they aimed to avoid. Their antagonism toward Trotskyism—shown in their rejection of the Socialist Labour League and Labour Review—indicates they had not abandoned the theoretical roots of Stalinism. As Brian Pearce pointed out, they continued to be "unconsciously open to influence by false ideas absorbed during their period in the Stalinist camp.”

2. The Cultural Turn and the Retreat from Marxism

The ULR’s shift toward culturalism—guided by the Frankfurt School and a selective use of Gramsci—was not a revival of socialism but a step back from it. It replaced Marxist concepts like class, production, and political economy with an focus on culture, identity, and ideology. It favored moral critique over political tactics, cultural activism over revolutionary organization, and academic radicalism over class struggle.

This cultural turn reflected the ideological stance of a social class whose material basis was rooted in bourgeois civil society institutions such as universities, publishing houses, and cultural organizations. Their political scope was usually limited to reforming these institutions. This approach enabled the ULR’s editors to uphold a radical identity without engaging in the strategic efforts of the working class.

3. The ULR’s Legacy: From Cultural Studies to Identity Politics

The long-term impact of the ULR’s policies was significant. Its emphasis on culturalism established the groundwork for Cultural Studies, identity politics, the academic left, and the managerial politics of New Labour. These trends were not anomalies but was the natural result of the ULR’s ideological and political stance. By discarding the working class as the driving force of socialist change, the ULR contributed to a left that became more removed from workers' material struggles and more embedded within bourgeois institutional frameworks.

The ULR’s legacy is thus dual-edged: it enhanced cultural analysis yet weakened socialist strategy. It broadened the scope of critique but restricted political possibilities. This resulted in a generation of intellectuals who were radical in rhetoric but reformist in action.

4. Raphael Samuel and the Limits of Cultural Radicalism

Raphael Samuel’s later contributions to the History Workshop movement showcased both the strengths and limitations of the ULR’s political approach. His approach of “history from below” aimed to recover the experiences of working people and challenge the elitist tendencies in academic historiography. However, it did not address strategic issues related to class power, political organization, or revolutionary leadership.

Samuel’s work was democratic, humane, and filled with empirical detail. However, it was also influenced by the cultural-nationalist outlook of the CPGB and the petty-bourgeois radicalism of the ULR. While it celebrated working-class culture, it did not connect it to the mechanisms of capitalist production or the goals of socialist revolution. This resulted in a valuable archive of popular memory but left the working class politically unarmed.

5. The Missed Opportunity of 1956

The 1956 crisis presented a significant chance for Marxism's renewal. During this period, thousands of workers and intellectuals distanced themselves from the CPGB, looking for a new political direction. Among them, the Socialist Labour League, affiliated with the British section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, was the only group actively aiming to bring this segment into the fold of revolutionary Marxism.

The ULR dismissed this opportunity, shifting its focus from the working class to bourgeois cultural institutions. They rejected Leninist ideas of a vanguard party and adopted a politics of cultural radicalism. This shift contributed to the development of a New Left that was politically inconsistent, theoretically diverse, and ultimately unable to address the issues arising from the capitalist crisis.

6. The Historical Verdict

From a Marxist perspective, the historical judgment on the ULR is definitive: it was a petty-bourgeois reaction to Stalinism's crisis, replacing class struggle with cultural critique, and favoring moral protest over revolutionary Marxism. This fostered a left that, while radical in rhetoric, was reformist in action, ultimately leading to the ongoing fragmentation of socialist consciousness.

The ULR’s accomplishments—such as its cultural innovations, critique of British conservatism, and revival of popular traditions—were genuine. However, they were overshadowed by its political shortcomings. It did not offer a clear alternative to Stalinism, nor did it focus on mobilizing the working class. Additionally, it failed to see that the 1956 crisis could only be resolved by returning to the Fourth International's program.

The ULR was not the start of a socialist revival but rather marked a political withdrawal—moving away from Marxism, class struggle, and the revolutionary goals of the working class. Its legacy serves as a warning: lacking a solid theoretical base and a revolutionary strategy, cultural radicalism risks becoming a way to accommodate the very system it aims to critique.

 

 

 

 

Raphael Samuel and the Politics of “People’s History”: A Trotskyist Reassessment

Sophie Scott-Brown’s article on Raphael Samuel is a thoughtful, well-researched contribution to understanding postwar British left intellectual culture. It benefits from careful critical analysis, especially from a Trotskyist perspective, as it uncovers not only the contradictions within Samuel’s project but also highlights the broader political trend of the British left during the second half of the twentieth century. This trend, as the essay suggests, is one of political withdrawal, often disguised by rhetoric around democratic education, cultural diversity, and the praise of “ordinary people” as key historical actors.[1]

Scott-Brown’s essay effectively emphasises several key points. She observes the theatrical and deliberately crafted nature of Samuel’s “people’s historian” persona—his “iron resolution” hidden behind a “deliberately dozy and slightly dotty front,” as Sheila Rowbotham noted. She also examines the contradictions between Samuel’s professed egalitarian ideals and his actual behaviours: for example, overriding Ruskin students’ choices on Workshop themes, staging the 1979 confrontation between E.P. Thompson, Stuart Hall, and Richard Johnson like a theatrical director, and employing charm and tactics where his theoretical authority was lacking. These insights are important corrections to the often romanticised views of Samuel’s legacy.

She correctly traces Samuel’s organising style back to the culture of the Stalinist Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), highlighting the Popular Front approach of persuasion—prioritising "friendly persuasion over theoretical cudgelling.” However, the article stops short of extracting the essential political implications of this insight. From a Marxist and Trotskyist perspective, Samuel’s involvement with the CPGB isn’t just a biographical detail but rather the key political environment that shaped his entire intellectual path.

I. The CPGB Historians’ Group and the Popular Front Tradition

The Communist Party Historians’ Group, which educated Samuel alongside notable figures like Christopher Hill, E.P. Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, and Rodney Hilton, was deeply influenced by Stalinist politics. Ann Talbot noted that Hill's “people’s history” approach, promoted by the CPGB, was more than just an academic tradition; it served as a political tool aligned with Popular Front ideology. This approach offered a democratic facade for a political stance that placed the working class under the control of the "progressive” sections of the bourgeoisie and justified the international repression of revolutionary Marxists.

A.L. Morton’s People’s History of England, the key work of the genre that Samuel inherited, intentionally downplayed the class aspects of historical struggles, blending them into a unified national-popular story. This nationalist skew was deliberate, driven by the CPGB’s focus on forming cross-class alliances. Even after Samuel left the Party in 1956, his “people’s history” continued to reflect this distortion.

Scott-Brown observes that many in Samuel’s generation left the CPGB following the Soviet invasion of Hungary. However, she does not mention that the most ideologically committed members joined the Trotskyist movement. Those who moved towards the New Left, including Samuel, retained the core political flaw of Stalinism: their rejection of an independent working-class political agenda in favour of a broad, pluralist, cross-class cultural movement.

II. Thompson, Althusser, and the Retreat from Marxism

Scott-Brown regards the clash between Thompson’s “socialist humanism” and the Althusserian structuralism of Hall and Johnson as the key theoretical controversy of that era. From a Trotskyist perspective, this debate was essentially a retreat from Marxism.

Thompson’s *Making of the English Working Class* is a truly brilliant work, but his idea of "socialist humanism” marked a retreat into empiricism, moralism, and eventually a nationalist view of working-class history. His polemic *The Poverty of Theory* argued for English empiricism against Continental theory, not scientific Marxism against idealism. Meanwhile, Althusserianism reduced class struggle to structuralist abstraction.

Samuel’s refusal to choose between these positions—his emphasis on “plurality”—was not a genuine compromise but a political dodge. The failure of Workshop 13 in 1979, as vividly detailed by Scott-Brown, was not just bad event management. It revealed the deeper incoherence of a political movement that had forsaken clear programmatic goals and sought to unify conflicting intellectual tendencies through organisational talent and personal charisma.

III. The Democratisation of History and Its Class Content

Samuel’s main initiative—the democratisation of historical practice—aims to empower “ordinary people” to produce their own histories, reflecting a genuine emancipatory goal. He believes that workers should understand their own history, as traditional ruling-class historiography often mystifies and subjugates them. Contributions such as the Ruskin College pamphlets on pit life, narratives from rail workers, and working-class club culture are important examples of this effort.

However, democratisation lacking political clarity risks becoming empty radicalism. Samuel’s idea of a “people’s historian” served more as a cultural stand-in for revolutionary political education. The key issue is not just whether workers can write their own history, but whether they can comprehend their role within capitalist society well enough to change it.

The traditional Samuel obstructed this understanding by reducing class analysis to a sort of 'plurality' and favouring cultural populism over political action. By the 1990s, as Scott-Brown observes, he had adapted more to the Thatcherite heritage industry than challenged it. The progression from the Ruskin pamphlets to 'Theatres of Memory' (1994) illustrates this shift. By that time, Samuel had moved from encouraging workers to investigate their own exploitation to praising popular historical entertainment—such as period dramas, country houses, and ‘retrochic'—as ways of creating history. Richard Hoggart’s comment that the book was created by a “traumatised Marxist” is harsh, but it holds some truth.

IV. Memory as a Substitute for Politics

Samuel’s shift to memory studies was more a political response than an intellectual breakthrough. When history is viewed as a cultural activity rather than a scientific analysis of class society, it becomes impossible to differentiate between progressive and reactionary historical views. If all “meaning-making about the past” holds equal validity, then miners’ oral histories and the National Trust’s curated nostalgia are seen as comparable.

This marks Samuel’s conception of pluralism: a theoretical approach where the working class and the bourgeoisie are seen as equal contributors to memory, rather than as opposing classes in conflict. The working class is viewed as a remembering subject, not just a resisting one. The past transforms into a space for identity formation rather than a field for critique. History turns into a theatrical stage rather than a purely scientific discipline.

V. The Limits of Cultural Democracy

Samuel’s approach to democratizing history increased participation but narrowed political perspectives. It made archives accessible but limited avenues for revolutionary ideas. While it amplified diverse voices, it also diminished the relevance of class. Workers can document their histories, yet if the framework is influenced by Popular Front nationalism or New Left culturalism, it results in self-expression confined to bourgeois ideology rather than fostering revolutionary consciousness.

The democratisation of history is significant only if it is connected to the political self-liberation of the working class, which demands a scientific grasp of capitalism, an internationalist outlook, and a revolutionary agenda. Samuel did not provide any of these elements.

VI. The Trotskyist Alternative: History as a Weapon

While Samuel’s tradition dissolves into cultural populism, the Trotskyist tradition emphasises the importance of the unity between historical knowledge and revolutionary practice. Trotskyism regards history as a science rather than a stage, considers the working class to be a revolutionary force rather than merely a cultural identity, and views the past not as a memory resource but as a strategic guide for overthrowing capitalism.

This is the response Samuel was unable to give when asked in 1979, “What is socialist history?” His reply—“it’s an awfully big question, Brian”—was not due to modesty but evasion. A truthful answer would have involved confronting the Stalinist tradition he inherited and recognising the need for an independent working-class political program.

Postscript: The Contemporary Stakes of Reassessing Raphael Samuel

A Trotskyist re-assessment of Raphael Samuel goes beyond mere antiquarian interests; it engages directly with current political and intellectual debates. The British left's crisis in the late twentieth century—characterized by a retreat from class-based politics, an embrace of culturalism, and the shift from unified programs to pluralism—remains unresolved and has even intensified. The intellectual currents Samuel helped shape now dominate the humanities, while the working class continues to face systemic exclusion from political representation.

The modern academy, largely focused on cultural studies, memory, and identity-based histories, reflects the tendencies Samuel represented. The shift from class to culture, the prioritization of “voices” over analysis, and the celebration of diversity without political focus are now standard in historical research. Although seen as radical, these approaches serve as ideological compromises that allow a capitalist system to incorporate cultural criticism while suppressing conflicts over class.

Samuel’s legacy requires careful examination, not because of personal failings, but because his path illustrates a larger historical trend: the shift of the left from advocating revolutionary self-emancipation of workers to becoming a cultural and intellectual sphere focused on representation, identity, and memory. This shift has significant political implications. A left that neglects class struggle cannot challenge capitalism effectively. Similarly, a historical perspective that ignores class cannot reveal the true workings of exploitation. Without a clear program, politics cannot lead to genuine emancipation.

Today, Marxist historiography should focus on clarifying the structure of capitalist society and the role of the working class, rather than generating multiple narratives. It needs to reject the culturalist fragmentation legitimized by Samuel’s pluralism, reaffirm the scientific basis of historical materialism in opposition to the relativism of memory studies, and restore the connection between historical research and the political aim of socialist revolution.

This calls for a break not just from the Stalinist distortions of history but also from current culturalist distortions. It necessitates returning to the methodological clarity of Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky—not treating them as icons, but as theorists of a dynamic movement. It requires a historiography that views the past not as a stage for memory but as a battleground of struggle, where their lessons are crucial for future battles.

Raphael Samuel’s work, despite its vibrancy and generosity, ultimately aligns with a political tradition that lacked clarity. His idea of a “people’s history” made the archive more accessible but stripped away the political conflict of class struggle. It highlighted the ingenuity of ordinary people but overlooked the deep structural forces influencing their lives. While it expanded the number of stories and fostered engagement with warmth and color, it lacked the theoretical tools necessary to challenge capitalism.

A Marxist revaluation of Samuel does not reject his dedication to ordinary people but instead reclaims the political scope that his tradition denied. The working class requires more than just a platform for remembrance; it needs a thorough understanding of history. It needs an actionable plan and a movement that can change society, not just analyse its history.

Only the revolutionary Marxist tradition, embodied by the International Committee of the Fourth International, provides this perspective. It uniquely maintains the continuity in the fight against Stalinism, nationalism, and the culturalist dissolution of class. Additionally, it asserts that history is not a collection of competing stories but a tool for a class poised to seize power.

Samuel's critique is not meant as a closing but as an opening gesture. It extends beyond the cultural turn, the New Left, and the Popular Front, aiming to reaffirm a Marxist historiography suitable for the twenty-first century. The goal is not merely to democratize history but to equip the working class with the historical awareness essential for its emancipation.

 

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[1] Raphael Samuel and the Politics of the People’s Historian Sophie Scott-Brown-journal.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Socialist-History-61_Final-76-95.pdf

A People’s History Without Revolutionary Leadership?

Raquel Varela, the Zinn Tradition, Hobsbawm’s Marxism, and the Trotskyist Conception of History

Part I

Raquel Varela’s A People’s History of Europe is a major contribution to modern left-wing historiography. It aims to blend the “history from below” perspective with a broad overview of Europe’s development from the Middle Ages to the present day. Varela’s writing is driven by a genuine commitment to workers, peasants, and oppressed groups, and it carries a moral urgency that sharply contrasts with the complacency and cynicism common in mainstream academic history. However, the strengths of her approach—such as its empathy for the exploited, focus on mass movements, and rejection of elite-focused stories—are closely linked to its weaknesses. These issues are not personal flaws but stem from the political and theoretical limits of the environment in which she operates, shaped by left-reformist, post-Trotskyist, and post-Stalinist currents that have influenced the European radical left since the 1990s.

This essay aims to analyse Varela’s approach by comparing it with that of three key figures: Howard Zinn, Eric Hobsbawm, and Leon Trotsky. Zinn embodies the populist moral story of resistance; Hobsbawm's Marxism is scholarly yet politically compromised by the Communist Party; Trotsky advocates a scientific, dialectical, revolutionary approach that provides a clear explanation of major modern upheavals. Varela’s work exists where these traditions meet, drawing from each but mainly echoing the limitations of Zinn and Hobsbawm, while remaining somewhat distant from Trotsky’s method.

This analysis is more than an academic exercise; it involves high-stakes political issues. Addressing the crisis of global capitalism, the rise of imperialist wars, the growth of fascist movements, and the escalating struggles of the working class requires a historical perspective rooted in scientific socialism. While the ‘people’s history’ genre has its strengths, it falls short of this scope. It chronicles struggles but doesn’t analyse their outcomes, celebrates resistance but overlooks defeats, and invokes “the people” while hiding the crucial role of class leadership. The outcome is a history that is morally inspiring but lacks the necessary theoretical foundations—one that motivates but doesn’t equip.

Varela’s work aligns with the tradition set by Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States—a tradition with notable strengths and notable limitations. The book is praised for emphasising class struggle, general strikes, and revolutionary upheavals. Still, it is also criticised for theoretical ambiguity and political vagueness, especially around the concept of “the people.” The main flaw identified is that “the concept of ‘the people’ is politically vague… [it] conflates the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie, and sections of the bourgeoisie itself.” This issue is fundamental, as it underpins the book's entire methodological approach. People's History

The term “the people” is not rooted in Marxist theory but is instead a populist idea. It conceals the class conflict that shapes capitalist societies. This concept enables historians to praise acts of resistance without examining the underlying political goals, class makeup, or leadership of the movements. It replaces detailed, scientific analysis with moral outrage. Furthermore, it serves as a tool for the reformist left to avoid facing the key lesson of the 20th century: that the outcome of revolutions depends not on the vague notion of “the people,” but on the political leadership within the working class.

This is where a comparison with Zinn becomes necessary. Zinn’s "People’s History" is a passionate and compelling narrative that highlights the brutality of American capitalism and amplifies the voices of the oppressed. However, it does not offer a Marxist analysis. It fails to differentiate between proletarian, populist, petty-bourgeois radical, and bourgeois liberal movements, viewing all resistance as driven by a single moral impulse. Instead, it presents a history that focuses on victims and heroes rather than on class struggles or political parties. It chronicles injustice without analysing the inherent contradictions of capitalism.

Varela adopts this framework, viewing her “people” as united by oppressions rather than their roles in production relations. Her narrative emphasises sympathy over theoretical analysis, highlighting the struggles of workers, peasants, women, colonised peoples, and soldiers without exploring the class dynamics behind these conflicts. She lauds the mass movements of 1848, the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the German Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, and the Portuguese Revolution, but does not analyse the political leaderships that shaped their outcomes. Consequently, her history is detailed but lacks explanatory depth.

The difference with Hobsbawm is revealing. Eric Hobsbawm, a highly knowledgeable Marxist historian, authored the significant "Age of" trilogy, which is a major achievement. He comprehended capitalism's structural dynamics, the long-term shifts in class relations, and the broader European development context. However, his work was influenced by his lifelong allegiance to the Communist Party, preventing him from addressing Stalinism's crimes or the betrayals within the Communist International. Consequently, he couldn't analyse the critical role of Stalinist leadership in the failures of the German and Spanish Revolutions and the post-war revolutionary surge. While his Marxist theory was profound, his political stance remained compromised.

Varela resembles Hobsbawm in her focus on long-term processes and her sympathy for labour movements. However, she lacks his depth in theory. She does not provide a systematic analysis of capitalist development, class formation, or revolutionary dynamics. Simultaneously, she echoes his political evasions by avoiding the role of Stalinism in 20th-century defeats, the betrayals within social democracy, the political limits of anarchism, and the essential issue of revolutionary leadership.

This is where Trotsky’s approach proves essential. His works—such as The History of the Russian Revolution (1905), The Revolution Betrayed, and his analyses of the German catastrophe and the Spanish Revolution—are the pinnacle of Marxist historiography. They go beyond simple event recounting, offering scientific analyses of society’s laws of development. These works are rooted in dialectical materialism, focusing on the contradictions between productive forces and relations of production, the global nature of class struggle, and the critical influence of political leadership.

Four principles define Trotsky’s method.

First, Trotsky's class analysis does not categorise “the people” as a single analytical unit. Instead, he clearly distinguishes among classes and their political tendencies, analysing the proletariat, peasantry, petty bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, and state apparatus as separate social forces with distinct interests. Second, Trotsky emphasises the importance of leadership. He believes that the success of revolutions depends on the revolutionary party's program, strategy, and organisation. While the working class may possess great energy and creativity, without revolutionary leadership, they cannot seize power.

Third, Trotsky advocates dialectical materialism, viewing revolutions as outcomes of capitalism’s contradictions. He explores the relationship between objective conditions and subjective factors, spontaneous struggle versus conscious leadership, and national developments in relation to the international context—fourth, internationalism. Trotsky rejects the national framework of bourgeois historiography. He analyses revolutions as part of a global process. He understands that the fate of the Russian Revolution depended on the German Revolution, that the international crisis of capitalism shaped the Spanish Revolution, and that the defeats of the 20th century were the result of the betrayals of the Stalinist bureaucracy on a world scale.

This approach highlights the weaknesses in Varela’s method, especially evident in her analysis of the Portuguese Revolution of 1974–75. The document emphasises this event as the critical test of her historiography. It states that the revolution “was ultimately contained and betrayed through the intervention of the Portuguese Communist Party… and the Socialist Party, with the complicity of the trade union bureaucracy.” This analysis aligns with Trotskyist perspectives by recognising the revolutionary potential of the working class, the counter-revolutionary roles played by Stalinism and social democracy, and the absence of a revolutionary party capable of leading the power struggle.

Varela’s interpretation of the Carnation Revolution, however, highlights the spontaneity and creativity of the masses, while downplaying the roles of the PCP and SP in maintaining capitalism. She praises the radicalisation of workers and soldiers but refrains from discussing revolutionary leadership. She outlines the process without addressing its ultimate result. Her account depicts a struggle but lacks a comprehensive theory of revolution.

This is the main flaw of the “people’s history” genre. It collects evidence of exploitation and resistance but fails to analyse the dialectical laws governing historical progress. It notes the symptoms of capitalist crises without exploring their root causes. While it praises the courage of the oppressed, it does not account for their defeats. It refers to “the people” but does not analyse the class forces that influence history. Consequently, it presents a history of victims and heroes rather than of classes and political parties.

The outcome is a history that appeals morally but fails to offer political solutions. It evokes sympathy without guiding strategy. It stirs feelings of injustice without proposing specific plans for revolutionary change. This is a significant flaw— the core limitation of the reformist left. It explains why the left struggles to give a clear response to the crisis of global capitalism, why mass movements often lead nowhere, and why betrayals by social democracy and Stalinism have not been remembered as lessons. It also clarifies why the working class lacks a revolutionary leadership.

The purpose of Marxist historiography is to analyse the class struggle, not to celebrate "the people." Its role is to explain resistance outcomes, not just record them. It aims to understand rather than moralise, and to empower rather than inspire. Varela’s book, despite its virtues, falls short of this standard. While it corrects bourgeois historiography by highlighting the working class, it does not fully explain the class's historical role. It recounts revolutions but lacks analysis of the conditions needed for their success. Although it celebrates struggle, it does not investigate leadership. It documents the oppressed’s history but does not depict the class struggle in the Marxist sense.

Part II

Varela’s A People’s History of Europe reveals its methodological weaknesses mostly through its narrative structure. The book focuses on episodes of mass resistance—such as peasant uprisings, strikes, revolutions, and anti-colonial struggles—and shows genuine sympathy for the oppressed. However, its narrative is episodic rather than dialectical, jumping from one act of resistance to another without examining the underlying contradictions or the political forces influencing these movements. Consequently, it offers a detailed account but falls short in providing comprehensive explanations.

This episodic format mirrors the influence of the Zinn tradition. Zinn’s People’s History presents a series of moral tableaux: the dispossession of Native Americans, the exploitation of workers, women’s struggles, and African American resistance. Each chapter functions as an independent critique of injustice. However, the book lacks a systematic theory of American capitalism or a dialectical analysis of its evolution. It doesn’t explore the links between economic change and political institutions, class struggle and state power, or national and international development. Overall, it is a moral narrative rather than a scientific examination.

Varela’s approach follows this pattern by depicting the struggles of “the people” as heroic episodes. However, she does not explore the underlying structural dynamics of European capitalism, such as the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the rise of the bourgeois state, the development of the modern working class, or the emergence of imperialism as a global system. She also overlooks the contradictions within the capitalist mode of production and the connection between economic crises and political upheavals. While she describes the symptoms of capitalist development, she does not analyze its fundamental laws.

This lack of theoretical analysis is intentional, mirroring the current European left's shift away from Marxist economic critique. The fall of the Soviet Union, the decline of social-democratic parties, and the emergence of post-Marxist ideas have led to a left that dismisses overarching narratives, questions class-based analysis, and resists the idea of revolutionary leadership. Consequently, the historiography focuses on resistance stories while sidestepping issues of power.

This avoidance is especially clear in Varela’s discussion of major 20th-century revolutions. The Russian Revolution of 1917, the German Revolution of 1918–23, the Spanish Revolution of 1936–39, and the Portuguese Revolution of 1974–75 are depicted as moments of popular mobilization, yet their underlying political dynamics are not analyzed. The contribution of the Bolshevik Party in guiding the Russian working class to power is recognized but not explored. The betrayals during the German Revolution by the Social Democratic Party are mentioned without analysis. The counter-revolutionary role of Stalinism in Spain is acknowledged but left unexamined. The suppression of the Portuguese Revolution by the PCP and SP is described but not sufficiently clarified.

This is not about historical facts but about the method of studying history. The outcome of revolutions depends not on the “people” in general, but on the political leadership of the working class. Trotsky’s key contribution to history shows that whether revolutions succeed or fail relies on the working class’s ability to build a revolutionary party. This party must offer strategic guidance, resist reformist and centrist influences, and lead in the fight for state power. Without such a party, the spontaneous enthusiasm of the masses cannot be turned into an aware effort to achieve socialism.

This is the lesson that Varela’s work does not fully incorporate. Her narrative is rooted in sympathy for the oppressed, yet it lacks a comprehensive theory of revolutionary leadership. She highlights the courage and creativity of the masses but does not analyze the political forces shaping their struggles. While she celebrates the Paris Commune, she overlooks the absence of a revolutionary party capable of coordinating the effort. She praises the militancy of German workers but fails to examine the SPD's role in disarming the revolution. She venerates the heroism of Spanish workers and peasants but does not address the influence of the Stalinist bureaucracy in suppressing the revolution. Although she admires the radicalization of the Portuguese working class, she does not examine the political mechanisms through which the PCP and SP stabilised capitalist rule.

The outcome is a history that inspires morally but leaves politics confused. It elicits admiration for the oppressed's struggles but fails to explain why those struggles were overcome. It creates a feeling of injustice without offering a clear strategy for change. While it presents a story of resistance, it does not provide a comprehensive theory of revolution.

The difference between Trotsky’s approach and others is clear. Trotsky’s "History of the Russian Revolution" is not just a timeline of events but a scientific analysis of revolutionary dynamics. It explores how objective conditions and subjective factors interact, the balance between spontaneous struggle and conscious leadership, and the relationship between the masses and the party. The book examines the contradictions within the Provisional Government, the role of the Soviets, the emergence of dual power, and the strategic choices that led to the October insurrection. It serves as a work of historical materialism, focusing on the laws governing societal change.

Trotsky’s analyses of the German and Spanish revolutions are equally meticulous. He argued that the German Revolution's defeat was due to betrayals by the SPD and the Communist Party's mistakes, not an inevitable outcome. Similarly, he pointed out that Spain's revolution was defeated not because of Franco's strength, but because of the Stalinist bureaucracy's counter-revolutionary policies. He examined the political forces involved in these struggles and the strategic choices that led to their outcomes.

This level of analysis is missing from Varela’s work. Her narrative is detailed yet lacks explanation. She depicts the struggles of the oppressed but fails to analyze the political forces influencing their destiny. While she celebrates resistance, she does not explore leadership. She provides a history of the people but not of the class struggle.

The impact of this methodological weakness is clear in her analysis of the Portuguese Revolution. The Carnation Revolution, a key post-war movement, saw the working class radicalize, workers’ commissions form, factories occupied, and the colonial empire collapse, leading to dual power and directly challenging state authority. However, this upheaval was ultimately controlled and stabilized through an alliance between the PCP, SP, the military, and the trade union bureaucracy.

Varela discusses the mass radicalization but overlooks the political mechanisms that limited the revolution. She fails to investigate the PCP's role in subordinating the working class to the MFA, nor does she analyze the SP's defense of capitalist property relations. Additionally, she does not address the lack of a revolutionary party capable of leading the working class to power. While describing the symptoms of the revolution, she neglects its underlying dynamics.

This issue is not about historical facts but about the approach to history. To understand the fate of the Portuguese Revolution, it is essential to examine the roles played by PCP and SP, the impacts of Stalinism and social democracy, and the lack of revolutionary leadership. These elements are crucial in shaping the revolution's outcome. Without considering them, the history of the revolution remains unfinished.

Varela’s discussion of European capitalism's history shows a similar flaw. She highlights the plight of the oppressed but fails to explore the structural forces shaping capitalist growth. She overlooks key transitions like feudalism to capitalism, the rise of the bourgeois state, the advent of imperialism, and the worldwide aspects of capitalist accumulation. While she details the symptoms of capitalist development, she neglects its underlying laws.

This lack of theoretical analysis mirrors the political stance of today's European left. After the Soviet Union's collapse and the decline of social-democratic parties, the left has become wary of overarching narratives, doubtful of class analysis, and opposed to revolutionary leadership. Consequently, historiography tends to praise resistance while sidestepping issues of power.

This is the main limitation of the “people’s history” genre: it documents struggles but lacks analysis of their results. It honors resistance but doesn’t address defeat. It refers to “the people” but downplays the key role of class leadership. It tells stories of victims and heroes rather than classes and parties. Marxist historiography aims not to celebrate “the people,” but to analyze class struggle. Its goal is not just to document resistance but to explain its outcomes. It seeks understanding over moralizing. Its purpose is not to inspire but to equip.

Varela’s book, despite its strengths, falls short of this standard. While it offers a valuable correction to bourgeois historiography, it does not significantly advance Marxist theory. It reaffirms the importance of the working class in history but fails to explain its historical role. The book recounts revolutions without analyzing the conditions necessary for their success. It celebrates struggles but does not focus on leadership. Although it chronicles the oppressed, it does not present a history of class struggle in the Marxist framework.

Part III

Varela’s historiographical approach reveals more limitations when viewed against the backdrop of the broader crisis in historical consciousness during the post-Soviet period. The fall of the USSR in 1991 was seen by the bourgeois intelligentsia as the “end of history,” marking the triumph of liberal capitalism and the ultimate overthrow of Marxism. This ideological shift significantly influenced the academic left, leading to a decline in class analysis, a shift towards cultural and identity-focused perspectives, and increased skepticism about the idea of revolution. The result was a historiography that emphasised fragmentation, contingency, and micro‑history at the expense of structural analysis and global processes.

Varela’s approach partially counters current trends by emphasizing the central role of class struggle, the significance of mass movements, and the agency of oppressed groups. She rejects both liberal historiography’s complacency and post-modernism’s fatalism, bringing the working class back to the heart of European history. These are notable accomplishments. However, her work is still influenced by the post-Soviet left’s intellectual environment. It lacks the confidence found in traditional Marxist theory, avoids discussing revolutionary leadership, and replaces the scientific concept of class with the moral notion of “the people.” While she celebrates resistance, she does not delve into the conditions necessary for achieving victory.

This tension appears in her portrayal of European development's long trajectory. Varela highlights peasant resistance to feudal lords, artisans fighting guild restrictions, workers opposing capitalist exploitation, and colonized peoples resisting imperial rule. However, she stops short of analyzing the structural shifts behind these struggles. She does not explore the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the rise of the bourgeois state, the expansion of the global market, or the rise of imperialism as a worldwide system. While she notes the signs of historical change, she overlooks its fundamental mechanisms.

Her treatment of 19th-century history notably omits structural analysis. While she links the revolutions of 1848, the unification of Germany and Italy, industrial capitalism's growth, the rise of the labour movement, and imperialism as interconnected events, she does not explore their deeper dynamics. Key contradictions of capitalist development—such as the struggle between productive forces and relations of production, the tendency of profit rates to decline, the expansion of the global market, and intensified class conflict—are left unexamined. Consequently, her narrative becomes rich in detail but lacks the necessary theoretical clarity.

The contrast with Hobsbawm highlights important differences. His series—*Age of Revolution*, *Age of Capital*, and *Age of Empire*—provide a broad analysis of key structural changes in the modern world. They explore the links between economic growth, political systems, and social movements, and analyze capitalism's contradictions and imperialism's forces. Hobsbawm’s work places European history within a global context, but it is also influenced by his loyalty to the Communist Party. This limits his ability to critique Stalinism’s role in 20th-century defeats, the Soviet state's decline, or the betrayals within the Communist International.

Varela’s work lacks the theoretical depth of Hobsbawm but echoes his political evasions. She avoids addressing Stalinism's role in the failures of the German and Spanish revolutions, does not analyze the Soviet state's degeneration, and omits the betrayals within the Communist International. While she details the struggles of the oppressed, she fails to scrutinize the political forces influencing their outcomes. Her work presents a history of the people but does not explore the broader class struggle.

This is where Trotsky’s method proves essential. His analyses of the Russian, German, and Spanish revolutions reveal that revolutions' outcomes depend not on the “people” in general, but on the political leadership within the working class. Trotsky illustrated that the Russian Revolution's success hinged on the Bolshevik Party’s capacity to provide strategic guidance, resist reformist and centrist influences, and spearhead the fight for state power. He attributed the failure of the German Revolution to betrayals by the SPD and shortcomings of the Communist Party. Additionally, he examined the counter-revolutionary role played by the Stalinist bureaucracy in Spain. His analysis also covered the interplay between objective conditions and subjective factors, spontaneous action and conscious leadership, as well as national and international developments.

This level of analysis is missing from Varela’s work. Her narrative is motivated by sympathy for the oppressed, yet it lacks a theory of revolutionary leadership. She highlights the courage and creativity of the masses but does not analyze the political forces influencing their struggles. While she celebrates resistance, she does not delve into strategy. She provides a history of the people but fails to address the broader class struggle.

This methodological weakness becomes especially clear in her discussion of the 20th century. While she links events like the First World War, the Russian Revolution, fascism's rise, the Second World War, the post-war settlement, the Cold War, and the fall of the Soviet Union as interconnected, she does not analyze the deeper factors driving these events. Issues such as imperialism's contradictions, the crisis of the nation-state, the influence of the Stalinist bureaucracy, and the global capitalist accumulation are left unexamined. Consequently, her narrative is detailed but lacks a solid theoretical foundation.

This lack of theoretical analysis mirrors the political stance of today's European left. The fall of the Soviet Union and the decline of social-democratic parties have led to a left that distrusts grand narratives, doubts class analysis, and opposes the idea of revolutionary leadership. Consequently, historiography now emphasizes resistance but sidesteps issues of power.

This is the main limitation of the “people’s history” genre. It provides a record of struggles without analyzing their results. It honors resistance but doesn’t clarify why defeats happen. While it mentions ‘the people,’ it hides the crucial part played by class leadership. Essentially, it tells a story of victims and heroes, rather than focusing on classes and parties.

Marxist historiography's purpose isn't to praise “the people” but to analyze class struggle. It aims to explain resistance outcomes rather than just record them. Its goal isn't moral judgment but understanding; not to inspire but to clarify. Varela’s book, despite its merits, doesn't meet this standard. It offers a useful correction to bourgeois historiography but doesn't significantly contribute to Marxist theory. While it restores the working class’s place in history, it doesn't clarify their historical role. It describes revolutions but doesn't analyze what conditions lead to their success. It celebrates struggle but overlooks leadership dynamics. It's a history of the oppressed, not a history of class struggle in the Marxist sense.

The comparison with Zinn, Hobsbawm, and Trotsky highlights the strengths and weaknesses of Varela’s approach. Zinn provides a moral story of resistance but lacks in-depth theoretical analysis. Hobsbawm presents a structural view of capitalism but is politically biased due to his allegiance to the Communist Party. Trotsky offers a scientific perspective on revolutionary dynamics and emphasizes the importance of political leadership. Varela takes inspiration from Zinn and Hobsbawm, however, remains somewhat detached from Trotsky's ideas. This distancing is intentional, reflecting the political stance of the modern European left, which has largely moved away from the Marxist critique of political economy and the idea of revolutionary leadership. Consequently, this historiography emphasizes resistance while sidestepping the issue of power.

The purpose of Marxist historiography is to surpass this restriction by analyzing capitalism's structural dynamics, imperialism's contradictions, the function of the state, class struggle movements, and the importance of political leadership. It should review past revolutions' achievements and setbacks, recognize the betrayals by reformist and Stalinist leaders, and identify the conditions necessary for future struggles. The goal is to offer a scientific interpretation of history rather than a moralistic story.

Varela’s 'A People’s History of Europe' offers an important challenge to bourgeois historiography by re-centering the working class and questioning liberal narratives' complacency. However, it is confined by the typical boundaries of the “people’s history' genre, lacking the depth of historical materialism, the clear political stance of Trotskyism, and the comprehensive structural analysis found in Marxist historiography at its best.

Therefore, it is important to study Varela’s work together with the classical Marxist analyses by Trotsky, Lenin, and the early Comintern. These works offer the necessary theoretical framework to understand not only how and why workers fought and were defeated but also the lessons that can be learned for the future.

 

Stalin's Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky, Bertrand M. Patenaude’s Faber & Faber Hardcover – 18 Jun. 2009

 

The historiography of Leon Trotsky has historically been a battleground reflecting larger ideological struggles. Few revolutionaries have faced such prolonged distortion, vilification, and erasure. Trotsky’s political legacy—linked to the October Revolution and the global socialist movement—continues to generate fierce scholarly and political debates. Bertrand M. Patenaude’s book, Stalin’s Nemesis: The Exile and Murder of Leon Trotsky (also published as Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary in the U.S.), engages with this contentious history especially at a time when post-Soviet liberal and conservative groups are actively trying to undermine Trotskyism as both a historical and current force. Therefore, Patenaude’s biography should be seen not just as a scholarly work on Trotsky, but also as a reflection of the ideological context in which it was created.

This review contends that Patenaude’s work plays a dual, contradictory role. It corrects significant falsehoods found in Robert Service’s widely criticized Trotsky biography, providing an important corrective. However, Patenaude’s narrative remains limited by the liberal-academic framework it is created within, reflecting many of the political and methodological biases typical of anti-Marxist history. Consequently, while the biography is sometimes sympathetic and quite readable, it ultimately fails to fully understand Trotsky’s political ambitions or the broader historical forces that influenced his life and death.

I. Patenaude’s Intervention Against the Post‑Soviet School of Falsification

Patenaude’s most notable scholarly achievement is not his biography but his scathing review of Robert Service’s Trotsky in The American Historical Review. This review, later used by the International Committee of the Fourth International in its documentation against anti-Trotskyist misinformation, revealed numerous factual inaccuracies, distortions, and methodological flaws in Service’s work. Patenaude remarked: “I have counted more than four dozen [mistakes]… At times, the errors are jaw-dropping.”

The biography by Service was found to be completely unreliable, according to Patenaude, due to errors such as confusing Trotsky’s sons, misidentifying the largest party in the First Duma, a mistaken reference to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, reversing Trotsky’s 1940 stance on U.S. involvement in World War II, and citing the wrong year of Trotsky’s widow Natalia Sedova’s death.

The Marxist author David North correctly characterized Patenaude’s review as “a damning critique of Service’s fundamental skills as a historian.” In this context, Patenaude’s contribution plays a crucial political and historiographical role: it protects the accuracy of the historical record from a surge of post-Soviet revisionism that aims to undermine revolutionary Marxism by distorting the reputations of its key figures.

II. Liberal Biography and the Limits of Method

While Patenaude’s critique of Service highlights his strengths, it also reveals the limits of his own biography. Despite having unprecedented access to Trotsky’s papers at Harvard and the Hoover Institution, Patenaude’s account is still influenced by the ideological biases of the liberal academic world. His tendency toward a novelistic, character-focused style — a trend that's becoming more common in modern biography — is not well-suited for accurately tracing the political and theoretical growth of a revolutionary Marxist.

The issue extends beyond style. The liberal biographical approach relies on methodological individualism, which simplifies political history to leaders' psychology, replacing structural analysis with anecdotes and gossip. Patenaude’s frequent digressions into Trotsky’s personal life — including a salacious story about his affair with Frida Kahlo — illustrate this trend. While this material might interest a general audience, it offers limited insight into Trotsky’s political development or the broader historical forces that influenced it.

Even more concerning are Patenaude’s unsupported political claims. He states that Trotsky "helped create the first totalitarian state,” a statement that not only has no supporting evidence but also echoes Cold War liberal stereotypes that equate Bolshevism with Stalinism. Likewise, his mention of Trotsky’s attempt to “cloak the Bolshevik coup” shows a shallow understanding of 1917 historiography and a passive acceptance of anti-revolutionary stories.

III. The Erasure of Trotskyism as a Movement

One of the most significant shortcomings of Patenaude’s biography is its almost complete neglect of Trotskyism as a political movement. The book barely mentions the Fourth International, the Transitional Programme, or the global network of militants who carried on Trotsky’s fight against Stalinism. This omission is deliberate. Recognizing Trotskyism as a vibrant movement — rather than just the tragic aftermath of a lost revolution — would force acknowledgment of Trotsky’s ongoing critique of Stalinism and his emphasis on the importance of international working-class struggle.

Patenaude heavily relies on sources from former Trotskyists who later disaffiliated, which further distorts the narrative. While these testimonies have some value, they need careful contextualization — something Patenaude seldom offers. Consequently, his depiction of the Trotskyist movement reduces it to a series of “sects” engaged in “splits and mergers," creating a caricature that hides the actual political debates that motivated the movement.

IV. The Hoover Institution and the Politics of Archival Knowledge

Patenaude’s connection to the Hoover Institution—known for its anti-Communist scholarship—is relevant to the limitations of his work. The Hoover archives hold valuable resources on the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Union. However, these materials are influenced by Cold War-era ideological views that portray Bolshevism as a departure from liberal modernity. Despite his scholarly thoroughness, Patenaude’s biography still operates within this ideological framework.

This is clear in how he handles the Soviet bureaucracy and Stalinist terror. Although Patenaude highlights Trotsky’s personal tragedies—such as the killing of his family, his exile-induced isolation, and the constant danger of assassination—he does not place these events within Trotsky's own analysis of bureaucratic decline. As a result, the political significance of Trotsky’s fight against Stalinism becomes obscured by a focus on personal suffering rather than political context.

V. Conclusion: The Politics of Historical Memory

Patenaude’s Stalin’s Nemesis demonstrates notable narrative skill and occasional insights. It vividly depicts Trotsky’s last decade and serves as a needed correction to Robert Service's distortions. However, it does not fully achieve a thorough historical understanding of Trotsky’s life, politics, and legacy. Its liberal perspective, dependence on impressionistic sources, and overlooking of Trotskyism as a movement make it insufficient as a political biography.

The struggle over Trotsky’s historical image is not an antiquarian dispute. It is an ideological conflict rooted in contemporary class relations and the political needs of ruling strata. Trotsky’s programme — international proletarian revolution, workers’ democracy, and the fight against bureaucratic degeneration — remains a threat to both Stalinist apologetics and capitalist triumphalism. Any serious historiography must therefore approach Trotsky not as a tragic figure of the past but as a revolutionary whose ideas remain relevant to the present.

Readers interested in Trotsky’s life and ideas should examine his writings and prominent Marxist biographies from before the post-Soviet revisionist wave. While Patenaude’s biography offers an approachable overview, it does not replace a thorough, politically rigorous exploration of Trotsky’s revolutionary contributions.