“I’m literally a communist, you idiot.”
Ash Sarkar
If it is possible to place a given person’s general type of
thought based on his relation to concrete practical problems, it is also
possible to predict approximately, knowing his general type of thought, how a
given individual will approach one or another practical question. That is the
incomparable educational value of the dialectical method of thought.
Leon Trotsky
“Every sociological definition is, at the bottom, a
historical prognosis."
Leon Trotsky
A recurring theme written about by both left and right-wing
contemporary writers, politicians and historians is that the working class has
all but disappeared and is no longer the revolutionary force it once was.
Another theme so beloved by the right-wing has been the
concept of "the end of history." In January 1992, Francis Fukuyama,
at the time a neo-conservative academic and a former US State Department
official, published The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama wrote:
“All countries undergoing economic modernisation must
increasingly resemble one another: they must unify nationally based on a
centralized state, urbanise, replace traditional forms of social organization
like tribe, sect, and family with economically rational ones based on function
and efficiency, and provide for the universal education of their citizens. Such
societies have become increasingly linked with one another through global
markets and the spread of a universal consumer culture. Moreover, the logic of
modern natural science would seem to dictate a universal evolution in the
direction of capitalism.“[1]
In a counter article, the Classical Marxist David North wrote,
“It is painful to read the gloating stupidities that were churned out by
Western academics in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union. Seemingly
every journal devoted to politics, current affairs or culture felt obliged to
publish a special issue devoted to the supposed rout of socialism. The word
“End” or “Death”, or “Fall” or a synonym had to be included somewhere in the
title.”
In Minority Rule, Ash Sarkar attempts, admittedly somewhat
badly, to refute both premises mentioned above. Although Sarkar has described herself
as “Literally a Communist”,[2]
Like some other pseudo-lefts before her, she uses Marxist phraseology but in
reality has no faith in the revolutionary capacity of the working class, saying
that they have succumbed to the right-wing media offensive and have abandoned the
class war for the “culture war”, her term, not mine. Sarkar’s other thesis,
which complements the first, is that fears of minority rule of one kind serve
to legitimate minority rule of another sort. This thesis is hardly new or Marxist.
Sarkar cultivates the image of a “sassy social commentator”.
She has a large online presence, boasting over half a million followers across
her social media platforms, not bad for a so-called Communist. She is well paid
for her services. Bloomsbury published Minority Rule, with a "major
deal", which means they paid her a hefty advance. She is a senior editor
at Novara Media,[3]
. Teaches at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, and writes for The Guardian
and The Independent.
I am at a loss to find another avowed Communist who has been
allotted so much space by so many bourgeois media outlets. She has been
compared to the political scoundrel Tariq Ali. Like Ali, she has become a
useful Pseudo left safety valve in times of trouble. Perhaps one should compare
her treatment to that dished out against the orthodox Marxists from the World
Socialist Website that have recently come under sustained attack from Google
and other bourgeois media.[4]
In a book that is over three hundred pages, it is difficult,
if not impossible deal with every pearl of wisdom emanating from the pen of
Sarkar, but a few are worth discussing. On pages 24 and 25, she describes a
conference in Liverpool at which Roger Hallam was one of the main speakers.
Hallam is the leader of XR, which single-handedly failed with its perspective
to reverse the degradation of the planet. XR proposes the same model of
capitalism with a green environmental tinge, backed up with protests, promoted
by successive Green and similar parties worldwide. Sarkar then somewhat incredulously
compares Hallam with Leon Trotsky, both she believes are wounded
revolutionaries.
In the book, she offers limited criticism of so-called “Left-liberals”
who have promoted identity politics. Sarkar’s offer up a somewhat confused
understanding of the term herself. It is clear from the book that Sarkar is not
completely hostile to “identity politics” or the growing number of pseudo-left organisations
that promote it as a means of dividing the working class. She writes, “Identity
has become the dominant preoccupation for both the left and the right”.
I somehow doubt that Sarkar has read any thing from the World
Socialist Website but in his foreword to the book The Frankfurt School,
Postmodernism and the Politics of the Psuedo lefts editorial Board Chairman
David North provided a concise “working definition” of the pseudo-left and it
preoccupation of identity politics as
follows: 1) It is “anti-Marxist, rejects historical materialism, embracing
instead various forms of subjective idealism”; (2), It is “anti-socialist,
opposes the class struggle, and denies the central role of the working class
and the necessity of socialist revolution in the progressive transformation of
society”; (3) It “promotes ‘identity politics,’ fixating on issues related to
nationality, ethnicity, race, gender and sexuality in order to acquire greater
influence in corporations, the colleges and universities, higher-paying
professions, trade unions and in government and state institutions, to effect a
more favourable distributions of wealth among the richest ten percent of the
population”; and, (4) “in the imperialist centres of North America, Western
Europe and Australasia, the pseudo-left is generally pro-imperialist, and
utilizes the slogans of ‘human rights’ to legitimize, and even directly
support, neo-colonialist military operations.”[5]
According to her Wikipedia page, Sarkar has many political
influences. Her main one appears to be the radical, pseudo-left artist and
writer Franco “Bifo” Berardi. According to Sybil Fuchs, “Berardi is a
philosopher, writer, media activist and long-standing critic of capitalism. He
was expelled from the Italian Communist Party in the 1960s because of alleged 'factionalism.”
He is considered to be the leader of Italy’s anarchist movement. In the 1980s,
he worked with Félix Guattari in developing an alternative psychoanalysis, and
in the ’90s, he promoted so-called cyberpunk. His most recent book,
Futurability (2017), was published by Verso Press. In 2009, he wrote a
counter-manifesto to the famous Futurist Manifesto authored by Filippo Tomaso
Marinetti in 1909.”[6]
Despite her yelling at the top of her voice that she is a
Communist, it was her support for Jeremy Corbyn that showed her real political
colouration. Like all pseudo-lefts, she threw her lot in with Corbyn’s election
campaign. She writes in her book, “In hindsight, I was self-deluding and
hubristic; I got swept up in the fantasy of what a socialist government could
be like. There were far more people in the country who weren’t like me than
those who were.”[7]
As the real Marxist Chris Marsden wrote “Corbyn was advanced
by Britain’s pseudo-left groups such as the Socialist Workers Party and
sections of the Labour and trade union bureaucracy as proof that the rightward
lurch of the Labour Party, beginning in the 1970s, encompassing Neil Kinnock’s
betrayal of the miners’ strike of 1984-85 and culminating in the New Labour
government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown could be reversed. Corbyn promised an
end to austerity, Thatcherite free-market nostrums and war crimes such as Iraq
in 2003.
The enthusiasm generated saw Labour claw back in the 2017
election some of the 5 million votes lost under Blair and Brown between 1997
and 2010. But this recovery has collapsed, amid growing disenchantment among
those who backed Corbyn and abstention and a shift to other parties by workers
who see no reason whatsoever to remain loyal to Labour.”[8]
While everyone is allowed to be wrong once, and Sarkar did
renounce her membership, it only goes to show that despite all her bravado and so-called
“Communism”, she could not see past her nose and see what a stinking political
corpse the Labour Party was and is.
Although Sarkar correctly states that “the politics we’ve
got are a reflection of the balance of class forces within society”, she fundamentally
underplays one of those “class Forces”, Fascism. Whether in the UK in the form
of Farage or the fascist in the White House in the guise of Donald Trump whom
she calls a Popular Nationalist. Even after 300 pages of so-called political
analysis, she says next to nothing in the book about the dangers of fascism.
In his introduction to the book The Rise of Trump and the
Crisis of American Democracy, Joseph Kishore makes the following point that the
return of Donald Trump to power represents “the violent realignment of the
American political superstructure to correspond with the real social relations
that exist in the United States. He continues, “Trump’s rise and return to
power is not an aberration but the product of deep-rooted crises in American
and world capitalism. His administration is carrying out a historic restructuring
of the state, tearing apart the remaining democratic constraints on oligarchic
rule, and preparing for global war.”
Sarkar is not a Marxist but a glorified pseudo-left. She is
opposed to the development of an independent socialist movement of the working
class. To build this movement, an unrelenting struggle against all forms of
pseudo-left and opportunist politics is needed.
[1]
Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, January 1992)
[2]
During a heated TV debate about Trump and Obama on ITV, she said: “I’m
literally a communist, you idiot.”
[3]
novaramedia.com/
[4]
An open letter to Google: Stop the censorship of the Internet! Stop the
political blacklisting of the World Socialist Web Site!-
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/25/pers-a25.html
[5]
www.wsws.org/en/special/pages/pseudoleft.html
[6]
Documenta 14 exhibition in Kassel, Germany: The censorship and defaming of art-
www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/09/06/docu-s06.html
[7]
Minority Rule Adventures in the Culture War – Ash Sarkar
[8]
UK general election result confirms protracted death of the Labour Party-https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/19/poll-d19.html
