Football Writing Festival: Arsenal Special at the British Library

Interview: Martin Keown on Arsenal Resilience, Manager Relations, and Modern Punditry

Date Time: 2026-03-28 16:23:17

Location: British Library

Interviewee: Martin Keown

Amy Lawrence

Arsenal legend Martin Keown reflects on his career, mentality, and love for Arsenal, discussing dressing-room experiences, resilience after setbacks, returning to the club, and the balance between passion and control; interviewer Lawrence frames Keown’s legacy and prompts insights on modern football discourse and media.

Introduction

1. Martin Keown: Former Arsenal defender from the club’s storied back lines, reflecting on resilience after defeats, leadership, winning the league at Old Trafford, and evolving from a striker to a defender. He emphasizes using pain as motivation, understanding club history, and maintaining human relationships with managers. He shares anecdotes about scoring, bonuses, his book-writing mindset “on the edge,” and striving to stay impartial as a pundit.

2. Lawrence (Arsenal correspondent, The Athletic): Facilitator and interviewer who contextualizes Keown’s status and passion for Arsenal, sets up topics spanning Keown’s dressing-room insights, career transitions, media work, and quick-fire comparisons (e.g., Gary Neville vs. Jamie Carragher). Lawrence underscores Keown’s contribution to Arsenal and invites reflection on modern football discourse.

Key Points

1. Harnessing adversity: Keown turns the pain of near misses into determination, culminating in landmark successes like winning the league at Old Trafford.

2. Identity evolution: Transition from striker to defender shaped Keown’s career, reflecting adaptability and team needs.

3. Historical grounding: Understanding Arsenal’s history deepens a player’s sense of purpose and performance.

4. Manager-player dynamics: Human, trust-based relationships with managers are pivotal for motivation and cohesion.

5. Professional resilience and return: Leaving Arsenal and later returning carried a sense of unfinished business, aligning personal ambition with club goals.

6. Media impartiality challenges: As a pundit, Keown aims for neutrality despite emotional ties and evolving broadcast pressures.

7. Performance incentives: Bonus structures and high-stakes environments influence player mindset and match outcomes.

8. Modern discourse intensity: The current football climate feels perpetually “on the edge,” with heightened scrutiny after each game.

Insights

1. Martin Keown

   - Pain as fuel: Silver medals and setbacks were used to drive future success.

   - League triumph at Old Trafford: A defining moment asserting dominance after adversity.

   - Position switch: Embraced defending despite early days as a striker, reflecting tactical growth.

   - Human management: Valued managers with a human touch, enabling trust and performance.

   - Club history: Deep appreciation of Arsenal’s past informed pride and commitment.

   - Scoring anecdotes: Recalled goals, unexpected celebrations, and bonus structures shaping match experiences.

   - Media impartiality: Strives to be fair despite emotional ties; acknowledges broadcast timing pressures.

2. Lawrence (Interviewer)

   - Framing Keown’s legacy: Highlights Keown’s passion, honors, and contributions to Arsenal’s identity.

   - Discourse in modern football: Prods reflection on intensity of public debate and pundit dynamics.

   - Quick-fire prompts: Uses concise comparisons to elicit candid opinions.

Chapters

1. Lawrence: Can you revisit what it’s like in those dressing rooms during big matches like Real Sociedad (1995) and Liverpool (2001 at Wembley), and how setbacks shaped the team?

   - Martin Keown: Reflects on silver medals and near misses, emphasizing using hurt as oxygen and determination to turn things around, leading to winning the league at Old Trafford and a period of dominance.

   - Martin Keown: Notes the team’s quality and resilience, focusing on mentality that converts losses into future success.

2. Lawrence: You began as a striker, yet you became synonymous with defending. How did that transition happen and how did it shape your career?

   - Martin Keown: Explains early striker background, later thriving as a defender; acknowledges a pivotal change in role that became instrumental to his identity and contribution.

   - Martin Keown: Mentions training routines and community engagements; touches on discipline, club culture, and evolving responsibilities.

3. Lawrence: When you left Arsenal in the mid-80s, did you feel unfinished business, or did you move on straight away?

   - Martin Keown: Admits a sense of unfinished business and the pull back to Arsenal; describes nearly not signing pro, weighing opportunities, and ultimately returning to contribute to cup wins and European success.

   - Martin Keown: References the club winning titles while he was away, and later adding to cup successes upon his return.

4. Lawrence: How did relationships with managers influence your mindset and performance?

   - Martin Keown: Emphasizes managers with human touch, unique ways of making players feel valued; describes trust and motivation as central to his development.

   - Martin Keown: Notes being consistently pushed to be involved and to prove himself; belief from the boss catalyzed his commitment.

5. Lawrence: Modern football discourse feels intense—does that affect players and pundits?

   - Martin Keown: Says every minute feels “on the edge” now; acknowledges heightened scrutiny and pressure six games into seasons; aims to be as impartial as possible in punditry despite ties.

   - Martin Keown: Shares a broadcast anecdote about man-of-the-match timing and late substitutions, illustrating the rapid nature of media decisions.

6. Lawrence: Could you share an example of high-stakes moments and incentives impacting performance?

   - Martin Keown: Talks about Champions League bonus structures; recounts pushing forward, scoring, improvising celebrations, and how bonuses pleased teammates and staff.

   - Martin Keown: Highlights a special photo after scoring against Leeds, using it as a personal milestone and profile picture.

7. Lawrence: Quick-fire round—brief preferences and comparisons (e.g., Arsenal vs. Liverpool; Gary Neville vs. Jamie Carragher).

   - Martin Keown: Responds playfully; acknowledges eloquence of modern pundits; hints at respect for both Neville and Carragher.

   - Martin Keown: Reiterates the importance of impartial analysis despite club loyalties.

Fiery Spirits, Levellers, and Parliamentary Radicalism in the English Revolution

Date Time: 2026-03-17 19:00:28

Location: London

John Rees

Summary

The lecture series explores the “fiery spirits” in the English Long Parliament and their connections to broader political and social crises from the late 1620s through the 1640s, situating parliamentary radicalism within crowd mobilisations, media ecosystems, and evolving military-political alliances. It traces how research expanded the book’s scope backwards from the 1640s to the 1620s due to radical parliamentary confrontations (e.g., Speaker Finch held in his chair), widespread mutinies, riots, merchant tax resistance, and the assassination of Buckingham by John Felton—framing the 1620s as a “dress rehearsal” for the revolution of the 1640s. The lectures detail continuity figures such as William Strode (from the 1629 revolt to one of the Five Members in 1642) and Alexander Rigby (championing victims of the 1620s persecutions), alongside Henry Marten’s leading role, wit, and radical organising, and lineage links to Peter Wentworth.

Central themes include the autonomy of politics vis-à-vis social class, arguing that classes are multiply represented by distinct political projects and that outcomes are contingent rather than predetermined by social composition. Organised parliamentary radicalism is highlighted through committee work: with the king and court in Oxford, Commons committees became executive instruments (e.g., the Committee of Public Safety, the Derby House Committee). The “fiery spirits” were disproportionately active, shaping decisions and execution even without numerical dominance.

The lectures integrate crowd mobilisation and parliamentary interaction: London as a contested space with multiple crowd factions (Presbyterian, Leveller, conservative, anti-puritan, pro-Christmas); apprentices, guilds, and independent churches serving as organisational nodes; and an underground press and petitioning hubs (like the Saracen’s Head) enabling high public engagement in a literate city. Shop-to-shop message chains (e.g., John Venn’s alerts) spurred immediate mobilisations. MPs like Marten defended crowd interventions, and Levellers—an organised segment of the London crowd—used petitions and street presence to pressure Parliament, building trust ties with MPs such as Marten and Rigby.

The lectures chart the political bloc of fiery MPs, Levellers, and army agitators, analysing how popular ideas were represented in Parliament and how bloc dynamics shifted during the wars. They underscore the “Royalist Summer” of 1643, the inheritance of popular mobilisation by the “Pym project,” and subsequent parliamentarian military responses (raising Gloucester, Newbury), noting that radical energy often yielded gains captured by more conservative parliamentarians. Provincial dynamics feature prominently: Lancashire’s Presbyterian-dominated parliamentarianism printed attacks on Levellers while fear of a “rapacious” Scottish army dissolved religious alignments, pushing locals toward Rigby-led resistance. Alliances with Scots evolved from initial sympathy to campaigns to pay them off and expel them, with warnings against “reading off last year’s almanack.”

A major archival revelation concerns Henry Ireton’s October 1648 resignation letters—long considered lost—which were found with the Levellers’ Large Petition (September 1648). These documents show Ireton’s shift from opposing the Levellers at Putney to advocating trying the king and incorporating Leveller ideas into the New Model Army’s Remonstrance, culminating in a pact for common action endorsed by Cromwell and contributing to Pride’s Purge and the king’s trial. Strategically, the lectures contrast fiery spirits with Independents: Cromwell and allies initially sought to “reinstate the king” during the First Civil War, drawing Marten’s “king-riding” critique, before the army revolt and Second Civil War radicalised positions.

Historiographically, the sessions review Marx’s and Engels’ scattered comments on the English Revolution via Christopher Hill’s synthesis, affirm Hill’s dialectical materialism and recuperated reputation amid the ebb of “high revisionism,” and note a renaissance in Leveller studies (e.g., Rachel Foxley, Braddick’s Lilburne biography) and cross-disciplinary vitality reconstructing the revolution’s character. The Q&A addresses sources, constituency ties, Leveller–Digger distinctions (favoring a synthesis of Digger ideas and Leveller organization), the function and proliferation of committees (including a failed committee to abolish committees), the role of London crowds and apprentices, transatlantic inputs from returning New Englanders (e.g., Roger Williams), and Scottish dimensions of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Knowledge Points

1. Book Scope and Evolution

- Scope expanded from the 1640s back to the late 1620s due to radical MPs and crises (mutinies, riots, tax resistance, Buckingham’s assassination).

- The 1620s reframed as a precursor to the 1640s revolution, analogous to 1905–1917 in Russia.

2. The 1620s Crisis and Parliamentary Confrontation

- Speaker Finch was restrained in 1629 while MPs read a radical program; dissolution led to Personal Rule but reflected broader unrest.

- Countrywide mutinies, riots, deforestation protests, grain disturbances, and merchant tax strikes fed parliamentary agendas.

3. Continuities into the 1640s

- William Strode: imprisoned after 1629, freed by the Short Parliament, one of the Five Members in 1642.

- Alexander Rigby: Long Parliament lawyer championing victims of earlier persecutions (Leighton, Lilburne), integrating past grievances.

4. Fiery Spirits: Figures and Imagery

- Strode’s heroic cultural associations; local lineage at Plympton.

- Rigby: trusted by Levellers; military role in Lancashire.

- Henry Marten: leading radical, committee builder, witty polemicist (“nodders vs boars”), early repudiation of monarchical wisdom.

- Peter Wentworth lineage; archival pursuit of imagery via the Dilke family.

5. Organised Radicalism and Committees

- Fiery spirits formed and dominated committees; Commons committees functioned as the executive in wartime.

- Key bodies: Committee of Public Safety, Derby House Committee, finance and army subcommittees.

- Active committee work amplified radicals’ influence beyond their numbers.

6. Public Engagement, Media, and Information Flow

- London’s high male literacy (~70%) fostered intense engagement via pamphlets and Mercuries.

- Petitioning hubs and briefing networks linked Parliament and public; Saracen’s Head coordinated Leveller petitions.

- Crowds gathered at Westminster; MPs briefed supporters; the gap between parliamentary action and public knowledge was narrow for politicised sectors.

7. Crowd Mobilisations and Parliamentary Interaction

- London as a contested space with multiple factional crowds; apprentices and guilds provided volatile, organised energy.

- Independent churches served as mobilisation hubs; the underground press shaped opinion.

- Shop-to-shop dissemination (e.g., Venn’s calls) triggered immediate armed citizen responses.

- Marten defended crowd actions; Levellers used the crowd as a political presence while engaging trusted MPs.

8. Levellers, Diggers, and Army Agitators

- Levellers: serious organisation with substantial influence; Diggers: smaller, post-Republic disappointment group with limited practical impact.

- Political bloc included fiery MPs, Levellers, and army agitators; representation carried popular ideas into Parliament.

9. Social Class and Political Representation

- Challenges reductionist class readings: Commons’ gentry composition doesn’t fix political positions.

- Politics retains autonomy; classes are multiply represented; outcomes are decided in contingent political contests.

10. Ireton’s 1648 Letters and the Large Petition

- Rediscovered Ireton letters (to Fairfax, Lenthall) found with the Large Petition; show frustration and strategic shift.

- Leveller ideas informed the New Model Army’s Remonstrance; meetings with Leveller leadership produced a pact endorsed by Cromwell.

- Convergence led to Pride’s Purge and the king’s trial.

11. Fiery Spirits vs Independents; Strategic Objectives

- Fiery spirits drove agendas; Pym alternately restrained and relied on them.

- Independents initially sought monarchical reconstruction (“rein throne the king”); Marten’s “king ridden” critique.

- Army revolt and Second Civil War radicalised strategy; Ireton moved from “hammer of the Levellers” to incorporating their demands.

12. Provincial Dynamics, Scots, and Shifting Alliances

- The Second Civil War saw significant provincial crowd activity; anti-Scots sentiment complicated royalist and parliamentarian alignments.

- Lancashire’s Presbyterian parliamentarians attacked Levellers yet resisted feared Scottish incursions.

- Alliances with Scots shifted from sympathy to opposition; campaigns aimed to pay off and expel Scots; warning against outdated political readings.

13. Imperial Connections and Returning New Englanders

- Returning figures (e.g., Roger Williams) influenced toleration debates and intersected with Leveller thought, adding transatlantic dimensions.

14. Historiography: Marx, Hill, and Revisionism

- Christopher Hill’s synthesis of Marx and Engels’ remarks is a key entry point; Hill recuperated against high revisionism.

- Recent scholarship revives Leveller studies and reconstructs the revolution’s character across disciplines (e.g., Foxley, Braddick, and Como).

- Essays from the 50th anniversary of “The World Turned Upside Down” forthcoming (Boydell & Brewer).

Nazism, Fascism and the Working Class. Tim Mason Ed. Jane Caplan. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

“ A regime whose leadership was increasingly entrapped in economic and political contradictions largely of its own making and that sought escape or resolution or maintenance of its distinctive identity through a series of sudden lurches in policy and ever more explosive risk-taking.”

Tim Mason

“In the meantime, the first characteristic of a really revolutionary party is to be able to look reality in the face.”

― Leon Trotsky, Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It

"Fascism, as I recall from many discussions in Berlin in the 1960s, was not just an epoch which ended in 1945, but was also something which the Christian Democrats and the right wing of the Social Democrats were then trying to reinstate in a less barbaric form,"

Tim Mason.

Donald Trump’s address to Congress Tuesday night was not so much a speech from a president but the rantings of an aspiring Führer, though with somewhat less decorum than an address by Hitler before the German Reichstag. It was vicious, violent and depraved, plumbing the depths of cultural and political degradation in the United States.

Joseph Kishore

The opening quote from Tim Mason could be very easily applied to the current fascist regime in the White House. David North’s article Trump, the Epstein files and the putrefaction of the American oligarchy led me to Tim Mason.[1]

I want to say that I discovered Mason’s work through years of study, but that would be a lie. As is usually the case, I found Mason’s work through the Marxist writer David North. North’s antennae for excellent historians is second to none. So when North calls Mason a “Brilliant historian”, I felt the need to examine his work, which led me to this book.

Tim Mason is one of the most important Marxist historians of German fascism. His work situates the rise of Nazism not in the realm of individual pathology or cultural uniqueness, as is common in modern-day historiography, but as a historically specific response by sections of the ruling class to the interaction between an acute capitalist crisis and a powerful, independent working‑class movement. Mason did his best to apply the classical materialist conception of history. He believed that political forms and ideologies were rooted in concrete class relations.

The main importance of this book is that fascism in Germany emerged from a conjuncture in which capitalist elites faced an existential threat. The economic dislocation of the late Weimar years (the Great Depression, mass unemployment), combined with the extraordinary militancy and organisation of the working class, created a situation in which portions of the bourgeoisie concluded that ordinary parliamentary rule and social‑democratic collaboration could not guarantee the defence of their property and privileges. In this context, reactionary, extra‑parliamentary means—mobilising mass petty‑bourgeois resentment, paramilitaries and nationalist ideology—were adopted to smash the labour movement and restore capitalist rule.

In the introduction to this book, Jane Caplan explains that academics and writers have argued that Mason underplays the role of ideology, culture and contingency; others say he gives too much causal weight to the working class as a stimulus for fascism, suggesting a more active role of conservative elites and mass petty‑bourgeois currents. These debates are not abstractions: they affect how readers orient tactually. If fascism is seen primarily as a crisis response to working‑class strength, the strategic implication is the urgency of political leadership and unity in the labour movement to preclude the ruling class’s resort to authoritarian rule.

Again, Mason’s examination of the rise of Nazi Germany would not look out of place with today's fascist regime in America. He writes, “The only 'solution' open to this regime of the structural tensions and crises produced by dictatorship and rearmament was more dictatorship and more rearmament, then expansion, then war and terror, then plunder and enslavement. The stark, ever-present alternative was collapse and chaos, and so all solutions were temporary, hectic, hand-to-mouth affairs, increasingly barbaric improvisations around a brutal theme. … A war for the plunder of manpower and materials lay square in the dreadful logic of German economic development under National Socialist rule. [Nazism, Fascism, and the Working Class (Cambridge, 1995), p.51]

Tim Mason and Daniel Goldhagen: two poles in the historiography of Nazism

One of Mason’s admirable characteristics was his ability not to back down in an academic fight. One of the tragedies of his way-too-short life was that he was unable to take on Daniel Goldhagen and his right-wing historiography of “Hitler’s Willing Executioners”. The debate between the interpretations advanced by Tim Mason and Daniel Goldhagen would not simply have been an academic quarrel about sources and method. They would have reflected deeper theoretical and political divergences over how to explain the rise of fascism, the social roots of mass political crimes, and the relationship between ideology and material interests.

Daniel Goldhagen’s bestseller argued that a uniquely German, popular “eliminationist” anti‑Semitism made ordinary Germans willing perpetrators of the Holocaust. Goldhagen’s thesis reduces complex historical processes to an abstract identity — “the German” — stripping out class antagonisms, the decisive role of political institutions, and the contingency of mass politics. From a Marxist standpoint, this is an example of vulgar abstraction: it substitutes a quasi‑cultural essentialism for a scientific inquiry into social forces and interests.

As North writes, “The works that attract the greatest attention are precisely those which leave unchallenged, or actually reinforce, the basest prejudices and misconceptions. Daniel Goldhagen’s immensely successful and thoroughly deplorable Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust falls within this category. The principal theme of Goldhagen’s book is easily summarised. The cause of the Holocaust is to be found in the mindset and beliefs of the Germans. A vast national collective, the German people, motivated by a uniquely German anti-Semitic ideology, carried out a Germanic enterprise, the Holocaust. The systematic killing of Jews became a national pastime, in which all Germans who were given the opportunity gladly and enthusiastically participated.”[2]

Mason places the rise of Nazism firmly in the context of the global economic collapse after 1929. The Great Depression produced mass unemployment, wage cuts, and sharp volatility in employment and social standards. For millions of workers, this was not an abstract crisis but a concrete experience of dispossession: sudden loss of work, decline in living standards, and acute fear for the future.

As the Marxist economist Nick Beams writes, “The Nazi movement was handed the reins of power by the German ruling elites because there was no other party capable of carrying through the destruction of the organised working class and socialist movement. They certainly hoped that they might be able to curb some of the Nazi “excesses”. But at every stage, the costs were too high. There was always the danger that any conflict with the Nazis would ignite a movement from below, so that in the end the “excesses” were an acceptable price to pay. Within the thinking of the Nazi leadership, racism and the drive to exterminate the Jews may have taken priority over all other issues. But that does not settle the question. By pointing to the primacy of economics, Marxism does not, in the final analysis, maintain that behind every political leader's decisions there is an economic motivation that ideology is used to conceal. It means that economic interests—the material interests of the ruling classes—determine the broad sweep of politics. And there is no question that the destruction of the socialist and workers’ movement, a necessary precondition for the Holocaust, and the war aimed at the conquest and colonisation of the Soviet Union, out of which it arose, were both determined by the “class interests of big German capital.”[3]

Mason, like Beams, emphasises that the German working class was not monolithic. He explains why the Nazis seduced some sections of the working class. The Nazi party included "socialism" in its name as a strategic, populist tactic to attract working-class support by redefining the term to mean national and racial unity rather than class struggle. According to historical analysis, this "socialism" was a deliberate deception, as Hitler rejected Marxist ideology, purged the party's anti-capitalist wing, and quickly dismantled worker organisations upon seizing power.

Deindustrialisation in some sectors, the growth of precarious employment, the displacement of skilled artisans, and the erosion of stable trade‑union frameworks produced a fragmented class with differing material interests and levels of political organisation. This social differentiation made it easier for reactionary appeals—national renewal, order, and protection against “foreign” competition or communist upheaval—to resonate with particular strata (skilled workers facing downward mobility, the unemployed mass of casual labourers, and workers in small towns reliant on conservative employers).

Mason highlights the role of employers, the state and conservative elites in channelling working‑class discontent toward fascism. Sections of big business and the conservative state apparatus actively sought a political force capable of smashing independent labour organisations and breaking left‑wing resistance. By presenting Nazism as a bulwark against Bolshevism and economic chaos, the ruling class offered a political instrument that promised restoration of order and protection for property—even if at the price of authoritarianism.

A decisive political factor in Mason’s account is the bankruptcy of the Social Democratic and Communist parties. The SPD had become integrated into the bourgeois democratic apparatus and was unable or unwilling to generalise working‑class struggles into a political challenge to capitalist rule. The KPD, following Comintern directives, pursued an “ultra‑left” line that labelled social democrats as “social‑fascists,” refusing a united front against the Nazi threat. Mason shows how this dual failure—reformist accommodation on the one hand, sectarian isolation on the other—left the working class without a coherent mass leadership to resist fascist encroachment. This echoes Trotsky’s warning that fascism triumphs where revolutionary organisations fail politically.

Mason does not ignore ideology: nationalist myths, anti‑parliamentary resentments, fear of social breakdown, and conservative cultural values mediated workers' interpretation of their material distress. But for Mason, these subjective factors do not arise from the “spontaneity” of mind; they derive from real material insecurities and the absence of an alternative political program. The petty‑bourgeois layers and strata within the working class, pushed by crisis into reactionary horizons, were particularly vulnerable to promises of national revival and social ordering.

In Mason’s dialectical account, fascist support among workers results from the interaction of objective capitalist crisis, social differentiation within the working class, active intervention by capitalist elites, and fatal political errors by the mass parties. The result was a shift of parts of the working class into alignment—tactical, sometimes coerced—with a movement whose program was unmistakably counter‑working‑class.

Shortly before his death, Mason became acutely aware of the growth of postmodern tendencies in academic historiography. He was enough of a Marxist to understand that this was a grave threat to Marxist historiography. Mason argued that Marxism rests on philosophical materialism and the dialectical method: thought reflects an objective world whose development can be studied and whose laws (including class relations and the dynamics of capitalism) can be grasped and acted upon. Against this, postmodernism declares an “incredulity toward metanarratives” and relativises truth, undermining the possibility of a coherent, class‑based theory of social change.

In a paper at the end of this book, Mason writes, "I was bemused and depressed by the scholasticism of much methodological left-wing writing," he explained in one exemplary passage; "...militancy congests into clamorous categories, producing works which might be the offspring of a proud union between a prayer wheel and a sausage-machine" (207-8).

A final word in this review should be a brief examination of the History Workshop movement, in which Mason played a central part. The movement revitalised social history by centring subaltern experience, oral history and labour culture. Its recuperation of working-class traditions corrected elite-centred historiography and helped politicise a generation of researchers and activists. The movement’s democratic ethos—valorising rank-and-file memory and grassroots initiative—is an important corrective to bureaucratic or sectarian historiography.

Yet the History Workshop often veered toward empiricism and culturalism, sometimes treating political outcomes as emergent properties of cultural forms rather than outcomes of class struggle mediated by organisational and programmatic relations. From a Marxist-Leninist and Trotskyist standpoint, culture must be read as an expression of class relations, and cultural analysis must be subordinated to—indeed, dialectically united with—analysis of the economic base, party politics, and international dynamics. Plekhanov’s insistence that theory must be the instrument for developing proletarian self-consciousness remains a guide: historical research must illuminate the pathways by which objective material processes generate class-political possibilities, and how conscious organisation can raise class forces to realise them (Plekhanov on dialectical materialism).

To summarise, Mason’s contribution to an understanding of Fascism is important because it rejects simplistic monocausal accounts and insists on analysing real social layers and interests rather than treating “the working class” as a single, undifferentiated actor. This is a genuinely historical-materialist starting point: social consciousness is rooted in concrete material conditions and the class.

Studying Mason and the History Workshop is not an academic pastime divorced from politics. In the present era of capitalism’s intensified crisis, mass poverty and the decay of reformist leaderships, recovering the social history of working-class organisation provides tactical lessons. One thing is clear: Mason would have had a field day examining the rise of fascism in the United States. His contribution to a Marxist understanding of Fascism is sorely missed.

 

 

 

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[1] www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/02/11/xobm-f11.html

[2] The Myth of “Ordinary Germans”: A Review of Daniel Goldhagen’s Hitler’s Willing Executioners-www.wsws.org/en/special/library/russian-revolution-unfinished-twentieth-century/15.html

[3] Marxism and the Holocaust-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2010/05/adde-m15.html

Football Writing Festival: Arsenal Special at the British Library

(This is a summary of the conversation between journalist Henry Winter and the author Nick Hornby. A full transcript and recording of the whole festival can be made available on request.)

Date Time: 2026-03-28 11:31:38

 Location: British Library

 Interviewee: Nick Hornby

Author Nick Hornby reflects on Arsenal fandom, football culture, and how Fever Pitch reframed football writing through human relationships and identity. Interviewer Henry Winter explores changes in stadium culture, player activism, commercialisation, and the global nature of club allegiance.

Introduction

1. Nick Hornby: Celebrated writer best known for Fever Pitch, he discusses how Arsenal became a constant in his life, the human dynamics behind football fandom, the evolution of fan culture from the 1970s to the Premier League era, and the tension between entertainment and trophies. He also touches on player activism, racism in sport, and the universality of his book across clubs and cultures.

2. Henry Winter: Football journalist and panel host guiding the conversation through Arsenal history, modern football media (including podcasts), stadium atmosphere changes, economics of fandom, player-community engagement, and comparisons of past versus present football quality. He frames questions that draw Hornby’s reflections on identity, culture, and the modern game.

 Key Points

1. Fever Pitch positioned football fandom as a lens on human relationships, offering a universal narrative beyond club rivalries.

2. Arsenal served as a lifelong constant for Hornby, providing reliability and identity amid personal change.

3. Stadium culture has shifted from volatile standing terraces to safer, commodified experiences, altering crowd dynamics and accessibility.

4. Modern players increasingly engage in activism and community work, reflecting a conscientious generational change.

5. Globalization of football detaches local identity from strictly local players; commitment to the shirt matters more than nationality.

6. Racism persists across leagues, but club cultures (including Arsenal’s) can mitigate its impact through values and leadership.

7. The entertainment-versus-trophies debate remains central to fandom; Hornby values both, noting how modern football quality and scheduling affect careers.

8. Football’s unscripted drama complements Hornby’s scripted literary world, highlighting sport’s unique emotional appeal.

Insights

1. Nick Hornby

   - Framed Fever Pitch as a human-interest narrative that helped non-fans (including women) understand male identity and fandom.

   - Arsenal provided a reliable anchor through life, distinguishing the club’s enduring presence from transient childhood pursuits.

   - Experienced and observed the 1970s/80s terrace culture, including volatility, policing, and the social dynamics of crowds.

   - Believes modern players have responsibilities to communities and appreciates the rise of athlete activism while cautioning against overhyping.

   - Argues that commitment to the shirt matters more than nationality; globalization can still produce deep fan-player bonds.

   - Acknowledges racism’s persistence and the importance of club values in confronting it.

   - Balances appreciation for entertainment with the desire for trophies; reflects on modern football’s intensity and player longevity.

2. Henry Winter

   - Highlights the evolution of football media (podcasts) and the breadth of Arsenal storytelling.

   - Discusses changes in stadium experience, pricing, and atmosphere, and the impact on younger fans’ access.

   - Probes player activism, community work, and club-led initiatives, positioning Arsenal as exemplary in engagement.

   - Raises the issue of social media-driven player followings and how star departures affect club visibility.

   - Frames debates about Premier League quality, scheduling, and their effect on player careers and performance.

 Chapters

 1. Henry Winter: What triggered Fever Pitch—love of Arsenal, a relationship, a particular game?

 Nick Hornby: The book emerged from defense mechanisms and a desire to explore human relationships through football; Arsenal was a constant that anchored his life and identity.

 Henry Winter: Notes the human-interest angle and how the book blended numbers/sport with personal dynamics.

 2. Henry Winter: How did your relationship dynamic manifest in your love for a constant like a football team?

 - Nick Hornby: Arsenal provided reliability; unlike childhood hobbies, football offered a lifelong path, connecting personal identity to a crowd and community.

 3. Henry Winter: Did you end up playing yourself?

 - Nick Hornby: Implies limited personal play; emphasizes spectating and the social aspects of being in crowds.

 4. Henry Winter: Did you send your old teacher a copy of the book?

 - Nick Hornby: Reflects on searching for companionship and crowd belonging; conversations at matches were often impersonal yet communal.

 5. Henry Winter: Is it about the crest on the front rather than the name on the back—are you Arsenal or football?

 - Nick Hornby: The intensity of feeling drew him in; the club’s symbolism mattered deeply regardless of individual players.

 6. Henry Winter: Did you analyze crowd behaviors and policing at the time?

 - Nick Hornby: Recalls chairman’s notes, policing issues, and a “jail cell” in the North Bank; shares anecdotes about being confined with opposition fans.

 7. Henry Winter: Liveliest away ground experiences?

- Nick Hornby: Suggests volatility at certain grounds; highlights the 70s/80s away-day culture and mates’ behavior.

 8. Henry Winter: Younger fans (18–24) are priced out—how has your and your son’s experience changed? Is standing safer now?

 - Nick Hornby: It’s safer; standing itself isn’t the issue—culture and context matter; modern stadiums changed dynamics from late 80s onward.

 9. Henry Winter: Thoughts on Arsenal’s stadium design, murals, and concourses?

 - Nick Hornby: Praises heritage elements but criticizes overpriced concourses; contrasts early days with fewer ads/amenities.

10. Henry Winter: Do kids follow players more than clubs? Impact of stars like Salah leaving?

 - Nick Hornby: Acknowledges player-driven social media dynamics; stresses instilling commitment to the shirt over star transience.

11. Henry Winter: Athlete activists—do you like this conscientious generation?

- Nick Hornby: Appreciates player engagement in community; supports responsibility of wealthy young players while avoiding overstatement.

12. Henry Winter: What’s it like meeting idols you grew up watching?

- Nick Hornby: Initially uncomfortable transitioning from fan to peer at signings; later accepted it; notes Fever Pitch’s cross-club resonance, even among foreign players seeking to understand English fan culture.

13. Henry Winter: Did Fever Pitch contribute to broader understanding of fandom?

 - Nick Hornby: Yes; aimed to articulate a universal fan-club relationship, avoiding tribal derision; helped non-fans understand male identity and passion.

14. Henry Winter: Trophies or entertainment—what matters more?

 - Nick Hornby: Values both; engages with debates on Premier League quality, scheduling, and the physical demands on modern players.

15. Henry Winter: No winter break, increased Champions League games—impact on careers?

- Nick Hornby: Improved pitches, boots, and nutrition help, but heavier schedules may shorten peak years; luck and care influence longevity.

16. Henry Winter: Young talent like “Max”—should he go to the World Cup?

 - Nick Hornby: World Cups aren’t for work experience; recognizes special talent but urges caution; balances club and national priorities.

17. Henry Winter: Arsenal title vs. England World Cup—which matters more?

 - Nick Hornby: Expresses hope and pragmatism; suggests World Cup ambitions face strong competition; leans toward club success while acknowledging national dreams.

18. Henry Winter: Comparing the Oscars to football awards—what’s better?

Nick Hornby: Celebrates the privilege of witnessing Arsenal regularly; sport provides unique, immersive joy akin to live arts.

19. Henry Winter: Do you appreciate football’s unscripted nature more as a writer?

Nick Hornby: Football’s unpredictability complements his scripted work; while “you couldn’t script that” is cliché, sport’s drama remains compelling.

20. Henry Winter: Thoughts on racism in sport and “black Arsenal” histories?

Nick Hornby: Racism persists across leagues; club culture can help; emphasizes that prejudice follows players and must be confronted systemically.

21. Audience Q: Any new superstitions like sugar mice or lint bunnies to influence results?

Nick Hornby: Jokes about trying new rituals; notes annual disappointment; remains open to playful superstitions.

22. Audience Q: When did you start supporting Arsenal, and how do you view fewer English players now?

Nick Hornby: Early attachment formed when squads were more English; argues proximity isn’t nationality—what matters is players’ commitment to the club and its values, not where they’re from.

Next Arrangements

- Tighten broad questions with specifics (seasons, matches, policies) to elicit concrete anecdotes and sharper contrasts between eras.

- Add targeted follow-ups on complex topics (e.g., “Which Arsenal initiative most impressed you and why?” “What stadium change most altered fan behavior?”) to deepen analysis and avoid generalities.

- Balance nostalgia with present-day detail using evidence-based comparisons (e.g., “1989 at Highbury versus a 2024 Emirates match—what single difference most changes the fan experience?”) for clear, informative takeaways.

In Defence of Gerry Healy - Caleb T. Maupin -Independently published Paperback – 15 April 2025 81 Pages.

On the surface of things, Caleb Maupin and Gerry Healy represent historically two very different political tendencies. Still, a serious study of both would reveal similar class tendencies. Despite Maupin and Healy occupying very different places in the history of the left, they share a common dynamic: both exhibited expressions of petty-bourgeois accommodation to capitalism and both substituted nationalist or sectarian shortcuts for the independent mobilisation of the international working class.

A Marxist myself, it does loathe me to mention both in the same breath, but the contrast is important. Healy was a historically prominent Trotskyist who, in practice, degenerated; Maupin is a contemporary promoter of “patriotic” or national-populist socialism. Both in the end show the objective danger posed by petty-bourgeois radicalism and political opportunism in periods of capitalist crisis.

Gerry Healy was a central figure in mid-20th-century Trotskyism. An organiser who, in earlier decades, defended the Fourth International against Pabloite liquidationists. But the record of the 1970s–1980s shows a political, organisational and moral degeneration along with an increasing turn to opportunist relations with bourgeois nationalist forces, theoretical confusions that substituted Hegelian mystification for Marxist historical materialism, and organisational practices that isolated and bureaucratized the WRP. The International Committee of the Fourth International undertook a systematic Marxist analysis of this degeneration, culminating in Healy’s expulsion in 1985. The document explained that personal abuses and scandals were rooted in a deeper political betrayal: the abandonment of Trotskyist program, dialectical method, and international proletarian strategy.[1]

Whether Maupin knew about this history or even cares is open for conjecture. His book contains no direct quotes from books or documents from that period, and there is no bibliography or footnotes. There appears to be no consultation of the most important biography of Healy, by David North.[2]

For North Gerry Healy’s life must be understood not as the product of individual psychology alone, but as the interaction of his political capacities with the shifting material conditions and class struggles of his era. From a Marxist and dialectical perspective, North argues that Healy’s later trajectory cannot be reduced to personal vice alone. Instead, it reflected objective pressures and incorrect political responses. Also, a turn toward nationalist and opportunist relations with bourgeois regimes, the subordination of programmatic tasks to short‑term organisational growth, and a growing separation of theory from the historical materialist method. These tendencies were epitomised in Healy’s ideological retreat, most notably in his distortion of dialectical materialism in his writings and practices, which North critiqued, and in his unprincipled alliances that compromised Trotskyist independence.

Maupin, despite pretending to defend the Fourth International or Leon Trotsky, repeats numerous old slanders, such as the claim that Leon Trotsky collaborated with capitalist governments against the Soviet Union. Maupin Writes

“Trotsky held onto the notion of the USSR as a “workers' state” that needed to have the “parasitical Stalinist bureaucracy” removed. Trotsky was perhaps holding out for the “political revolution” he called for that would install him in Stalin’s position. Several Soviet leaders were convicted of allegedly conspiring with Trotsky, as well as Germany and Japan, to make this happen. Investigating evidence of these charges—routinely dismissed by Western historians as fabrications from Stalin—has been the focus of Dr Grover Furr of Montclair State University. Furr maintains that Trotsky was indeed guilty of such a conspiracy, and the response to Furr’s work has generally been limited to finger-pointing and ridicule, rather than serious analysis of the evidence Furr presents.”[3]

Furr’s work attempts to rehabilitate Stalin and to cast Trotsky as an unreliable or dishonest historian. Variants of this argument range from minimising the scale of Stalinist repression to asserting that many well-established facts about the Moscow Trials, show trials, and mass terror are fabrications or grossly exaggerated. Politically, this disgusting apologist serves to blur the essential distinction that Marxists must draw between the proletarian revolution (and its leadership in 1917–23) and the bureaucratic counter-revolution that produced Stalinism. Furr's books are published by the TKP, which is the sister party of the Stalinist Greek Communist Party (KKE). This pseudo-historian reproduces all the old Stalinist lies of the 1930s.

It must be said that even after a hard study of Maupin’s book, it is difficult to understand what exactly Maupin defends in Healy. That is, until one gets to the end of the book. Maupin, throughout his political career, has defended every bourgeois nationalist dictator on the planet. His hero, like Healy at the end, is Colonel Gaddafi. Maupin defends Healy’s treacherous collaboration with the bourgeois nationalist.

Despite Healy’s capitulation to Pabloite opportunism and his despicable personal conduct in his treatment of female cadres, Maupin sees Healy doing very little wrong. If he did bad things, this was not the result of a political betrayal or adaptation to hostile class forces. Still, individual misconduct and organisational corruption do not take place in a vacuum. They are rooted in political orientations and class alignments. Healy’s petty-bourgeois turn eroded links with the working class and led to the surrender of programmatic principles in pursuit of short-term gains.

According to the analysis made in the document How the WRP Betrayed Trotskyism:” The Party was divided into an 'Upstairs'—a coterie of exalted individuals around Healy—and a 'Downstairs' occupied by hundreds of rank and file members who were denied any role in the decision-making process and took orders. This created within the Party a whole series of destructive political relations. The leadership grew increasingly impervious to the real relations between the Party and the workers amid class struggle.

Contact between the Centre and the WRP branches assumed a purely administrative character, not unlike that between a local business franchise and the head office. Healy himself became a remote figure whom most members did not even know—and he knew very little about them. His trips to Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Abu Dhabi and Tripoli were undoubtedly far more frequent than his visits to Glasgow, Sheffield, Manchester and Cardiff.

Healy’s high-flying diplomacy and his sudden access to vast material resources, based largely on his opportunist utilisation of Vanessa Redgrave as the WRP’s calling card in the Middle East, had a corrosive effect on the Party’s political line and its relation to the working class. Whatever its original intention, it became part of a process through which the WRP became the political captive of alien class forces.

At the very point when it was most in need of a course correction, the “success” of its work in the Middle East, which from the beginning lacked a basic proletarian reference point, made it less and less dependent upon the penetration of the working class in Britain and internationally. The close and intimate connection with the British and international working class that the WRP had developed over decades of struggle for Trotskyist principles was steadily undermined. The isolation from the working class grew in direct proportion to the abandonment of these principles.[4]

Caleb Maupin: A petty‑bourgeois nationalist

Caleb Maupin, while identifying completely with WRP’s historical love affair with bourgeois nationalism, is hostile to genuine Trotskyist internationalism. His contemporary politics, a public promotion of “patriotic socialism,” alliances with nationalist currents, and accommodation to reactionary forces constitute a modern variant of the same petty-bourgeois opportunistic tendencies as the Workers Revolutionary Party.

Maupin, like Healy, sought alliances with national-bourgeois forces and capitulated to non-proletarian class forces. Maupin purposely fuses socialist language with nationalist, conspiratorial, or reactionary currents (the so-called “red‑brown” tendency), repudiating the internationalist, working-class orientation that is the essence of Marxism.

It is therefore clear why Maupin is so enamoured with Healy and the so-called “cult of Personality”; his  Red‑brown movement adores the cult of personality, opportunist sectarianism, and the dilution of theory into sectarian or conspiratorial rhetoric.

Aidan Beaty-A Class Brother

Maupin spends a considerable amount of space in his short 81-page polemic attacking Aidan Beaty's hack work on Healy.[5] Beaty is a petit‑bourgeois academic and a Pseudo-Left. His book on Healy was not just a private dispute but a politically signalled intervention in the larger struggle over the legacy and continuity of Trotskyism and the Fourth International.

As David North points out, “ Professor Aidan Beatty’s The Party is Always Right: The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism is a malicious piece of political hack work posturing as a biography. The book discredits its author and fails to meet the standards expected of a scholarly work. The book is nothing of the sort. Beatty has produced a crude diatribe against Trotskyism and its historic efforts to construct a revolutionary party rooted in Marxist theory and based on the working class.”[6]

Maupin and Beaty, it must be said, share similar class backgrounds. Red‑brown populists like Maupin and sensationalist academics like Beatty serve to disorient workers and youth. The former does so by offering nationalist, authoritarian or conspiratorial alternatives; the latter by discrediting Trotskyist organisational forms and the necessity of a revolutionary party without providing a constructive program for the working class.

Maupin’s defence of Gerry Healy barely rises above A-level standard biographical history. And even that is being generous. While not entirely a hack job, it lifts no dead dogs in Healy’s political memory. However, Maupin’s book does raise concrete political issues: how a writer or historian treats theory and the written record. Maupin’s book contains barely 81 pages, of which only 50 were given over to a defence of Healy.

There is not a single quote or reference to Healy’s work. There is no examination of other work or archives mined, and no study of internal documents. A systematic study of Books, pamphlets, press archives, and internal documents is the material basis by which a writer transmits ideas to the general reader, and  Maupin does none of that.

The political crisis of the WRP in the 1970s–1980s was not an abstract intellectual dispute but the product of objective pressures: crisis in recruitment, the lure of external funds and nationalist alliances, and the isolation of a leadership that increasingly substituted personal discretion for collective Marxist leadership. In these conditions, practices around written materials — what was printed in party publications, what internal documents were circulated, and how theory was annotated or hidden — became instruments of political control rather than tools of education and criticism. Any half-decent writer or historian would have to make something of this history. Did Maupin know that Healy, like many revolutionaries, made substantial markings in books from his prodigious library?

“Marking” books can take many forms: literal physical annotation (underlining, marginal notes, censorship stamps), classification as “approved” or “banned” within a party press/bookshop, editorial rewriting, or the selective destruction/withholding of documents. Under Healy’s apparatus, these practices were embedded in a wider method: concentrating control over publications and the paper, using the press as an instrument of leadership rather than as a forum for workers’ study and democratic debate.

What a writer deliberately leaves out of a book is not merely a cultural injury; it destroys readers' ability to educate themselves, develop independent working-class perspectives, and engage in collective theoretical struggle.

The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) and its sections produced a sustained investigation of the degeneration of the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) under Gerry Healy. That record documents concrete, physical, and administrative methods used by the leadership to mark, censor, conceal, and control books, archives, and internal documents — measures deployed to defend an increasingly opportunist, petty-bourgeois leadership against internal dissent and international oversight.

One of the worst crimes committed by the leadership of the WRP was the removal and sale (or attempted sale) of the movement archives. But for the intervention of the ICFI, the WRP leadership would have sold off much of the movement's archives and documents to the highest bidder. It is still a mystery where most of this archive ended up.

As recently as 2025, Vanessa Redgrave, one of Healy’s closest supporters, attempted to sell off Healy’s vast library. She was turned down by the British Socialist Workers Party, who, in the end, got the books for free and sold them in their shop to the highest bidder. Maupin’s silence on these matters of historical importance is deafening.

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[1] www.wsws.org/en/special/library/how-the-wrp-betrayed-trotskyism/book.html

[2] Gerry Healy and His Place in the History of the Fourth International Paperback – 1 Dec. 1991 Mehring Books

[3] Book Excerpt: “Why Demonize Gerry Healy in 2024?” www.cpiusa.org/news/book-excerpt-why-demonize-gerry-healy-in-2024

[4] www.wsws.org/en/special/library/how-the-wrp-betrayed-trotskyism/book.html

[5] The Party is Always Right The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism By Aidan Beatty

[6] Biography as demonology: Aidan Beatty’s The Party is Always Right: The Untold Story of Gerry Healy and British Trotskyism-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/09/18/nizy-s18.html

Diary of a Nobody and News from Nowhere

If things continue as they have this month, the website and blog will surpass the 50,000-hit mark for the second time in the website's history. Two things account for this. Firstly, there has been an increase in the number of articles. This has been achieved with the aid of the World Socialist Website's new chatbot, Socialism AI. It not only provides a guide to writing but also serves as a valuable archive resource. Secondly, the US war and genocide against Iran has once again sparked a significant interest in a Marxist analysis.

Three new pages have been added to the website this week. Perhaps the most significant has been the WRP Page. The first article was on Gerry Healy’s books and archive, an ongoing investigation, and more will be written about it.[1] I purchased two books from the SWP belonging to Healy.

These will either be put in my personal archive, currently under construction at Bishopsgate Institute, or, if more books appear, donated to a suitable home for research purposes.

Work on the Raphael Samuel book has stalled a little, with only two draft chapters completed. This week, I will start writing a third as the research for it has mostly been done. The other project is a rewrite of my 2003 Oliver Cromwell dissertation.

Another project will be to research the historian Tim Mason. His archive currently resides at the Bishopsgate Institute. I want to say that I have followed his work, but his importance was brought to my attention by the Marxist David North. When North recommends or mentions a historian, it is well worth looking at their work. In the next few weeks, I will be attending several meetings and events.

 

Meetings and Events

 Charity After Empire: British Humanitarianism, Decolonisation and Development

When: 24 March 2026, 18:00 — 20:00 Birkbeck

 Football Writing Festival: Arsenal Special Saturday 28 March 2026 11:30

British Library

 A. ‎L. Morton, British Communism, and the New Left By

Raphael Samuel History Centre, Birkbeck, University of London

Thursday, Apr 9, 2026, from 4:30 pm to 6 pm

Remembering the General Strike, 100 years on

29 April 2026

A hybrid event bringing together historians and researchers to reflect on the significance of the 1926 General Strike and its impact on British political and labour history.  Panellists: Jonathan Schneer, Jon Cruddas, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, Paul Nowak. James Moher will chair.

Location: Hybrid event – Online and Room 349, Third Floor, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU. More information

 Remembering the General Strike of 1926

21 May 2026  | 4 pm - 6 pm

Visit the archives related to the General Strike 1926 in the LSE Library collection and hear from the former Librarian of the Trades Union Congress, Chris Coates.

Chris will discuss the factors leading up to the Strike, its effectiveness, and its impact on working people.

Location: LSE Library, London WC2A 2HD 

The Legend of Rasputin, London Library- Anthony Beevor, 30 April 2026, 18:00 - 20:00

 

Books

Sisters in Yellow Novel by Mieko Kawakami

89 Amy Lawrence

Tarantula Edurdo Halfon

Repetition Vigdis Hjorth

Borderless Jennifer De Leon

The Blood Never Dried John Newsinger

JFK John Hughes-Wilson

Where is Britain Going, Leon Trotsky

Social Policy in the Third Reich: Tim Mason

 

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[1] keith-perspective.blogspot.com/2026/03/on-gerry-healys-books.html

On Gerry Healy’s Books

On 16/03/26, I visited the Socialist Workers Party bookshop, Bookmarks. While looking at the second-hand bookshelves, I noticed a lot of old Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) books, like 10 copies of the Trotskyism Versus Revisionism series 1-6. The bookshop has three large bookshelves of second-hand books. I noticed more books, like Marx’s collected works, Lenin’s collected works and more books by Leon Trotsky.

I felt something was wrong here, so I went to the reception desk and asked if they knew anything about it. I was told that a representative from Vanessa Redgrave had initially offered two storage lockers full of books in early 2025. The SWP told Redgrave that they don’t buy. Redgrave donated the books to the SWP. The books were loaded into a medium-sized van in June or July of 2025. The books were advertised for sale through the SWP’s social media sites.

Given that Healy had a library that spanned over fifty years, one can only imagine how many were donated and what exactly Redgrave kept back. It is not well known that Healy’s secretaries kept a political diary. Excepts can be seen in Corrin Lotz’s somewhat sycophantic biography of Gerry Healy. What documents does Redgrave still hold on to?

Having a further look at the books on the Bookmarks shelves, I notice a significant number with G Healy written inside. Healy spent an inordinate amount of time writing in the books.

Healy clearly annotated his books to engage more deeply with the text, enhance comprehension, and retain information, essentially turning his reading into an active conversation with the author. It serves as a personal record of his thoughts, feelings, and insights, facilitating easier reference later and adding a deeper layer of enjoyment to the reading experience. It means that future historians will not have access to this precious archive.

It is clear that the books donated are not from Redgrave's library but are, in fact, Healy’s personal library. I know this because six months before the split in the WRP in 1984, Redgrave sold off an enormous amount of her books. I purchased two suitcases full of her books, including the proof copy of One Long Night, with her name inside.

Also, there appear to be several books from the WRP library, which I assume were at Clapham. It appears Redgrave must have looted that library. This needs further investigation, but I am pretty sure it is part of, or the whole of, G Healy’s library.

It is clear that Redgrave has no interest in revolutionary politics and by carrying out this act of political and historical vandalism spits on the history of the movement. The books should have been donated to a library or an academic institution such as Warrick University.

 

 

Breaking Our Chains: Women, Marxism and the Path to Liberation (Sarah Bates and Judy Cox) Bookmarks Publication-2026 £10

“As a general proposition: Social advances and changes of periods are brought about by virtue of the progress of women towards liberty, and the decadences of the social order are brought about by virtue of the decrease of liberty of women.

Charles Fourier on “the progress of women”

Women's freedom is the sign of social freedom.

 ―Rosa Luxemburg

“Life is not an easy matter…. You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery, above weakness, above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.”

― Leon Trotsky, Diary in Exile, 1935

This new book, Breaking Our Chains—Women, Marxism and the Path to Liberation, written by Sarah Bates, Judy Cox and Sally Campbell, is a feminist-Marxist polemic or, as the authors state, a manifesto that examines women’s oppression as a historically specific phenomenon rooted in class society.

The authors present a materialist conception of history, which insists that the emancipation of women cannot be separated from the struggle to overthrow capitalism and replace it with a socialist society. This article situates the book within classical Marxist theory, traces its historical-material logic, assesses its contemporary relevance, and contrasts its outlook with reformist and bourgeois feminist tendencies.

As Judy Cox states, “ it is important to stand with all those who want to fight back against sexism. But strategies do matter. I remember being told that we were all equal now and we didn’t need to worry about sexism anymore. We were told that the key was a few women winning individual success who would then “feminise” or “humanise” the boardroom.

These ideas have proved to be disastrously wrong. Lots of people are attracted to Marxism, but they think it needs adding to or building on to explain women’s oppression properly. I am absolutely for developing Marxism to address new ways of thinking about the world. But actually, I think Marxism, when it is properly understood, can explain the world and point to effective strategies for change. So, I welcome any engagement with Marxism, but I think Marxism is the theory of women’s liberation. We see women’s liberation as inextricably linked to the overthrow of capitalism.[1]

At the book's heart is the application of the dialectical materialist method. The authors trace how social reproduction, the sexual division of labour, property relations and the state interpenetrate to produce gender hierarchies. Classical Marxism views ideas about gender not as timeless truths but as expressions of concrete class relations and material interests. The authors therefore locate patriarchy’s deepest roots in private property, commodity production and the wage system—showing how ideological forms (sexism, “tradition”, cultural myths) mediate and naturalise material inequalities.

Collectively, the authors situate women’s oppression within several distinct formations: precapitalist patriarchies, the rise of capitalist private property, and the modern wage-labour system. Historically specific institutions like household labour, unequal access to independent means of production, and the monetary valuation of labour have shaped the content and limits of women’s social power. The book charts how reformist struggles (suffrage, workplace protections, social-welfare reforms) have won partial gains but have been repeatedly constrained or reversed because they do not alter underlying class relations.

Marxism treats the question of women’s oppression not as a moral add-on but as an integral moment of class society. The materialist conception of history shows that family structures, gender relations and the legal status of women are rooted in modes of production: how people make their living shapes social relations, property, law and ideology.

As Frederick Engels argued, “We must admit that so total a reversal of the position of the sexes can come to pass only because the sexes have been placed in a false position from the beginning. If the reign of the wife over the husband, as inevitably brought about by the factory system, is inhuman, the pristine rule of the husband over the wife must have been inhuman too.”[2]

The book is not just an examination of past liberation movements and struggles; it also has contemporary relevance. Today, intensified economic poverty, neoliberal austerity, the casualisation of labour, and the rollback of public services have further commodified and privatised social reproduction. The book explains why these trends disproportionately impact women: cuts in social care and public provision shift unpaid labour back into households; precarious employment deepens women’s dependency and vulnerability. It therefore argues that feminism divorced from class struggle can be absorbed as a market-friendly ideology or reduced to identity-based bargaining within capitalism.

The authors are correct in their insistence that real emancipation requires linking demands around wages, workplace democracy, social provision, childcare, reproductive rights and an end to militarism to a program to abolish wage labour and capitalist property—i.e., to socialist transformation. All women’s organisations must be rooted in the working class, not subordinated to bourgeois parties or union bureaucracies that manage capital’s interests. That perspective distinguishes genuine Marxist-feminism from reformist “management-of-inequality” approaches and the bourgeois “lean-in” model that leaves hierarchical structures intact.

To sum up, Breaking Our Chains provides a necessary corrective to bourgeois and reformist versions of feminism by grounding the fight for women’s liberation in Marxist historical materialism. Its central lesson: the liberation of women requires the revolutionary overthrow of capitalist social relations and the building of working-class political independence and international organisation. Women’s liberation is not attainable as a partial reform of capitalism. It requires the collective political mobilisation of the working class to overturn the property relations that underlie gender oppression and to build democratic, social institutions that free labour from private, unpaid burdens.  For students and activists seeking a theoretical and practical guide, the book underscores that only by combining rigorous theory, mass organisation and revolutionary strategy can genuine, lasting emancipation be achieved.

One major criticism of both the authors and the Socialist Workers Party that they belong to is that, despite the occasional publication of books that adopt a classical Marxist standpoint with references and quotes from Marxist revolutionaries Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, and Russian revolutionaries Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, they usually offer a platform for the flotsam and jetsam of pseudo-left politics. The group is thoroughly convinced of capitalism's power and longevity and is hostile to the working class and to genuine socialism. The SWP’s sole purpose is to oppose the independent political mobilisation of the working class on a revolutionary and internationalist programme. 

 

 

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[1] Breaking Our Chains: Smashing sexism and the system-socialistworker.co.uk/womens-liberation/breaking-our-chains-smashing-sexism-and-the-system/

[2] The Condition of the Working Class in England. Friedrich Engels 1845