Adam Mars-Jones says of a literary critic who likens a novel to a piece of machinery: ‘She wisely omits any reference to Hemingway’s belief that the most efficient part of a story, the part that does the most work, is the part that the author has omitted, since she could hardly point to any actual… read more »
Right up to the outbreak of the Great War Karl Kautsky was held generally to be the most prominent disciple and continuator of the ideas, theories and ‘method’ of Marx and Engels. Dick Geary, in a mini-biography of Kautsky (1854-1938) in a series entitled Lives of the Left published by Manchester University Press in 1987,… read more »
I am currently preparing a paper on the life and ideals of Harry Martin, one of the founders of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. He is referred to in Robert Barltrop’s colourful history of the SPGB, The Monument (Pluto Press 1975) on five separate pages. Harry Martin was the first (and last?) prophet of… read more »
(Reprinted from the Socialist Leader 10 November 1951. Copy supplied by Ellis Hillman. – GW) In the cloud of emotional dust raised by Len Collier there is still left, when the dust has settled, a very real and vital problem for all socialists to consider. The problem is not new, but it is of vital… read more »
IC holds out a continuing invitation: We undertake 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… read more »
This letter left us with ambivalent feelings, and after a time we began to see why. Although written as a whole, it falls into two parts. The first consists of the ideas Austin would have us accept. These are not to be swallowed unquestioningly – he would not want that – but they are all… read more »
While we serenely analyse the behaviour of parties and movements, where does IC stand? Every issue makes it clear that we are opposed to the (A-)SPGB (and, though this is less emphasised, also to other “purist” anarchists and anarcho-socialists) and that locates us on the side of existing society in all its variety and with… read more »
Here we continue our series of reprints of Walsby’s articles from the Socialist Leader, begun in IC27, with copy supplied by Ellis Hillman. This is from the issue of 29 April 1950; it completes the article “Dogmatic Nonsense” which appeared on 15 April 1950, reprinted in IC30. – GW Further to my previous letter, we… read more »
Louis Althusser is a French Marxist intellectual, and they don’t come any more intellectual than that. The TLS tells us his Essays on Ideology (London, Verso, 1984) is “the work of an acute intellect and contains extended passages of originality and brilliance”. Tribune: “Althusser demands patience from the reader but he rewards it with his… read more »
In the Domain of Ideologies Walsby speaks of a process by which the conformity of the great majority of members of a large group, such as a nation, is ensured: “If… there arises a comparatively strong, critical faction… which threatens the group with dissension and disruption, the mass suggestion will increase in strength, volume, intensity… read more »