FAITH AND EVIDENCE Sir: [Nobody has yet begun a letter to IC with “Sir,” but one needs some standardised way of starting it off as a letter]. Sir: On the back page, of IC43, I wonder whether you are not being unfair to the SS Prod committee in asking them to produce evidence showing something… read more »
Recent events in Eastern Europe have led some Western commentators to suggest that revolutionary communism is now on its last legs, the West German Embassy, for example, speaking of Marx and Marxism both being nicely buried. [1] The communists do not agree. Dr. Chater, editor of the Morning Star, still regards the coming of communism… read more »
Richard Pipes helps to dispel the fog of misunderstanding and misrepresentation that makes revolution look like nothing more than spontaneous mass upheaval. [1] He notes that the French revolution, first of the modern ones, did not use the word until fifteen months after the fall of the Bastille, but the Russian revolutionaries “travelled with Baedekers,”… read more »
A NEWSPAPER headline cries: “Marx gets the workers united – against him.” [1] So what’s new? Since Marxism first appeared practically all workers, by their actions if not their thoughts, have supported its opponents. [1] (Sunday Times 11 Feb 90) OLIVER IN SKIRTS The feminists will have gained their point when men wear skirts as… read more »
SOME BACKGROUND This party set out in 1904 to get a majority for ‘socialism’ – more accurately described as anarcho-socialism. the world population has increased by thousands of millions while the number of ‘socialists’ remains in the hundreds – of people, not millions. Further from their majority than when they started, they believe they are… read more »
Books which make an impression get absorbed into the general trend of thought. Only in this way can they play their full part, but some are worth returning to, among them Maine’s Ancient Law or, to present it in its full glory, Ancient Law, its connection with the early history of society and its relation… read more »
SECRET SCIENCE Leo Strauss died in 1973; some of his books are now being re-issued. He thought advanced political ideas valuable but also dangerous; the Enlightenment led to Hitler. His answer was to keep scientific and philosophical thinking secret from the general body of ordinary people. (TLS 1 Dec 89). Such caution hardly seems called… read more »
SOME BACKGROUND IC undertakes to print any statement of up to 1,000 words carrying the approval of this party, or one of its branches. Letters from individual members will appear if they are cogent, interesting and concise, and if space permits. If you want your letter to appear unedited or not at all, please say… read more »
The Labour Party Conference of October was remarkable for the prevalence of agreement; unlike earlier ones it did not justify Norman Tebbit’s description of the comrades and brothers as “firmly united in fraternal hatred of each other’s guts”. An editorial in the Independent of October 7 spoke of “a respectable measure of unity at most… read more »
REFORMERS and revolutionaries, demanding that people should think for themselves, tend to claim that they are increasingly coming to do so. The evidence goes against this belief, the latest item appearing in reports of a survey undertaken for the new “Sky” television system. This has very few subscribers and the fact itself operates as a… read more »