The Anglosphere’s Mental Health Crisis and the Social Catastrophe of Capitalism

Recently, a new wave of commentary has surfaced trying to account for the rapidly worsening mental health crisis among young people in advanced capitalist nations. One notable analysis is by Financial Times columnist John Burn-Murdoch, who uses various data sources to show that the crisis is primarily concentrated in the Anglosphere—comprising the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. His charts and graphs are presented as a calm, fact-based contribution to a debate often viewed as inflated by exaggeration and moral panic.

However, like many mainstream analyses, Burn-Murdoch’s discussion ends right where the deeper explanation starts. He highlights symptoms but avoids diagnosing the underlying problem. His perspective is limited by the ideological beliefs of the capitalist system, preventing him from confronting the social reality that millions of young people are being mentally overwhelmed by a system that makes a decent and secure life impossible.

The Limits of Bourgeois Explanation

Burn-Murdoch’s main argument — that the crisis originates from “shattered homeownership expectations” — exemplifies bourgeois reductionism. This narrative suggests that young people were brought up to expect to own property, and the housing market's failure to meet these expectations has led to widespread despair.

This argument diminishes a serious social crisis by framing the suffering of a whole generation as simply unmet consumer expectations. It suggests that lowering mortgage rates or fixing the housing ladder would eliminate the crisis. This perspective is not only insufficient but also ideological, as it assumes capitalism is inherently stable and that the issue stems solely from unequal distribution of rewards.

The truth is quite different. The housing crisis is not a separate failure but a sign of the ongoing impoverishment of the working class. As an analysis from WSWS pointed out years ago, the dream of owning a home in America has become out of reach for many young families due to declining wages, increasing expenses, and exploitative lending practices — not because capitalism has failed, but because it is operating precisely as intended.

Mental Illness as a Social Disease

Mainstream commentators' refusal to acknowledge social causes is deliberate, not accidental—it's ideological. Over 25 years ago, the WSWS noted that the US Surgeon General’s report on mental illness acknowledged that “the precise causes of most mental disorders are not known,” yet it emphasised brain chemistry and genetics as the main causes. The WSWS pointed out that this choice was obvious: "Can anyone imagine the Surgeon-General of the United States issuing a major report declaring that the epidemic of mental illness in America is due to ... American society?”

Acknowledging mental illness as a social disease implicates the capitalist system itself, raising controversial political issues about societal organisation, the dismantling of social protections, and the isolation of human life driven by profit motives. Burn-Murdoch, like others supporting the current system, is unable to go beyond describing the crisis; he cannot explain its underlying causes.

The Historical Evolution of Psychiatric Ideology Under Capitalism

The current mental-health crisis, affecting millions in advanced capitalist nations, is not just an outbreak of individual issues. Instead, it results from a long history where psychiatry has been influenced and manipulated by capitalism's demands. Psychiatry is not a purely scientific field; it has developed alongside capitalism’s social relations, mirroring its contradictions, fears, and its primary goal to maintain the status quo. To fully understand today's crisis, one must trace this development from the Industrial Revolution to its present-day neoliberal state.

Psychiatry’s Birth in the Age of Industrial Discipline

Modern psychiatry developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, coinciding with the consolidation of capitalism's dominance over society. The growth of factories, wage labour, and urbanisation led to new forms of social dislocation and human suffering. However, the ruling class did not see these issues as signs of the harshness of early industrial capitalism. Instead, they were viewed as individual disorders.

The asylum, a core institution of early psychiatry, had two main roles. It separated those deemed “unproductive,” “irrational,” or “dangerous” and upheld norms of bourgeois discipline. The so-called 'moral treatment' introduced by Philippe Pinel and William Tuke was not truly moral in an emancipatory sense; rather, it was a system of surveillance, obedience, and labour aimed at shaping individuals into compliant members of the growing capitalist society. The ideological premise was clear: if individuals could not function within capitalist society, the fault lay within the individual, not the society.

Pathologising Deviance, Protecting Property

As capitalism developed in the 19th century, psychiatry broadened its scope. During the Victorian era, issues like poverty, alcoholism, “hysteria,” and political dissent became medical concerns. Women challenging patriarchal norms were diagnosed with “nervous disorders," while workers protesting poor conditions were deemed unstable or criminally inclined.

The bourgeois family, regarded as the ideal core of capitalist society, was seen as the normal and healthy family unit, with any deviations viewed as abnormal. Psychiatry emerged as a tool for enforcing social conformity and upholding property relations. During this era, biological determinism and early eugenics gained prominence, offering pseudo-scientific backing for class structures and imperial rule. Mental illness was often depicted as hereditary, serving as a convenient justification for maintaining social inequality.

The Age of Social Crisis and Biological Reductionism

The early 20th century was marked by world war, economic depression, and revolutionary change. Millions of soldiers returning from the First World War exhibited “shell shock,” a condition that challenged the idea that mental suffering is solely individual. However, instead of addressing social causes of trauma, the ruling class reinforced biological reductionism. During the interwar years, treatments like lobotomies and insulin shock therapy emerged, reflecting a system eager to hide the social roots of widespread psychological crises, rather than genuinely improve patient care.

The Great Depression produced widespread despair, unemployment, and social disintegration. But psychiatry did not interpret these phenomena as consequences of capitalism’s crisis. Instead, it doubled down on individual pathology, reinforcing the ideological firewall between social conditions and mental suffering.

The Welfare State and the Pharmaceutical Revolution

After 1945, a period of temporary stability emerged. The welfare state, increased wages, and expanded social services helped reduce many of capitalism’s worst abuses. Psychiatry evolved accordingly, gradually phasing out asylums and introducing new psychotropic medications like chlorpromazine, antidepressants, and benzodiazepines, which offered chemical remedies for psychological issues. However, the ideological basis remained unchanged: mental illness was still seen as an individual malfunction. Systematic neglect of the social origins of suffering—such as alienation, exploitation, racial oppression, and gender inequality—continued to be a defining feature of psychiatric theory.

The pharmaceutical industry, embedded within the capitalist profit system, grew into a powerful force. Treatment was turned into a commodity, transforming the patient into a consumer. The role of the psychiatrist shifted to simply prescribing. These social conflicts were hidden behind the promise of quick chemical relief.

The Atomization of Society and the Explosion of Diagnosis

The late 20th century marked the rise of neoliberalism, characterised by deregulation, privatisation, union-busting, and the erosion of social protections. This led to increased societal atomization, causing unprecedented stress, insecurity, and despair. Psychiatric ideology adapted to this new environment, with the DSM expanding significantly to include more diagnostic categories and medicalising common distress. Conditions like ADHD, mild ASD, generalised anxiety disorder, and major depressive disorder emerged as widespread phenomena.

This surge in diagnoses was deliberate, fulfilling three political roles: it personalises social suffering, thus avoiding scrutiny of capitalism’s influence; it opens new markets for pharmaceutical companies; and it disciplines workers by framing distress as an individual flaw instead of a consequence of exploitation. During the neoliberal era, cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) also gained prominence. Designed to help individuals adapt to difficult conditions rather than change them, its main message—"change your thoughts, not your circumstances"—aligns closely with capitalist values.

Capitalism’s Social Breakdown and the Ideological Dead End

Today’s mental health crisis stems from forty years of social counter-revolution. Young people are burdened with unstable jobs, skyrocketing housing costs, declining public services, and broken community networks. The rise of the gig economy has undermined job stability. Market forces have dismantled social connections. The obsession with personal “success” and “failure” has become dangerously extreme.

Psychiatric ideology remains stuck in a framework from two centuries ago. It fails to recognise that capitalism itself fuels widespread psychological suffering and that mental illness is a social issue. Instead, it attributes distress to neurotransmitters, genetics, and personal problems, expanding diagnostic categories and prescribing more medication. It promotes “resilience training” and “mindfulness” as solutions for enduring conditions that should be eliminated. The ruling class relies on this ideology; without it, the social consequences of the crisis could be explosive.

Why the Anglosphere?

The crisis is concentrated in the Anglosphere for obvious reasons. These countries have seen the most extensive dismantling of the postwar welfare state, the most aggressive erosion of job security through the gig economy, and the most ruthless subordination of social bonds to market forces. Additionally, the ideology of individual “success” and “failure” is deeply rooted here.

Young workers in these nations face conditions not seen since the Great Depression. They face job insecurity, unaffordable housing, failing public services, and an inability to reach fundamental life milestones such as starting families or securing stable homes. A WSWS analysis of youth suicide pointed out: "The youngest generation of workers is entering adulthood in the wake of 40 years of social counter-revolution against the working class." This issue isn't just about unfulfilled dreams of property ownership; it involves the breakdown of the material and social bases necessary for a humane life.

The Medicalisation of Social Misery

Burn-Murdoch warns against the dangers of medicalising everyday distress, but he views this mainly as a technical issue of diagnostic accuracy. In truth, medicalising social suffering serves as a political tactic. It is a cost-effective and ideologically easy method for the ruling class to control an increasingly distressed population. When millions of children have trouble focusing, the cause isn't blamed on overcrowded classrooms, exhausted parents, or economic insecurity. Instead, they are branded as neurologically disordered and treated with medication. Similarly, young adults overwhelmed by unstable jobs and high living costs are told their suffering results from chemical imbalances.

Decades ago, the WSWS cautioned that governments were increasingly using psychoactive drugs to control children’s behaviour, pointing out that British laws were so extensive that doctors could prescribe medication simply because children struggled with math or spelling. This was not a diagnostic error; it was intentional social policy.

The CDC Data and the Class Question

The CDC’s 2021 Youth Risk Behaviour Survey revealed that 42% of US high school students felt persistent sadness or hopelessness, 22% seriously considered suicide, and 10% attempted it. However, the CDC primarily interpreted these statistics through race and sexual identity, avoiding discussions of class. This omission is revealing: identity categories are politically safe, whereas class is not. Analysing the crisis through class would mean acknowledging that capitalism causes widespread psychological suffering, even for those who are housed, fed, and employed. As the WSWS pointed out, “When we finally reach a point where half the population can’t, at one time or another, function — who, then, is really sick: the individual or society?”

The Political Conclusion

Burn-Murdoch’s technocratic ideas—improving data, diagnostics, and policy targeting—are like rearranging furniture in a house on fire. They don’t address the root cause of the crisis. Under capitalism, mental health treatment is only emergency care: it patches psychic wounds so individuals can keep functioning in a system that caused their sickness. The mental health epidemic won’t be resolved through more therapy, medication, or affordable housing—though these may help reduce suffering. A true solution requires the working class to gain political power and rebuild society on socialist principles, prioritising human needs over private profits. As the WSWS concluded long ago: “Happiness can become a reality only if its human content is restored to it, and that means that the happiness of one is inseparable from the happiness of all.” This is not just idealism; it’s a political necessity.

Sources and Bibliography

I. Marxist Foundations: Alienation, Social Pathology, and Ideology

• Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (1844).
• Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (1846).
• Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I–III (1867–1894).
• Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845).
• Georg Lukács, History and Class Consciousness (1923).
• Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933).
• Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (1955).
• Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (1952); The Wretched of the Earth (1961).
• István Mészáros, Marx’s Theory of Alienation (1970).
• David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005).
• Moishe Postone, Time, Labour, and Social Domination (1993).

II. Histories of Psychiatry and Social Control

• Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilisation (1961).
• Andrew Scull, The Most Solitary of Afflictions: Madness and Society in Britain, 1700–1900 (1993).
• Andrew Scull, Desperate Remedies: Psychiatry’s Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness (2022).
• Roy Porter, Madness: A Brief History (2002).
• Elaine Showalter, The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830–1980 (1985).
• Thomas Szasz, The Myth of Mental Illness (1961).
• Nikolas Rose, Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self (1989).
• Nikolas Rose, The Politics of Life Itself (2007).
• Joanna Moncrieff, The Myth of the Chemical Cure (2008).
• Irving Kirsch, The Emperor’s New Drugs (2009).
• Anne Harrington, Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness (2019).

III. The DSM, Medicalisation, and the Pharmaceutical Industry

• American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM‑I (1952) through DSM‑5‑TR (2022).
• Christopher Lane, Shyness: How Normal Behaviour Became a Sickness (2007).
• Allan V. Horwitz & Jerome Wakefield, The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder (2007).
• Peter Conrad, The Medicalisation of Society (2007).
• David Healy, Pharmageddon (2012).
• Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic (2010).
• Carl Elliott, White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine (2010).

IV. Social Determinants of Mental Health

• Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (2009).
• Michael Marmot, The Health Gap: The Challenge of an Unequal World (2015).
• Bruce Alexander, The Globalisation of Addiction (2008).
• Johan Galtung, Violence, Peace, and Peace Research (1969).
• WHO, Social Determinants of Mental Health (2014).
• CDC, Youth Risk Behaviour Surveillance System (various years, esp. 2021).

V. Gig Economy, Neoliberalism, and Social Breakdown

• Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (2011).
• Arne L. Kalleberg, Precarious Lives: Job Insecurity and Well‑Being in Rich Democracies (2018).
• Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty (2017–2020).
• OECD, How’s Life? Measuring Well‑Being (annual).
• IMF & ILO reports on labour precarity (various years).

VI. WSWS and ICFI Analyses (Primary Marxist Sources)

(These are not reproduced; only titles and dates are listed.)

• “Mental Illness and the American Dream,” WSWS, two‑part series (1999).
• “Youth Suicide and the Social Crisis,” WSWS (various analyses, 2015–2024).
• “The Gig Economy and the Assault on the Working Class,” WSWS (2017).
• “The Social Crisis in the United States,” WSWS (multiple reports, 2008–2024).
• “The Breakdown of Public Health under Capitalism,” WSWS (2020–2023).
• “The Anglosphere Crisis: A Social Catastrophe,” WSWS (2023–2024).
• ICFI Statements on Social Conditions and Mental Health (1999–2024).

VII. Additional Critical Works on Capitalism and Social Suffering

• Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (2009).
• Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep (2013).
• Byung‑Chul Han, The Burnout Society (2010).
• Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character (1998).
• Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (2000).
• Franco “Bifo” Berardi, The Soul at Work (2009); Heroes: Mass Murder and Suicide (2015).
• Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch (2004) — for the historical roots of social discipline.
• Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism (1983) — for racialised dimensions of social control.

VIII. Archival and Government Sources

• UK Parliamentary Papers on Lunacy Acts (1845–1890).
• US Surgeon General, Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General (1999).
• WHO Mental Health Atlas (various years).
• UN Human Development Reports (annual).
• Office for National Statistics (ONS), UK — mental health, labour precarity, youth well‑being datasets.
• US Bureau of Labour Statistics — gig economy and contingent work surveys.

IX. Suggested Further Reading for a Marxist History of Psychiatry

• R.D. Laing, The Divided Self (1960).
• Franco Basaglia, Psychiatry Inside Out (1980).
• Thomas Lemke, Biopolitics: An Advanced Introduction (2011).
• Mark Rapley, The Social Construction of Mental Illness (2004).
• Richard Bentall, Doctoring the Mind (2009).
• Nikolas Rose & Joelle Abi‑Rached, Neuro: The New Brain Sciences and the Management of the Mind (2013).

 

An Opportunity Squandered: Why Your Party Failed

History seldom provides the left with clear moments. Usually, it appears as a haze filled with contradictions, crises, and uncertain possibilities. However, occasionally, these contradictions become clearer, the fog clears, and a political opportunity emerges—short-lived, obvious, and highly promising. The launch of Your Party was one such occasion.

It appeared after the Corbyn movement was dismantled, during a period when millions of workers, young people, and politically aware individuals were looking for a way to oppose the worsening brutality of British capitalism. The Starmer leadership had turned Labour into a party aligned with the state, security forces, and corporate interests. As a result, the working class found itself without a political home.

Your Party emerged into this vacuum, earning an enthusiastic response: within days, hundreds of thousands expressed interest. This strong reaction was not media exaggeration but a real sign of political radicalisation, indicating that the working class was ready to move away from Labourism and explore new avenues. However, Your Party's leadership was unprepared for the moment; in fact, they feared it. They were afraid of the working class, of mass participation, and of the consequences of their rhetoric. As a result, they missed the opportunity.

The Labourist Reflex: Bureaucracy as Instinct

Your Party's tragedy lies in being undermined not by outside foes, but by internally reproduced Labourist habits. The leadership group—self-selected, unaccountable, and cautious—acted from the beginning more like minor officials of a parliamentary system than rebels striving to create a new movement. Their natural inclinations were bureaucratic rather than revolutionary.

They built a party structure aimed at shielding the leadership from the members rather than empowering them. Decisions were taken in private WhatsApp groups, and policies were developed through secret discussions with advisers and consultants. The membership was viewed not as the party's ultimate authority but as a possible challenge to the leadership’s dominance.

This bureaucratic instinct resulted in several harmful actions: decision-making that was opaque and secretive, factional tactics such as leaking information to adversarial media, pre-emptive expulsions of socialists before democratic structures were in place, legal threats targeting internal critics as a distorted form of “new politics," and a refusal to develop democratic processes, which left members feeling powerless and confused.

These actions were deliberate, revealing a leadership with a limited political outlook centred on Westminster. They feared popular involvement because they feared the working class. Your Party was effectively doomed at birth because its leaders feared the very force that could have invigorated it.

The Sabotage of the Rank and File

The strongest criticism of Your Party’s leadership is that they never focused on building a party. Instead, they aimed to create a brand. Local branches emerged spontaneously across the country. Volunteers arranged meetings, designed leaflets, and tried to establish local structures on their own—without guidance, resources, or support from the leadership. Rather than assistance, they faced silence, obstruction, and disdain.

The leadership declined to supply funds, materials, organisational guidance, political education, or democratic mechanisms. Branches disintegrated, activists lost interest, and initial enthusiasm vanished. What once could have mobilised tens of thousands turned into a hollow entity, unable to contest elections or influence political discourse. This was not mere incompetence but deliberate political sabotage.

The leadership was concerned that a strong grassroots organisation could threaten their authority. They worried that an informed membership might seek clarity, accountability, and a departure from Labourism. They feared the party could evolve into something beyond their control. Consequently, they deprived it of resources.

The Ideological Vacuum: A Party Without a Programme

Your Party never clearly defined its main purpose: What is the party meant to achieve? Two opposing visions coexist uneasily. One, the Grassroots Socialist Current—anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, rooted in working-class struggles—sought to build a large movement capable of challenging the state and breaking definitively from Labourism. It saw capitalism's crises as requiring a revolutionary response. The other, the Parliamentary Moralist faction—centred around the Peace and Justice group—favoured a modest, respectable NGO-style organisation, more of a pressure group than a political party, emphasising morality over strategy. They believed politics was mainly about tone, civility, and moral influence, not class struggle. The leadership’s inability to choose between these visions left the organisation paralysed. Instead of defining a clear program, Your Party drifted into empty slogans, identity-politics moralism, and electoral fantasies. A party without a clear program is not truly a party; it is merely a logo.

The Collapse: A Predictable Catastrophe

The results were immediate and catastrophic: polling showed 0% support. Membership remained stagnant at a small fraction of the original sign-ups. The party's public credibility was shattered. Internal conflicts became its only visible activity. Leaders attributed this to “media hostility” and “growing pains,” but in truth, they engineered the movement's suppression, fearing its potential for genuine change. The party’s collapse stemmed from leaders' inability to envision politics beyond limited parliamentary reform.

Your Party’s failure is part of a long, tragic pattern: after 1932, the ILP; post-1956, the CPGB; the Bennite movement; Respect; Left Unity; Momentum; and now Your Party. Every effort to establish a left alternative within the limits of parliamentary reformism collapses due to internal contradictions. The Labour left does not serve as a vessel for socialist politics; it acts as a graveyard for such aspirations. The clear lesson is that the working class cannot be truly emancipated through organisations that fear its power. 

The Verdict: A Failure of Nerve, Vision, and Class Politics

Your Party's failure stemmed from its leadership's refusal to depart from Labourism. They perpetuated the bureaucratic culture, factionalism, timidity, and disdain for the rank and file that have long characterised the Labour left. The opportunity was genuine, and the moment was historic, but the failure was self-inflicted. Your Party could have been a powerful tool for the working class; instead, it became a symbol of political cowardice. Its decline is not only organisational but also ideological, showing that the Labour left cannot and will not forge a socialist alternative. The challenge remains: to build a party rooted in the working class, unwavering in its principles, ready to confront the capitalist state fearlessly. Your Party was not that; the next must be.

 

Alison Plowden’s In a Free Republic: Life in Cromwell’s England (2006)

Alison Plowden’s In a Free Republic offers a social history of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, depicting daily life from the execution of Charles I in 1649 to the monarchy's restoration in 1660. As a prolific popular historian of Tudor and Stuart courts, Plowden approaches the era with the same narrative style that characterised her earlier works on Elizabeth I and the domestic intrigues of the sixteenth century. The book is engaging, well-crafted, and filled with anecdotal details. However, it ultimately does not fully capture the English Revolution as a true revolution.

The English Revolution was the first major bourgeois revolution and a pivotal turning point in world history. It overthrew the feudal state, dismantled absolutism, and paved the way for capitalist growth. The conflict involved the emerging bourgeoisie and parts of the gentry fighting against the monarchy, the old aristocracy, and remaining feudal social structures. Additionally, it was a moment when propertyless groups—the soldiers of the New Model Army, the Levellers, and the Diggers—tried to extend the revolution beyond what the propertied classes found acceptable.

While Plowden’s book is charming, it cannot fundamentally explore these questions. It functions more as popular antiquarianism than for historical analysis, providing descriptions of Puritan dress, household customs, religious fears, and the theatre closures. However, it fails to address the core fact of the era: a king was tried and executed by representatives of a new social class. The revolution remains hidden behind its decorative elements.

The Ideological Work of the Title

Plowden’s title, 'In a Free Republic,' is quite telling. Cromwell’s England was considered 'free” only within a narrow, class-based context, where the bourgeoisie had freed itself from absolutist restrictions. It was not a true democracy. The voting rights remained limited to property owners. Parliament was often purged when it did not align with Cromwell’s class interests.

The Levellers, advocating for universal male suffrage, legal equality, and the end of oligarchic control, faced imprisonment, silencing, and even execution. Cromwell’s military campaign in Ireland was a colonial terror that left a permanent scar on history. Describing this society as a “free republic” without addressing the contradiction echoes the ideological mystifications of both the seventeenth-century ruling class and the present day.

The Limits of Popular History

Plowden's approach aligns with British popular history, characterised by storytelling, anecdotes, and a focus on personalities. While this style offers clarity, accessibility, and rich human detail, it inherently lacks the capacity for deeper analysis of class forces, modes of production, ideological struggles, or the political economy of revolution.

Trotsky’s critique of Whig historiography is directly relevant. Popular history tends to oversimplify social struggles by shifting focus from class conflicts to individual stories. The English Revolution is often portrayed merely as a setting for narratives about Puritan families, fashions, food, and customs.

A social history of “life in Cromwell’s England” risks becoming a mere idyllic scene unless it engages with the period's revolutionary essence. Plowden’s approach falls short in examining: The New Model Army as a political entity, not just a military force; The Putney Debates, where ordinary soldiers debated sovereignty and equality; The Levellers, advocating for universal male suffrage and legal equality; The Diggers, challenging private property; Cromwell’s class-based purges; and the Irish campaign, seen not as an anomaly but as a key act of bourgeois consolidation. These events are central to the English Revolution. Without acknowledging them, the era risks being reduced to a costume drama.

Plowden and the Revisionist Turn

Modern academic historiography has moved away from Christopher Hill’s Marxist approach, now claiming: there was no rising bourgeoisie; the revolution was not truly revolutionary; class was not the key factor; and Cromwell was a conservative defending traditional liberties. This reinterpretation is not apolitical; it aligns with the ideological interests of current capitalism, which promotes the view that revolutions are impossible, class struggle is illusory, and ordinary people cannot intentionally change society. Plowden is not a revisionist scholar, but her method aligns with this trend by default. A narrative of daily life without class analysis becomes a soft form of revisionism: the revolution is present only as décor.

Plowden, Hill, Russell, and Morrill on Cromwell’s England

Alison Plowden’s In a Free Republic: Life in Cromwell’s England (2006) occupies an ambiguous position within the historiography of the English Revolution. It is not a work of academic scholarship, nor does it pretend to be. It belongs to the genre of British popular history—narrative, anecdotal, personality‑driven, focused on domestic life and social texture. However, because it treats the decade of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, it inevitably enters a field shaped by profound historiographical conflict.

To grasp Plowden’s book, it is essential to place it within the context of the three main interpretive schools of the past fifty years: Christopher Hill’s Marxist perspective, Conrad Russell’s revisionist rebuttal, and John Morrill’s post-revisionist synthesis. While Plowden does not directly address these scholars, her omissions, focus areas, and storytelling decisions subtly reflect her implicit alignment and the ideological implications of her approach.

Christopher Hill: Revolution as Class Struggle

Christopher Hill (1912–2003), the leading Marxist historian of the English Revolution, stands in stark contrast to Plowden’s approach. Hill’s work—The Century of Revolution, God’s Englishman, The World Turned Upside Down—insists that the mid-seventeenth-century crisis was a bourgeois revolution, driven by conflicts between the rising bourgeoisie and sections of the gentry; the monarchy and the feudal aristocracy; and the propertyless masses who sought to push the revolution further.

Hill’s method is structural, dialectical, and materialist. He treats the New Model Army as a political force, the Levellers and Diggers as expressions of class consciousness, and Cromwell as the representative of a class whose interests determined the limits of the revolution.

Hill’s key insight—that Charles I's execution was a deliberate revolutionary act—falls outside Plowden’s perspective. In a Free Republic, the trial and execution seem like background events rather than the pivotal moment that established the republic she discusses daily. Hill would argue that discussing “life in Cromwell’s England” requires explaining why Cromwell’s England existed.

Plowden’s book is thus not merely incomplete; it is methodologically incompatible with Hill’s project. Where Hill sees class struggle, Plowden sees atmosphere. Where Hill sees revolution, Plowden sees period colour. Where Hill foregrounds the masses, Plowden foregrounds domestic detail. Hill’s absence from her narrative is itself a historiographical statement.

Conrad Russell: The Revisionist Counter‑Revolution

Conrad Russell (1937–2004), a prominent revisionist historian, embodies the intellectual resistance to Hill’s ideas. In works such as The Causes of the English Civil War and Parliamentary History, he contends that there was no rising bourgeoisie, that class was not the decisive factor, that the Civil War resulted from short-term political mismanagement, and that the revolution was not truly revolutionary. Russell’s approach is intentionally anti-Marxist; he dismisses structural explanations, rejects the notion of coherent class interests, and views the conflict as a political crisis of the state rather than a societal one. His work relies heavily on empirical research, but that empiricism is used to undermine the era's revolutionary significance.

Plowden’s book aligns implicitly with Russell’s revisionism—not because she adopts his arguments, but because her method produces the same effect. By focusing on daily life, customs, and personalities, she reproduces the revisionist tendency to treat the Commonwealth as an aberration, a curious interlude rather than a decisive transformation. The revolution becomes a backdrop, not a subject.

Russell would likely have approved of Plowden’s approach to the Levellers, Diggers, and New Model Army as not being political groups with clear social agendas. He would have supported her avoidance of class analysis. Additionally, he would have appreciated her portrayal of Cromwell as a multifaceted figure rather than solely as a class representative. While Plowden’s book is not revisionist in its scholarship, its tone and approach have a revisionist effect, making the revolution seem more familiar and domesticated.

John Morrill: Post‑Revisionism and the “War of Religion”

John Morrill (b. 1946), a leading post-revisionist historian, seeks to integrate Hill and Russell by shifting the interpretive focus. He contends that the English Revolution was not primarily a class struggle or a constitutional crisis, but a war of religion. Morrill views the revolution as a conflict over differing visions of godly reformation, portraying the New Model Army as a Puritan institution, Cromwell as a providentialist warrior, and the Levellers as political radicals driven by religious beliefs. While acknowledging the period's revolutionary nature, Morrill shifts the primary driving force from class to religion. Plowden’s book also emphasises religion, but with less analytical depth—her Puritans are moralistic and socially restrictive but not political, her Cromwell is devout but not ideologically shaped by religion, and her republic is godly but not revolutionary.

Where Morrill sees religion as a structuring force, Plowden sees it as cultural texture. She adopts the surface of Morrill’s argument while omitting its substance.

Plowden’s Position: Pastoralisation of Revolution

Placed alongside Hill, Russell, and Morrill, Plowden’s historiographical stance becomes evident: she avoids class analysis, as Russell does, emphasises religion only as an atmosphere, as Morrill does, and lacks Hill’s revolutionary framework. Her book does not challenge historiographical debates; instead, it retreats from them, presenting a vision of a republic without revolution, a society without class struggle, and a decade devoid of dialectic. This approach is politically charged, as it idealises revolution within domestic life, thereby supporting the ideological needs of contemporary capitalism. It dismisses the idea that ordinary people can consciously change society, denies that revolutions have causes, agents, and outcomes, and suggests that history is not driven by class struggle. Overall, Plowden’s work reflects a broader cultural move toward depoliticising the past.

The Continuing Relevance of the English Revolution

The English Revolution remains one of the most consequential events in world history. It was the first of the great bourgeois revolutions that cleared the ground for capitalist development. Its contradictions—above all, the conflict between the property‑owning classes who made the revolution and the propertyless masses who wanted to carry it further—prefigure the struggles of every subsequent revolution, including the socialist revolution that the working class must still make.

Plowden’s book, for all its merits as a work of popular history, cannot illuminate these questions. It offers the reader a republic without revolution, a society without class struggle, a decade without its dialectic. It is a portrait of Cromwell’s England in which Cromwell’s revolution has been politely removed.

For readers seeking to understand the English Revolution as a world‑historical event, Plowden’s book must be read critically—and supplemented by works that grasp the period in its full social and political depth.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

• The Putney Debates, ed. Michael Mendle (Cambridge University Press, 2001).
• Gerrard Winstanley, The Law of Freedom (1652).
• John Lilburne, England’s New Chains Discovered (1649).
• The Trial of Charles I, ed. J. G. Muddiman (Everyman, 1928).
• Oliver Cromwell, Letters and Speeches, ed. Thomas Carlyle (1845).

Marxist and Socialist Historiography

• Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (Penguin, 1972).
• Christopher Hill, The Century of Revolution (Routledge, 1961).
• Christopher Hill, God’s Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (Penguin, 1970).
• Ann Talbot, “Christopher Hill and the Socialist Tradition,” World Socialist Web Site (2003).
• Leon Trotsky, Where Is Britain Going? (1925).
• Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852).
• Friedrich Engels, The Peasant War in Germany (1850).

Revisionist and Post‑Revisionist Historiography

• Conrad Russell, The Causes of the English Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1990).
• John Morrill, Revolt in the Provinces (Longman, 1976).
• Mark Kishlansky, A Monarchy Transformed (Penguin, 1996).
• Austin Woolrych, Britain in Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2002). 

Popular History

• Alison Plowden, In a Free Republic: Life in Cromwell’s England (Sutton Publishing, 2006).
• Alison Plowden, The Young Elizabeth (1971).
• Alison Plowden, Marriage With My Kingdom (1977).

  

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