Today’s interest in Nostradamus, astrology, and mystical prophecies isn’t just innocent fascination. It reflects a deep intellectual decline in bourgeois society. Trying to explain Hitler’s rise with 16th-century cryptic verses isn’t just foolish; it’s a reactionary act. The document notes, “The framing of this question… is itself an expression of the irrationalism that pervades bourgeois culture in decay.” This irrationalism isn’t marginal; it acts as an ideological shield for capitalism during its final crisis.
The ruling elite, troubled by the disastrous consequences of their system, seeks comfort through mystification. The petty-bourgeois classes, bewildered by social upheaval, rely on supernatural explanations. Meanwhile, the academic community, having moved away from the Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason, now promotes the idea that history is driven by fate, myth, or “dark forces,” rather than by class struggle. Hitler’s rise was not predicted by Nostradamus nor written in the stars; it resulted from specific, identifiable, and preventable political betrayals by the leaders of the German workers’ movement.
The Material Foundations of Fascism
The rise of Nazism can only be understood through the Marxist lens of historical materialism. In the early 1930s, Germany was Europe’s most developed industrial economy, yet it was constrained by the Versailles Treaty and the global capitalist crisis. The productive forces had surpassed the limits of the nation-state. German imperialism aimed for expansion, but before fighting abroad, it needed to suppress the working class domestically.
The Nazis were not a supernatural anomaly. As Trotsky described, they were “a party of national despair,” gaining backing from the devastated petty bourgeoisie—“the small artisans and shopkeepers of the cities, petty officials, employees, technical staff, the intelligentsia, and impoverished peasants.” These groups, shattered by the crisis, were whipped into a rage of hatred toward the proletariat, whom they blamed for their social downfall.
However, fascism in power was not merely the rule of these devastated classes. As Trotsky aptly states, “fascism in power is least of all the rule of the petty bourgeoisie. On the contrary, it is the most ruthless dictatorship of monopoly capital.” German industrialists, bankers, and military leaders saw Hitler as the tool they needed to break down workers’ organizations and gear up for imperialist conflict. The Düsseldorf meeting of January 1932, where leading industrialists pledged their support to Hitler, was not a mystical convergence of destiny. It was a class decision.
The Working Class Wanted No Part of Fascism
Contrary to the myth—propagated by both fascists and liberals—that Hitler rose to power on widespread popular support, the German working class largely opposed him. The document clearly states: “The working class did not want fascism.” In the November 1932 elections, the combined votes for the Social Democrats and Communists exceeded those for the Nazis. Furthermore, in the factories, the Nazis were held in contempt.
The decisive factor was not the will of the masses but the treachery of their leaders.
The Stalinist and Social Democratic Betrayals
The Stalinist leadership of the Communist Party, following Moscow’s orders, embraced the harmful theory of “social fascism,” labeling the Social Democrats as the primary enemy. This strategy—one of the worst crimes in workers’ movement history—blocked the creation of a united front for the working class when such unity could have defeated the Nazis. Meanwhile, Social Democratic leaders failed to mobilize their workers, fearing revolution. They surrendered to the bourgeois state, disarming the working class and enabling Hitler to become chancellor in January 1933.
Trotsky’s warnings proved to be prophetic in the true sense: they were based on scientific analysis. He stated that a Nazi victory would lead to “the extermination of the best of the German proletariat, the destruction of its organizations, and the eradication of its self-belief and hope for the future.” He also predicted that Italian fascism would seem “pale” in comparison. Every prediction was confirmed.
Mysticism as a Weapon Against the Working Class
The shift towards Nostradamus and astrology is not impartial. It fulfills specific ideological roles: depicting fascism as unavoidable rather than stoppable; excusing the responsibilities of the ruling class and leaderships like reformist and Stalinist; replacing class analysis with fatalism; and discouraging the working class by implying that supernatural forces shape history. The pursuit of prophecies and astrological justifications for Hitler is not only unserious but also politically reactionary. This type of irrationalism echoes the postwar pessimism of the Frankfurt School, which blamed “the Enlightenment” for fascism, thus diverting attention from capitalism and the failures of the workers’ movement.
The Lessons for Today
The worldwide rise of fascist movements, increasing irrationalism, and the decline of bourgeois democracy are not just predictions but stem from capitalism’s fundamental contradictions. These include economic crises, imperialist competition, and the ruling class’s failure to resolve these issues democratically. The focus shouldn’t be on deciphering old astrological texts, but on cultivating the revolutionary leadership that Germany lacked in 1933.
Introduction: A “Gaffe” That Reveals the Social Order
The controversy over Rafael van der Vaart’s televised comment that Japanese footballers “look alike” has been dismissed by the media as just another case of personal bias. However, this statement actually exemplifies the racial dehumanisation that capitalism fosters. It is “a textbook expression of the racial dehumanisation that capitalism systematically produces and reproduces.” The importance of this incident is not in the personal beliefs of a former football player but in the social conditions that normalise and even trivialise such thinking.
The phrase “they all look alike” has a dark history, used for centuries to overlook individual differences and lump entire groups together. It’s not surprising that a former international player—who has played with teammates and opponents from around the world—would repeat this cliché on air. This reflects a broader culture rife with racial stereotypes, one whose core beliefs are deeply intertwined with the capitalist system supporting it.
The Media’s Ritual of Containment
The media response adhered to a familiar pattern. Outrage was aimed at the individual, with commentators calling for an apology, which Van der Vaart provided. The cycle then continued. As noted in the document, capitalist society tends to “individualize the offense, focus outrage on one person, demand an apology, and then move on.” This ritual has a clear political purpose: it treats racism as a personal moral failing rather than a structural issue rooted in class society.
The sports-media complex, which benefits financially from the worldwide movement of athletic labour, is especially skilled at this kind of ideological control. It can criticise a pundit’s comment while still running an industry that views players—particularly from Africa, Asia, and Latin America—as commodities. This industry is “more than willing to publicly condemn racist remarks while continuing to operate the commercial system that treats those same players as commodities.” The hypocrisy is glaring. The media condemns van der Vaart while reproducing the very conditions that make such remarks inevitable.
Identity Politics and the Politics of Evasion
Liberal commentators and identity-politics advocates respond in a similarly insufficient manner. They concentrate on personal responsibility, diversity training, and public ‘calling out,’ but these actions fail to address the fundamental social structures. Such initiatives do nothing to challenge the capitalist system that generates racial oppression. “
Identity politics views racism as stemming from individual attitudes, cultural insensitivity, or representational issues. It advocates for moral education, corporate training, and symbolic actions. However, racism is not merely a psychological flaw. It is “a product of class society, deliberately cultivated by the ruling class to divide workers who share a common interest in abolishing capitalism.”
Reducing racism to an interpersonal offense masks its material foundations, turning a structural class domination mechanism into a question of etiquette. It replaces political struggle with moralism, thus diluting its political significance.
Racism as a Tool of Class Rule
The persistence of racialised thinking in sport is intentional. Modern professional sports are part of a global industry that generates profit by exploiting workers, who are mostly from the most oppressed parts of the world. The commercialisation of athletic labour cannot be separated from the broader patterns of imperialism and global inequality.
Racism is central to this process, as it normalizes inequality, justifies exploitation, and divides workers with similar material interests. It is not just a relic of history but an active tool used in modern class domination. The claim that racism is “deliberately cultivated by the ruling class” is supported by the entire history of capitalism, from colonialism to today’s global supply chains. Van der Vaart’s comment is not just an anomaly; it reveals the ideological forces supporting the global sports industry and, more generally, capitalist society.
The International Working Class and the Fight Against Racism
The only effective way to fight racism is through the independent political mobilisation of the global working class. This is not a moral appeal but a strategic move. Racism cannot be eradicated with apologies, media outrage, or corporate diversity efforts. It can only be eliminated by dismantling the social system that sustains it.
The genuine fight against racism requires the building of an independent political movement of the working class, internationally united, that can abolish the material foundation of all racial and national oppression.” This view sharply contrasts with the narrow focus of identity politics and the cynicism often seen in the media.
The global working class—comprising diverse races and nations and becoming more interconnected—has no stake in racial divisions. Its quest for emancipation is inherently linked to the fight against all oppression. Consequently, the struggle against racism is inherently connected to the pursuit of socialism.
Conclusion: Beyond Outrage, Toward Emancipation
The van der Vaart incident is not solely about an individual’s bias. Instead, it highlights the social system that fosters such prejudice and leverages media spectacles to mask its roots. Publicly condemning individuals merely sustains the illusion that racism is a personal flaw, rather than a fundamental component of capitalist dominance.
Introduction: Reclaiming Antiquity for Historical Materialism
G.E.M. de Ste. Croix’s 1982 publication, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, marked a pivotal moment in twentieth-century historiography. During a period when structuralism, Weberian sociology, and the “cultural turn” were weakening the explanatory role of class analysis, de Ste. Croix presented a comprehensive 700-page argument showing that the ancient world was fundamentally organised around relations of exploitation. This book is regarded as “one of the great works of Marxist historiography,’ applying historical materialism across the entire span of Greco-Roman antiquity.
This review places de Ste. Croix within the wider historiographical context, outlines his key arguments, and evaluates his impact on Marxist theory and ancient studies. It emphasises that his main contribution was not just his impressive knowledge—though his mastery of sources was remarkable—but also his revival of class struggle as the driving force in ancient history. Challenging the dominant Weberian view held by Moses Finley and others, de Ste. Croix argued that the crucial issue in any mode of production is how surplus value is extracted, asserting that the ancient world was primarily characterised by the exploitation of unfree labour, especially enslaved people.
I. The Finley–Weber Paradigm: Status, Not Class
By the middle of the 20th century, the exploration of the ancient world was mainly influenced by a Weberian approach emphasising status groups, legal categories, and political institutions. Moses Finley, a prominent ancient historian, argued that Greek and Roman societies were structured around status rather than class divisions. He explicitly stated that ancient societies organised themselves into various political statuses, including citizen, metic, freedman, and enslaved person, thereby rendering the idea of class an unnecessary classification.
Finley’s argument was based on two main points: first, that social status hierarchy outweighed economic position, as a wealthy metic in Athens did not have the political rights of a poor citizen; second, that ancient ideology was mainly political rather than economic, since ancient writers portrayed social conflict through citizenship, honour, and legal privileges. Consequently, modern historians should consider this perspective.
This approach seemed sophisticated, rejecting simple economic determinism and emphasising the independence of politics. It also aligned with the mid-20th-century trend toward sociological pluralism. However, its impact was to eliminate the idea of class struggle in the ancient world, turning it into a realm of fixed hierarchies rather than active conflict.
De Ste. Croix understood that this issue was not just a methodological mistake but also an ideological one. Accordingly, he viewed Finley’s criticism as identical to the opposition Marx encountered: the assertion that ancient society was centred on politics, much as medieval society was centred on religion. In both instances, the ideological appearance was confused with the actual social structure.
II. De Ste. Croix’s Reconstruction of Class: Surplus Extraction as the Key
De Ste. Croix’s main contribution was redefining class as the key analytical category in ancient history. He revisited Marx’s original view of class as a relation of exploitation rather than merely a sociological group. The crucial question shifts from the legal status of individuals to how the dominant property-owning classes extract surplus value from direct producers. This idea is summarised thus: “The most significant distinguishing feature of any mode of production is not how the bulk of labour is done, but how the dominant propertied classes ensure the extraction of the surplus…”
This formulation is fundamental to de Ste. Croix’s approach. It helps him pierce the ideological haze in ancient political discourse to reveal the underlying mechanisms of exploitation: slavery as the main means of surplus extraction, with rent, debt, and taxation serving as secondary tools applied to free producers. State coercion acts as the enforcement of elite dominance. In contrast to Finley, de Ste. Croix argued that the ancient world was not “pre-economic” but pre-capitalist, with an economy not driven by markets or profit motives. Nonetheless, it was an economy where the propertied classes derived their wealth from the surplus generated by enslaved people, peasants, and dependent workers.
This method enabled de Ste. Croix to incorporate the full scope of Greco-Roman history into a unified materialist framework, spanning from the Archaic Age to the Arab conquests. It also helped him interpret the political crises of antiquity—such as stasis, civil war, and revolution—not as anomalies but as manifestations of fundamental class conflicts.
III. Aristotle as a Witness to Class Antagonism
One of de Ste. Croix’s most insightful historiographical strategies was to view ancient authors not just as sources of information but as commentators on their own social contexts. Aristotle, specifically, can be seen as an early thinker resembling a proto-Marxist in his analysis of class struggle. He believed that a man’s economic status is the key factor shaping his political actions. Although he recognises the existence of middle groups, Aristotle often simplifies political conflict into a division between property owners and non-owners.
This divide becomes more pronounced during crises when the fundamental opposition between the rich and the poor becomes evident. Aristotle’s concern about stasis—civil unrest caused by class struggles—shows his keen understanding of the built-in tensions within the polis. De Ste. Croix points out that Aristotle’s approach closely resembles Marx’s methodology. This is not an anachronistic misinterpretation but an acknowledgement that ancient thinkers also saw politics as driven by material interests.
By emphasising Aristotle’s class analysis, de Ste. Croix challenges the Weberian idea that class is a modern concept unrelated to antiquity. Instead, he shows that the ancients had a distinct, although ideologically influenced, awareness of their own social classes.
IV. Democracy and Slavery: The Political Economy of the Polis
One of the most debated points in de Ste. Croix’s work is his claim that the structure of Athenian democracy relied on slavery. This challenges both idealised views of ancient democracy and revisionist theories tracing its origins to the free peasantry. “He understood that it was based on slavery… [the propertied class] intensified their exploitation of those who could not defend themselves: the slaves.” This is not a moral judgment but a materialist analysis. The reforms by Solon and Cleisthenes reduced elite exploitation of citizens, compelling the propertied classes to shift their oppression onto enslaved individuals. Therefore, the democratic rights of citizens were fundamentally linked to the subjugation of the enslaved.
De Ste. Croix also dismisses the idea that internal contradictions caused democracy to decline. Instead, it was toppled by the propertied classes, particularly after the Peloponnesian War, when oligarchic coups—supported by Sparta—aimed to re-establish elite control. Over time, citizens’ rights were gradually reduced until, by the third century CE, “a poor Roman citizen could legally be flogged and tortured—penalties once reserved for slaves.” This extended decline of democracy can only be understood through a class analysis: the propertied classes dismantled democratic institutions because those institutions limited their ability to extract surplus.
V. The Decline of Rome: Exploitation and the Collapse of Social Reproduction
De Ste. Croix offers a compelling materialist interpretation of the Roman Empire’s decline. He dismisses cultural, moral, and military reasons, asserting that Rome’s fall resulted from the ruling classes escalating exploitation, ultimately dismantling the empire’s social foundation. The propertied class “drained the life-blood from their world and thus destroyed Graeco-Roman civilisation…”
The oppressed populations, burdened by heavy taxes, military demands, and later by the parasitic Christian clergy, lacked motivation to protect the empire from barbarian invasions. The ruling elite, focusing on their immediate gains, weakened the long-term stability of the social system—an example of Marx’s concept of the “fetishism of private property.” This interpretation emphasises the role of the exploited classes: Rome’s fall was not solely due to external factors but also to internal exploitation, which rendered the empire unsustainable.
VI. The Peasantry Debate: Numbers vs Structure
A major debate in historiography focuses on the role of the peasantry. Ellen Meiksins Wood argued that Greek democracy relied on the free labour of independent smallholders, rather than slavery. In contrast, Ann Talbot criticises Wood’s view, describing it as “purely arithmetical and formal.”
The core issue is structural: the numerical majority of peasants does not influence the dynamics of the class struggle. Instead, what matters are the conflicts between rich and poor citizens, and between citizens and enslaved individuals. These contradictions, rather than demographic proportions, fuelled the political crises of antiquity. Therefore, De Ste. Croix’s analysis remains valid, even amidst revisionist efforts to downplay slavery’s importance.
Conclusion: De Ste. Croix’s Enduring Significance
De Ste. Croix’s intellectual and moral stature has remained strong over time. He “did not view the ancient world merely as a collection of dead structures; he engaged with its political struggles as if they were his own.” His work reflects the finest traditions of twentieth-century Marxism, influenced by the Russian Revolution and opposition to fascism.
De Ste. Croix proved that historical materialism extends beyond capitalism, shedding light on the entire class-based society. His contributions continue to be essential to understanding not only antiquity but also the ongoing mechanisms of exploitation and resistance across eras.
Historiographical Appendix: Finley, Wood, de Ste. Croix, and the WSWS Tradition
I. Introduction
Over the past fifty years, the study of the ancient world has been influenced by markedly different methodological approaches. These debates are not just about how to interpret Greek and Roman history but also concern the status of concepts like class, surplus extraction, and historical materialism as analytical tools. This appendix reviews four key perspectives: Moses Finley’s Weberian focus on status; Ellen Meiksins Wood’s ‘political Marxism’; G.E.M. de Ste. Croix’s traditional Marxism; and Trotskyist historiography.
This appendix sets a clear interpretive framework for the latter two, describing de Ste. Croix’s “Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World” as “one of the great works of Marxist historiography” and highlighting his claim that “the most significant distinguishing feature of any mode of production is… how the dominant propertied classes ensure the extraction of the surplus.”¹
II. Moses Finley and the Weberian Displacement of Class
Finley’s work is the most significant effort to omit class as an explanatory factor in ancient history. Influenced by Max Weber, he contended that the ancient Mediterranean was mainly organised around status groups—such as citizens, metics, freedmen, and enslaved individuals—rather than economic classes.² Finley argued that “ancient Greece and Rome were societies structured around a range of political statuses, making class an unsuitable category.”³
Finley’s argument was based on two key ideas: that social status took precedence over economic wealth. For example, a wealthy metic did not have the political rights of a poor citizen, and an imperial freedman could be wealthier than a senator but still hold a lower social status.⁴ Ancient ideology primarily focused on political issues rather than economic ones. Since ancient writers depicted conflict through themes of citizenship and honour, modern historians ought to approach it in a similar way.
Finley reshaped the ancient world into a realm of fixed social hierarchies, in which the processes of surplus extraction became less visible. His method was praised for its elegance but effectively blocked the use of historical materialism. As the referenced document mentions, de Ste. Croix saw this as similar to what Marx faced: the argument that ancient society was “based on politics” because its ideology expressed political ideas.⁵
III. Ellen Meiksins Wood and the Peasant‑Citizen Thesis
Ellen Meiksins Wood aimed to reposition class at the heart of ancient history. She achieved this by shifting the focus from slavery to the autonomous labour of smallholder farmers as the basis of Greek democracy. In her work Peasant-Citizen and Enslaved Person, she contended that the polis was a community of free producers whose political equality depended on their economic independence.⁶ Slavery existed, but it was not structurally constitutive of democracy.
In reference to Ann Talbot’s discussion in the WSWS, Wood’s method is characterised as “purely arithmetical and formal,” treating “peasant” as a generic label that overlooks the diversity among the numerous peasant societies throughout history.⁷ The issue is not about numbers but about structure: the key question is how surplus is extracted, rather than the number of peasants. Wood’s concept of ‘political Marxism” therefore tends to emphasise free labour and civic community as the main categories, often overlooking the slave mode of production as the fundamental basis of Athenian democracy.
IV. G.E.M. de Ste. Croix: Class as Surplus Extraction
De Ste. Croix’s intervention was to reexamine Marx’s initial idea of class as a relation of exploitation, focusing on the mode of surplus extraction rather than viewing class as just a sociological category. It is this process of surplus extraction that characterises class.⁸ “The most significant distinguishing feature of any mode of production is not how the bulk of labour is done, but how the dominant propertied classes ensure the extraction of the surplus…”⁹
De Ste. Croix argued against Finley, asserting that the ancient world was not “status-based,” but instead a slave-based system where the propertied class gained surplus through the exploitation of unfree labour, mainly enslaved people. Regarding Wood, he contended that Athens’ democratic structure was fundamentally rooted in the organic link between citizen rights and the unfree status of slaves. The reforms introduced by Solon and Cleisthenes aimed to curb elite exploitation of citizens, which led the propertied classes to increase their exploitation of enslaved individuals.¹¹
De Ste. Croix’s approach also included a radical reinterpretation of ancient writers. For instance, Aristotle is seen not merely as a theorist of social hierarchies but as an analyst of class conflict shaped by ideological influences. He consistently simplifies political disputes into a dichotomy between hoi tas ousias echontes (property owners) and hoi aporoi (those without). As the uploaded document points out, Aristotle’s analysis closely resembles the approach used by Marx.”¹³
V. The Trotskyist Tradition: De Ste. Croix as a Model of Historical Materialism
The Trotskyist tradition regards de Ste. Croix as an example of authentic Marxist historiography. It commends him for dismissing “fashionable structuralism and ‘French phrasemongering’” and for showing “a true understanding of Marx and a dedication to the class struggle as essential to comprehending all human history.”¹⁴
This tradition’s reading is characterised by three features: historical materialism as a universal approach and recognition of the ancient world not as a pre-economic period but as a unique historical setting of exploitation and resistance. It also views democracy as a form of class rule, noting that Athenian democracy “was based on slavery,” and its fall was due to deliberate actions by the elite rather than internal decline.¹⁵ Elite self-destruction as a historical process: The Roman ruling class “drained the life-blood from their world and thus destroyed Graeco-Roman civilisation.”¹⁶
VI. Comparative Synthesis
The four positions can be outlined as follows: Finley emphasises status-centrism, with a marginalised view of class, analysing democracy through political structures; slavery is acknowledged but not viewed as structurally central. Wood reintroduces class, focusing on free smallholders, considers slavery as secondary, and sees democracy rooted in peasant-citizenship.
De Ste. Croix characterises class as the extraction of surplus, with slavery being fundamentally embedded in this process. He sees democracy as a form of rule based on slave exploitation. Trotskyists regard De Ste. Croix, as a key model, universalises the concept of class struggle and interprets ancient history through the framework of exploitation and resistance. His work is considered an essential resource for Marxists, showing that historical materialism explains the full scope of class society.”¹⁷
Notes
Appx. Doc., “G.E.M. de Ste. Croix’s The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World… stands as one of the great works of Marxist historiography,” and “The most significant distinguishing feature… is how the dominant propertied classes ensure the extraction of the surplus.”
Moses I. Finley, The Ancient Economy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973).
Appx. Doc., “Finley argued that ancient Greece and Rome were societies organised around a spectrum of political statuses… and that class was therefore an inappropriate category.”
Ibid.
Appx. Doc., “De Ste. Croix recognised this as the same objection Marx himself had faced…”
Ellen Meiksins Wood, Peasant-Citizen and enslaved person: The Foundations of Athenian Democracy (London: Verso, 1988).
Appx. Doc., “This is a purely arithmetical and formal approach… ‘peasant’ is an empty term…”
Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 3, ch. 47.
Appx. Doc., “The most significant distinguishing feature…”
Appx. Doc., “by the exploitation of unfree (especially slave) labour.”
Appx. Doc., “the constitutional measures… prevented the propertied class from exploiting the peasantry… [so] they intensified their exploitation of… slaves.”
Aristotle, Politics, 1279b–1281a.
Appx. Doc., “bears a remarkable resemblance to the method of approach adopted by Marx.”
Appx. Doc., “fashionable structuralism and ‘French phrasemongering’… genuine knowledge of Marx…”
Appx. Doc., “He understood that [democracy] was based on slavery.”
Appx. Doc., “drained the life-blood from their world and thus destroyed Graeco-Roman civilisation.”
Appx. Doc., “His work remains an indispensable resource for Marxists…”
The recent Observer editorial, ‘A Declaration of Interdependence,’ reveals more about the panic within Britain’s liberal-imperialist class than its analysis. It shows disorientation among a ruling elite whose global framework is collapsing under contradictions. The editors claim that Donald Trump has “pulled the rug from under the Starmer project,” implying that Britain’s capitalist crisis stems from a single reckless act rather than decades of militarism, austerity, and imperial decline. The editorial outlines four ways Trump has supposedly sabotaged Starmer. In truth, each “shock” merely exposes the corruption at the heart of the entire system.
1. The economic crisis is not Trump’s doing—it is capitalism’s
The Observer laments that the UK’s fragile economic recovery was disrupted when Trump authorized the US-Israeli attack on Iran, leading Tehran to seal the Strait of Hormuz. It mournfully notes that “world oil prices are still nearly 30% above prewar levels,” as if this situation were an unpredictable act of God rather than a direct result of imperialist intervention in the Middle East.
The editorial criticizes not the fact that the US and Israel initiated another unjust war, but that it harms British capitalism’s interests. The hardships faced by Iranian and Palestinian civilians are ignored; what’s crucial is that Starmer’s “green shoots” story doesn’t resonate with voters in Makerfield. This reveals the genuine stance of the Labour-liberal circle: war can be justified or even needed, provided it doesn’t interfere with internal political interests.
2. Labour’s crisis over Gaza is a crisis of imperialism, not of messaging
The Observer criticizes Trump’s backing of Israel’s destructive attack on Gaza, which has led to the loss of nearly 73,000 Palestinian lives, claiming it has caused a division within the Labour Party. However, Labour’s division was not caused by Trump; it was due to its persistent support for imperialist violence.
Starmer’s so-called “tortured expressions of support for Israel’s right to self-defence” are actually sincere, representing Labour’s position within the British state. The real focus of the editorial is that the working class, especially young people and Britain’s Muslim community, is shifting away from Labour towards parties perceived as more supportive of Palestine. For the Observer, the concern isn’t the widespread violence itself but the political consequences it might trigger.
3. The culture‑war panic reveals the fragility of the British state
The third critique in the editorial—that JD Vance and Elon Musk are fueling Britain’s “culture wars”—exposes a feeling of helplessness. The British elite, having spent years demonising migrants, refugees, and the poor, now shows shock when their own reactionary rhetoric is echoed by their American counterparts. The Observer points out that Musk “acted as an arsonist, reposting flagrantly false and racist comments” following the Belfast stabbing. However, Musk is not an anomaly; he embodies the core of capitalist reaction. The far right’s rise is not solely due to online provocateurs but also because the political establishment—Labor included—has legitimised nationalism, militarism, and xenophobia.
The editorial’s fear is not fascism, but the loss of control over the forces it helped unleash.
4. The defence‑spending crisis exposes the bankruptcy of British imperialism
The Observer’s final complaint is that Trump has called for NATO members to allocate 5% of their GDP to defence, a target Starmer “can’t afford.” This is seen as an outrageous demand from a reckless American leader. However, it is actually a natural extension of Britain’s own imperial commitments. The British government cannot sustain global wars, maintain a nuclear arsenal, challenge Russia and China, and keep its welfare state intact all at once. Something has to give—and the ruling class has already decided it will not cut the military. The editorial worries that the working class might resist this arrangement.
The Observer’s conclusion: a desperate plea for imperialist unity
The article concludes by urging Britain to adopt “interdependence” with NATO, Europe, and the U.S., framing it as a pragmatic alternative to Brexit’s rejection of reality. However, in reality, it demands that the working class endure ongoing austerity, perpetual conflict, and subjugation to the major imperialist powers. The Observer claims Britain is “fortunate” to be at the crossroads of these powerful systems. But is it fortunate? To be a subordinate member of NATO’s military actions, Europe’s austerity policies, and America’s military-industrial complex? That’s not luck; it’s a trap.
The Observer fails to recognize that Britain’s crisis is rooted in the failure of global capitalism itself, not in Trump, Brexit, or Starmer’s errors. The decline of the “special relationship” reflects the broader collapse of the post-Cold War international order. Ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Iran, Ukraine, and the South China Sea are not isolated incidents but signs of a coming global upheaval. The working class should reject the Observer’s appeal for “interdependence” with imperialist powers. Instead, the only effective solution is for workers across Britain, Europe, the U.S., and worldwide to organize independently in opposition to war, nationalism, and capitalism.
The BBC’s focus on a VAR official’s hand gesture during the 2026 World Cup isn’t a rare mistake or journalistic error. Instead, it reflects a corrupt political culture where those in power, facing growing social issues and increasing imperialist violence, depend increasingly on divisive identity politics. This strategy aims to split the working class and steer collective dissent into meaningless, symbolic conflicts. The so-called “OK sign” controversy is just the most recent example of this reactionary approach.
While the media was breathlessly speculating about “a VAR official’s fingers,” the United States, as the host of the tournament, was engaged in violent actions: prosecuting a war of aggression against Iran, preparing military operations against Cuba, sustaining the Gaza genocide, and conducting mass deportations unseen in modern American history. The World Cup itself has become a militarized spectacle: ICE agents patrolling stadiums, entire national teams denied entry, African nations subjected to degrading “quarantine” procedures, and ticket prices soaring to $32,970 for the final—turning a sport originally created by the working class into an event reserved for the global elite.
However, the BBC and the broader media industry focus their attention not on these crimes but on the supposed racial significance of a referee’s hand gesture. This is intentional. It is a political move.
The Function of Identity Politics Under Capitalism
Identity politics is not an uprising from the grassroots nor an opposition to oppression. Instead, it functions as a tool of dominance, engineered and exploited by the bourgeoisie to divert social rage from the capitalist system toward ongoing, unresolved symbolic disputes. The ruling class has realized that nothing better suppresses class awareness than fostering the idea that workers see each other as racial enemies, potential racists, or carriers of concealed “dog whistles.”
The VAR controversy serves as a clear example. Whether the gesture was meant to be innocent doesn’t matter. What matters is that the media focused on it because it is harmless, symbolic, and divisive. This encourages the public to engage in a moral policing ritual instead of challenging the underlying structures of exploitation.
The “OK sign” controversy started as a hoax on 4chan—deliberately designed to trick the liberal media into believing a harmless gesture was a white supremacist symbol. The media bought into it, and the Anti-Defamation League added it to their database. Consequently, a gesture used by millions worldwide was transformed into a racialized symbol, fueling suspicion, accusations, and performative outrage. This exemplifies identity politics at its most superficial: a focus on symbols without real substance, morality divorced from materialism, and vigilance disconnected from actual struggle.
The Real Conditions of the 2026 World Cup
While the media focuses on racist hand gestures, the real aspects of the tournament expose the harsh realities of modern capitalism. A host country engaged in several imperialist wars, with police-state security present throughout stadiums, mass deportations disrupting immigrant communities, and entire national teams barred from entry. African nations face racist humiliation disguised as “public health,” and FIFA’s president awards Donald Trump an “inaugural FIFA Peace Prize”—a disturbing mockery of diplomacy.
This is the truth the BBC avoids addressing. The World Cup now serves as a worldwide showcase for authoritarianism, militarism, and the commercialisation of human life. It is a celebration of oligarchic wealth, built on excluding the working class—whose labour created the sport and whose enthusiasm keeps it alive. The media’s responsibility is to prevent any of this from becoming a source of public anger.
Why the Ruling Class Needs Identity Politics
The capitalist class faces a world in chaos: economic stagnation, geopolitical conflicts, declining living standards, and increasing working-class resistance. In such times, the ruling elite cannot allow the rise of a unified, class-aware movement of workers—whether American, Iranian, Congolese, Mexican, European, African, or Asian—who identify their shared adversary in the capitalist system.
Identity politics counters unity by prompting workers to view each other not as allies in a common struggle but as racialized suspects, potential bigots, or members of hostile identity groups. It shifts focus from the universalism of class to the particularism of identity, turning the battle against oppression into a rivalry for symbolic acknowledgment.
The VAR controversy exemplifies a situation where a trivial gesture becomes a national scandal, serving as a distraction that deepens racial divisions among workers while the state continues its war effort, deports millions, and benefits the oligarchy.
The Task of the Working Class
The remedy to this spectacle isn’t increased vigilant policing of symbols, but rather cultivating revolutionary class consciousness. Workers need to reject the entire framework of identity politics, which mainly hides the material roots of oppression and causes division among the exploited majority. The core issue isn’t what a referee did with his fingers; it’s why workers should accept a system that sends them to fight and die in imperialist wars, deport their neighbours, humiliates entire nations, makes them unable to afford the sport they helped create, and then demands they focus on media-fuelled symbolic disputes. The working class must respond to this not with outrage over small gestures, but through a united fight against capitalism itself.
Osip Mandelstam’s fate epitomises the Stalinist bureaucracy’s suppression of the revolutionary intelligentsia. His life and death unveil, with striking clarity, the fundamental conflict between true artistic independence and the parasitic ruling class that seized political power from the working class. His destruction was not an isolated incident or a tragic accident of a lone poet; it was a deliberate consequence of a political counter-revolution that aimed to silence any voice resisting its ideological dominance.
A new book highlights that “Mandelstam’s fate symbolises the broader destruction of the Soviet artistic and literary avant-garde by Stalinist counter-revolution. The bureaucracy, which seized political power from the working class, could not accept true artistic independence.” This is more than just a biographical note; it serves as a political critique.[1]
The Revolution and the Poet: A Brief Convergence
Mandelstam was not a Bolshevik and never claimed to be one. However, he had something that the bureaucracy feared even more than political allegiance: a spiritual independence that could not be assimilated, a dedication to truth, form, and historical awareness. His early Acmeist emphasis on “clarity, concreteness, and craftsmanship—’ the word as such'” served as a subtle critique of the growing Stalinist aesthetic, which favoured bureaucratic bombast and ideological kitsch.
The October Revolution’s heroic phase fostered an extraordinary surge in artistic experimentation. Mandelstam’s nuanced yet insightful reaction to 1917—as illustrated by his mention of “The Twilight of Freedom”—mirrored the conflicted stance of an artist who recognised the revolution’s global importance while preserving his intellectual independence.
However, the outcome of the revolution remained uncertain. The Civil War, economic devastation, and the Soviet state’s isolation fostered the development of a bureaucratic system whose priorities were essentially at odds with those of the working class and the revolutionary intelligentsia.
Osip Mandelstam and Leon Trotsky: Two Fates in the Grip of the Stalinist Counter‑Revolution
Osip Mandelstam and Leon Trotsky’s lives intersect not just through a brief personal encounter or biographical detail but through the broader historical narrative of the Russian Revolution and its subsequent betrayal. They exemplify two of the most brilliant figures of that revolutionary era—one in politics, the other in poetry—whose downfall under Stalinism exposes the bureaucratic counter-revolution that seized power from the working class.
Mandelstam’s fate exemplifies how the Stalinist counter-revolution destroyed the Soviet artistic and literary avant-garde. He was killed because his poetry represented a spiritual independence that the totalitarian regime could not tolerate. These words highlight not only the poet’s personal tragedy but also the larger historical catastrophe that affected Trotsky and the entire October generation.
Two Figures Formed by the Revolution, Not by Stalinism
Trotsky and Mandelstam belonged to different worlds—one the strategist of the Red Army, the other a poet of Acmeist clarity—but both were products of the same historical rupture: the collapse of the old order and the birth of a new one.
As previously noted, Mandelstam was neither a Bolshevik nor a reactionary. His early works focused on “clarity, concreteness, and craftsmanship,” demonstrating a profound cultural seriousness that resonated with the revolutionary spirit. He viewed the October Revolution as a pivotal world-historical event, though there was some ambivalence. Trotsky, in Literature and Revolution, correctly labelled this type of thinker as a “fellow-traveller,” attracted to the revolution by its cultural and historical significance, even without full political allegiance.
Trotsky’s stance towards these writers was never sectarian. He argued that the workers’ state should safeguard the independence of the intelligentsia rather than subordinate it to bureaucratic control. This was driven not by generosity but by a historical need: the revolution required the finest achievements of human culture, not their suppression.
The Crimea Episode: Trotsky Intervenes to Save Mandelstam
The closest connection between the two men happened in 1920 during the Civil War. After Mandelstam was captured by Wrangel’s counter-revolutionary troops in Crimea, he was later detained again—this time by fervent Cheka agents following the Red Army’s reoccupation of the peninsula. Nadezhda Joffe reports that Trotsky personally stepped in to help secure Mandelstam’s release.
This incident is more than a minor anecdote; it highlights the stark contrast between the revolutionary leadership of 1917–23 and the later bureaucratic system. Trotsky recognised that the revolution’s role was to protect culture, not destroy it. Mandelstam, after this event, “revered” Trotsky, seeing him as a protector of civilisation against both White and Red barbarism. This was the final moment when the revolution still retained its original essence.
The Bureaucracy Rises: Mandelstam and Trotsky Become Targets
By the late 1920s, the Stalinist bureaucracy had solidified its control. The elimination of the Left Opposition, enforced collectivisation, and the cult of Stalin were more than mere political acts—they were cultural. A regime built on falsification and coercion could not tolerate independent thought in any area. Mandelstam was a poet who could not be silenced and could not be co-opted, making him an enemy of the bureaucracy. Similarly, Trotsky became the main political threat to Stalin’s power. The elimination of both figures was not accidental; it was structurally driven by the needs of the bureaucratic caste.
Mandelstam’s “Stalin Epigram”: The Poet Speaks the Truth, Trotsky Theorised
In 1933, Mandelstam wrote the “Stalin Epigram,” depicting the dictator as “the Kremlin mountaineer” with “his cockroach moustache” and “fingers fat as grubs.” The poem served as a poetic parallel to Trotsky’s political critique: a sharp, impactful expose of the bureaucratic despotism that had strangled the revolution.
Trotsky had previously warned that Stalinism was not the continuation of October but its negation. Mandelstam conveyed this same truth through poetry, the only language he could use. Both recognised that the bureaucracy was a destructive, parasitic caste feeding on the revolution’s corpse.
The outcomes were similar. Mandelstam was arrested in 1934, exiled, rearrested in 1938, and died in a transit camp. Trotsky was expelled, exiled, slandered, tried in the Moscow Trials, and ultimately assassinated in 1940. Two different paths driven by a common historical logic.
The Shared Fate: Victims of the Same Counter‑Revolution
Mandelstam and Trotsky were victims of the same historical force: the Stalinist counter-revolution. Trotsky’s assassination in Mexico and Mandelstam’s death in a transit camp near Vladivostok are not isolated tragedies but manifestations of the same process— the destruction of the generation that held the revolutionary and cultural hopes of 1917. Mandelstam was ‘murdered because his poetry embodied a spiritual independence that the totalitarian regime found intolerable,’ which also applies to Trotsky, whose political independence made him a mortal enemy of the bureaucracy. Both represented the living conscience of the revolution and had to be eliminated for the bureaucracy’s survival.
The Bureaucracy Consolidates Power: The Artist Becomes the Enemy
By the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Stalinist bureaucracy had fully expropriated the proletariat politically. The suppression of the Left Opposition, forced collectivization, and the cult of the infallible Leader were not just political acts—they were cultural transformations. A regime that wielded falsification, coercion, and fear could not allow any area of life to be free from its influence. Mandelstam “was a poet who could not be silenced or co-opted.” This is exactly why he had to be eliminated. The Stalinist state demanded obedience over art, flattery over truth, and complete submission of the creative mind to the ruling caste’s needs, rather than independence. Mandelstam’s refusal to conform—his rejection of the grotesque spectacle of bureaucratic self-promotion—made him unacceptable.
The “Stalin Epigram”: A Poet’s Truth Against a Regime of Lies
The “Stalin Epigram” was more than just a poem; it was a daring act of political defiance that displayed remarkable clarity and bravery. The poem vividly depicts Stalin as “the Kremlin mountaineer,” with descriptions like “his cockroach moustache” and “fingers fat as grubs.” These lines were not mere satire—they directly challenged the personality cult that underpinned the bureaucracy’s ideology. In a society where even a careless remark could result in arrest, Mandelstam’s choice to recite this poem, even to a small audience, was an act of revolutionary integrity. It asserted the artist’s right to speak truthfully in a regime built on lies.
The bureaucracy’s response was as expected. His 1934 arrest, exile, 1938 detention, and death at a transit camp near Vladivostok were not due to “excesses” or “mistakes.” Instead, they reflected a regime that could only endure by eradicating all independent voices.
Nadezhda Mandelstam and the Underground Survival of Truth
Dutli’s book rightly emphasises Nadezhda Mandelstam’s remarkable role, describing how she “memorised his unpublished poetry to preserve it – one of the great acts of literary devotion in history.” Her effort was not just personal but also political. In a society where the state aimed to erase its victims’ memories, she became a living testament of resistance. Her memoirs, Hope Against Hope and Hope Abandoned, stand as some of the most powerful condemnations of Stalinism ever written. They reveal the moral and psychological destruction caused by a regime that demands complete obedience and punishes even the faintest hint of dissent.
V. The Historical Meaning of Mandelstam’s Murder
Mandelstam died in 1938, at the peak of the Great Terror, a period when the bureaucracy eradicated the generation that had pioneered the revolution. His death reflected the same political agenda that eliminated the Old Bolsheviks, the Red Army leaders, the Marxist intellectuals, and countless workers and peasants.
Mandelstam “was murdered because his poetry embodied a spiritual independence that the totalitarian regime found intolerable.” While accurate, this statement should be understood within its full historical background. His “spiritual independence” was especially unacceptable because it signified the continued existence of the revolutionary spirit—the essence of truth, clarity, and human dignity—resisting a regime that had betrayed the revolution and maintained control through terror.
The Legacy: Mandelstam Against the Bureaucratic Lie
Today, Mandelstam’s poetry continues to stand as a symbol of artistic achievement and political rebellion. His work endured because individuals—his wife and later scholars like Ralph Dutli—refused to let bureaucratic attempts to destroy culture succeed. Dutli belongs to the group of “deep literary links across generations,” where later figures dedicate themselves to reviving and sharing voices that the Stalinist regime tried to silence.
Mandelstam’s work enduringly survives as a testament against Stalinism, showing that truth, even when hidden, cannot be completely eliminated. It reveals the failure of the bureaucratic system and highlights the lasting strength of the revolutionary intellectuals.
Mandelstam’s story is more than a tragedy; it serves as a political lesson. It highlights the deep conflict between a creative mind and a repressive bureaucratic regime. It shows that fighting for artistic truth is inherently linked to the fight for political freedom. Additionally, it clearly states that the Stalinist counter-revolution was not a continuation of October but its reversal.
[1] Osip Mandelstam: A Biography By Ralph Dutli (Translated from German by Ben Fowkes) Verso 432pp £25
Rachel Nolan’s Guardian Long Read about Claudia Sheinbaum and the so-called “world’s most popular left-wing leader” exemplifies bourgeois mystification. Beneath the sentimental narrative, a political reality that the Guardian avoids emerges: Morena is not genuinely leftist but a bourgeois nationalist movement. It has intensified Mexico’s integration into U.S. imperialism, militarised the state, and maintained oligarchic wealth. Its popularity signifies not socialism but the lack of a revolutionary alternative.[1]
A Headline That Conceals More Than It Reveals
The Guardian’s headline — “How did Mexico’s president become the world’s most popular leftwing leader?” — sets an ideological tone even before reading the article. It assumes Claudia Sheinbaum is “left-wing,” that Morena is progressive, and that their popularity is a political mystery worth exploring. However, Sheinbaum is not a left-wing leader, nor is Morena a socialist party. The framing is deliberate, not a mistake; it serves as a political action to reinforce illusions in reformism at a time when such illusions are collapsing among workers across the Americas. The real question is not why Sheinbaum is popular but why the Guardian continues to label her as left-wing.
The detailed article on Claudia Sheinbaum is more ideological spectacle than genuine journalism. It recycles worn-out liberal sentimentalist notions to depict a bourgeois nationalist government as a beacon of “left-wing” hope. This critique shows that Nolan’s story has a political agenda: to conceal Morena’s class background, to hide its connections to U.S. imperialism, and to prevent workers in Mexico and the U.S. from recognising its revolutionary potential.
The Guardian’s premise is misleading. Nolan starts with a question implying its answer: How did Mexico’s president become the world’s most popular leftist leader? The answer is simply that Sheinbaum is called ‘left-wing,’ and the article takes this as a fact, not as an ideological label. However, this doesn’t match reality. Claudia Sheinbaum isn’t truly a leftist, and Morena isn’t a socialist party. The article relies on concealing this truth, depicting a bourgeois manager as a progressive icon because admitting the limits of reformism would be politically unthinkable.
Nolan’s Method: Sentimentality as Analysis
The Long Read employs a common liberal tactic: personalising politics. Sheinbaum’s background, scientific expertise, and calm demeanour act as proxies for class analysis. Nolan’s writing shows admiration for her “pragmatism,” “discipline,” and “connectivity with ordinary people.” However, this isn’t genuine analysis; it’s branding. The Guardian’s approach shifts from examining social forces to highlighting personalities. The result is a narrative where political issues diminish, replaced by a positive story about a caring leader. This perfectly aligns with your document’s point: “This type of journalism substitutes class analysis with feel-good stories about benevolent rulers.”
What Nolan Omits: Militarisation, Repression, and Subordination to Washington
Nolan’s article intentionally omits certain details, a politically motivated omission. Specifically, she does not mention the significant 150% rise in the military budget, the military’s control over ports, customs, and infrastructure, or the establishment of the National Guard to detain migrants in the U.S. Additionally, she overlooks the constitutional recognition of the armed forces as “the pillar of the Mexican state’ and the deployment of tens of thousands of troops to the U.S. border for ‘migrant containment’ operations. These actions demonstrate that this is not simply left-wing governance but the strengthening of a militarised capitalist state.
The near‑shoring agenda
Nolan praises Mexico’s economic “boom” but fails to mention its true source: U.S. imperialism’s efforts to reshape supply chains to confront China. Sheinbaum’s plan explicitly supports this, which states it aims for Mexico to “replace imports mainly from Asia with regional production”—a clear reflection of Washington’s strategy. Nolan overlooks Sheinbaum’s commitments, such as no tax hikes, corporate incentives, “Republican austerity,” and bi-national security cooperation with the U.S. This approach essentially represents neoliberalism with a nationalist twist.
Popularity Is Not Proof of Left Politics
Nolan interprets Morena’s popularity as evidence of its progressive stance, but this is a category mistake. The support for Morena primarily stems from dislike of the PRI-PAN era, a demand for increased social programs, a lack of revolutionary options, and temporary relief from cash transfers. While Nolan considers this support impressive, it actually reflects genuine public sentiment. Nonetheless, Morena has channelled this popular backing into a dead-end. Popularity alone does not define socialism; it is a sociological fact that can be exploited for either reactionary or reformist ends.
5. The Oligarchy’s Endorsement: The Most Damning Evidence
Nolan’s storyline completely unravels when considering the class that has gained the most from Morena: the Mexican bourgeoisie. According to Oxfam Mexico, the top 1% earn 35% of the country’s income and hold 40% of private wealth, with Carlos Slim’s wealth increasing by 66% since 2020. Slim himself has praised AMLO, stating: “There is social peace, there is no confrontation.” This is the highest compliment the bourgeoisie can give, implying that the working class has been effectively contained. Any truly left-leaning government would not receive such praise.
6. The Guardian’s Political Function
Why does Nolan not include this? Why does the Guardian not publish it? Because the Guardian isn’t a neutral observer, it functions as an ideological tool of the liberal bourgeoisie. Its role is to promote illusions about reformist leaders, prevent workers from seeing social democracy’s limits, redirect discontent into safe, nationalist, pro-capitalist channels, and prevent a revolutionary perspective from emerging. The Guardian’s purpose is to ensure that this conclusion is never reached.
Nolan’s Long Read is not just incorrect; it poses a political risk. It fosters the idea that workers should rely on a bourgeois nationalist agenda, which is already embedded in U.S. imperialism’s economic and military plans. A truly left-wing movement in Mexico will not be built from Morena.
Morena and the Pink Tide: A Familiar Cycle of Populist Containment
Nolan’s narrative portrays Morena as a new phenomenon. In fact, it is a late-stage example of the “pink tide” governments that swept Latin America in the early 2000s. These regimes — from Chávez to Lula to Correa — combined limited social spending with support for capitalist property relations and pragmatic cooperation with U.S. imperialism.
The pattern remains consistent: rhetorical anti-imperialism paired with material subordination to imperialist interests. Morena exemplifies this pattern precisely: cash-transfer programs that reduce extreme poverty without changing class structures; nationalist rhetoric that appeals to popular sentiment while avoiding conflict with capital; collaboration with Washington on security, migration, and nearshoring; and the preservation of oligarchic wealth despite increasing inequality. The Guardian’s sentimental narrative obscures this continuity.
The Militarisation of the Mexican State
A key aspect of Morena’s leadership, not mentioned by Nolan, is the substantial militarisation of Mexican society. Under AMLO, the military budget increased by 150%, and the armed forces took control of ports, customs, and major infrastructure projects. A new National Guard was created, mainly tasked with mass migrant detention following Washington’s orders. The military was legally reinforced as “the pillar of the Mexican state,” deploying tens of thousands of soldiers to the U.S. border to oversee “migrant containment.” AMLO entrusted ports, customs, and infrastructure to the armed forces and stationed numerous troops at the US border. This pattern doesn’t indicate left-wing governance but reflects the rise of a militarised bourgeois state.
Sheinbaum’s Program: Near‑Shoring and Austerity
The Guardian describes Sheinbaum as a scientist-technocrat with a social conscience. Yet, her government’s plan openly aligns Mexico with U.S. strategic interests. It aims to help Mexico “capitalise on the economic situation to replace imported goods—primarily from Asia—with regional production,” supporting Washington’s near-shoring strategy against China. Sheinbaum guarantees no tax increases, corporate incentives, “Republican austerity,” and bi-national security collaboration with the U.S. This rhetoric resembles that of a bourgeois manager rather than a socialist.
Popularity Is Not Socialism
The Guardian interprets Morena’s popularity as evidence of its leftist positioning. However, popularity is a sociological fact that requires explanation rather than being a political characteristic. “The popularity Nolan admires truly reflects a reality: large numbers of Mexican workers and youth genuinely detest the right-wing legacy of austerity, corruption, repression, and subservience to US imperialism.” Morena’s support is rooted in the rejection of the PRI-PAN era, a desire for more social programs, the absence of a revolutionary alternative, and short-term gains from cash transfers. However, this support has reached a dead end. As the document notes, Morena “has handed the Mexican working class — as a source of cheap labour —” directly into the hands of US imperialism’s war efforts.”
The Necessary Conclusion
The Mexican working class doesn’t require a “popular left-wing leader” to manage capitalism more gently. Instead, it needs revolutionary leadership that rejects Morena’s nationalist illusions and pursues socialist unification across the Americas. The goal is to ‘discard the Mexican bourgeoisie and its Morena representatives into the trash bin of history and unite with their class allies in the United States and throughout the Americas to eliminate imperialism and capitalism.”
Fareed Zakaria’s Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present Day is a revealing ideological work that reflects the views of the modern bourgeois intelligentsia. Written during the most severe crisis of global capitalism since the 1930s, the book functions more as a political statement than a historical account. It aims to comfort a bewildered ruling class, suggesting that the system’s intensifying contradictions can still be controlled through enlightened technocratic management.
Zakaria’s polished, urbane, and superficially cosmopolitan narrative hinges on a core belief: that capitalism, despite its “excesses,” is the only sustainable social system, and that its occasional crises can be managed by wise elites. The book epitomizes the liberal-imperialist perspective that has long shaped the American establishment, even as the underlying material basis of that worldview crumbles.
The Meaning of Revolution in the Epoch of Capitalist Breakdown
The current political elite, exemplified by figures like Fareed Zakaria, claims we are in an “age of revolutions’ marked by technological, cultural, and political upheavals. However, this recurring narrative in media and academia is a conscious misrepresentation, aiming to hide the true essence of the era: the collapse of capitalism and the return of global socialist revolution as the central issue of the 21st century.
Zakaria’s 2024 book, Age of Revolutions, exemplifies this approach. It simplifies revolution to a sequence of technological advances and policy issues, dismissing large-scale opposition to capitalism as mere irrational “backlash.” This isn’t genuine analysis but ideological distortion. It reflects the perspective of a ruling class that feels the ground changing beneath it and tries to numb public awareness before the next major social upheaval.
Later, we will observe that a Marxist view starts from a different premise: revolutions are not simply psychological responses to “progress,” but are the result of contradictions within capitalism itself. They occur when the advancement of productive forces clashes with existing property relations and state power structures. Unlike other theories, they are propelled not by elites but by the working class, which is the only social force capable of restructuring society based on rationality, democracy, and internationalism.
The meaning of revolution in history lies in the bourgeois revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries, especially the French Revolution of 1789. These revolutions weren’t driven simply by “ideas” or enlightened elites; rather, they were the inevitable result of a deep contradiction: the growth of capitalist production emerging from the decline of feudal society. For the bourgeoisie to expand the national market, establish modern law, or develop industrial production, they had to dismantle the aristocratic order.
The French Revolution clearly reveals the limitations of Zakaria’s framework. Events like the storming of the Bastille, the end of feudal dues, the radical actions of the sans-culottes, the Jacobin dictatorship, and Napoleon’s rise were not merely setbacks against progress. Instead, they represented class struggle in a society transitioning between modes of production. The Revolution was not carried out according to the wishes of “moderate” elites; it was propelled by the masses, whose material interests pushed them beyond bourgeois constitutional limits. The Terror was not an irrational derailment but a desperate effort by the revolutionary class to defend itself against internal counter-revolution and external invasion.
Zakaria’s narrative fails to explain these aspects because it does not include a concept of class, overlooks the role of the state as a tool of class domination, and ignores that revolutions stem from objective contradictions rather than elite mismanagement.
Revolution Without Class: Zakaria’s Historical Method
Zakaria’s view on “revolution” reveals his core ideological stance. Traditionally, in Marxism, revolution involves a fundamental change in social relations, a transfer of political power between classes, and the overthrow of outdated modes of production. However, Zakaria redefines the term by stripping it of class significance. To him, revolutions are mainly technological, commercial, or administrative changes—like the rise of global trade, digital technology, and market expansion. By grouping events such as the Dutch Revolt, the Glorious Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the internet into a single category, he blurs the line between revolutionary rupture and capitalist development.
This is not just an innocent analytical decision; it’s a political strategy. By framing revolution as ongoing innovations within capitalism, Zakaria rules out any possibility of a true revolution against the system. History then appears as a tale of constant progress, wisely guided by elites, with only unlucky moments of ‘backlash’ disrupting it.
The “Progress and Backlash” Mythology
Zakaria’s core interpretive framework—that each phase of progress ultimately provokes a backlash—serves as a liberal morality tale. “Progress” is characterised by expanding markets, globalisation, and liberal institutions. Conversely, ‘backlash’ encompasses resistance or disruption of this process, such as working-class opposition to deindustrialisation, mass protests against austerity, anti-imperialist movements, and even right-wing populist responses.
This schema clearly serves an ideological purpose: it dismisses all forms of mass opposition to capitalism as irrational resentment. The working class protesting plant closures and social issues isn’t defending their material interests; they’re simply reacting with a ‘backlash.’ Likewise, populations resisting imperialist control aren’t engaged in anti-colonial struggles; they are emotionally responding to “progress.’ What Zakaria fails to recognise is that the ‘backlash’ he criticises is actually a consequence of the ‘progress’ he champions.
Zakaria’s framework conceals the basic truth that the social crises over the past fifty years—such as inequality, war, and democratic decline—are not just anomalies but inevitable results of global capitalism.
The Erasure of the Russian Revolution
No liberal perspective on “progress” can accept the Russian Revolution, which remains the most significant challenge to capitalism ever. Unsurprisingly, Zakaria minimises the October Revolution, seeing it as an example of excess rather than a crucial historical milestone. The revolution demonstrated that the working class could seize power, overthrow the bourgeoisie, and establish a new social order, alarming ruling elites across imperialist countries and shaping the entire 20th century. Yet, Zakaria considers it merely a “backlash”—a mass political uprising that got out of elite control. This reflects the Whig view of history in neoliberal guise: history as the gradual improvement of liberal capitalism, with regrettable deviations that must be managed.
The Real Contradiction Zakaria Cannot Resolve.
Zakaria recognises a real contradiction: the conflict between a globalised economy and a political system based on nation-states. However, he fails to see that this contradiction is an intrinsic aspect of capitalism itself. The worldwide integration of production clashes with the national structures of private property and sovereignty. This fundamental contradiction has led to major conflicts such as World Wars I and II, as well as to current trends such as trade wars, militarism, and geopolitical fragmentation.
Zakaria’s suggestion—improving international coordination and enhancing global governance—is unrealistic. The capitalist nation-state system cannot be unified through elite diplomacy alone. It can only be replaced by the international working class, which must act deliberately to reshape the world economy based on socialist principles.
A Book for a Frightened Ruling Class
Ultimately, Age of Revolutions serves more as a political tool for the ruling elite than an in-depth historical analysis. It aims to preserve a faltering system, justify its associated suffering, and weaken the rising efforts of workers. The document explicitly states: “It is an ideological document – a defence of a social order that has lost its historical raison d’être.” Currently, the global situation points to the beginning of a new revolutionary period: the world economy is facing persistent crises marked by stagnation, inflation, and the dominance of parasitic finance capital. Additionally, the nation-state structure is eroding, resulting in trade conflicts, shifting geopolitical alliances, and unprecedented military conflicts since 1945.
Democratic institutions are weakening as ruling classes resort to authoritarian tactics, censorship, and repression. Workers are starting to push back through widespread strikes across Europe and the Americas, as well as uprisings in the Global South. Technological advancements have reached a point where the rational and strategic organisation of the global economy is not only possible but essential to human survival. These are not just minor disruptions to be managed by enlightened elites; they reflect symptoms of a system that has fulfilled its historical role. The true “Age of Revolutions” is upon us.
The ruling class fears the word “revolution” because it senses that the conditions for a new revolutionary wave are maturing. It therefore attempts to redefine the term to mean anything except the transfer of power from one class to another. But the real age of revolutions lies not in the past but in the future. The contradiction between the global character of production and the national character of the capitalist state system cannot be resolved through diplomacy, regulation, or technocratic management.
Zakaria’s book is a symptom of a ruling class that senses its own fragility but cannot conceive of an alternative to its domination. It offers no serious analysis of the crises engulfing the world, only a plea for patience and trust in the very elites who have presided over decades of disaster. Against this liberal fatalism stands the Marxist understanding of history: that the contradictions of capitalism will give rise to revolutionary movements of the working class, and that the future of humanity depends on the conscious struggle for socialism.
I.Introduction: The Disappeared as a Class Question
The disappearance of children in Guatemala—stolen during military campaigns, placed into a global adoption network, and spread worldwide—is not an isolated humanitarian issue. Instead, it represents a long-standing counterrevolutionary effort driven by US imperialism and carried out by the Guatemalan elite and military. As a recent article notes, “children became commodities because under capitalism, everything is reduced to a commodity.” This is a literal, not figurative, truth.
The case of Guatemala’s missing children and the aggressive international adoption industry that grew during and after the US-supported civil war highlight the criminal aspects of the capitalist system. These crimes—based on genocide, carried out through trafficking, and maintained by the continued suffering of millions—are not isolated incidents. Instead, they result from specific class interests and deliberate imperialist policies.
As noted, the genocide in the early 1980s was carried out with direct US support. The UN Historical Clarification Commission found that “the Guatemalan military and state caused 93 per cent of the deaths.” Entire Indigenous communities were eradicated. Under General Efraín Ríos Montt, the army conducted ‘nearly 600 massacres in a scorched-earth campaign,’ destroying between 70 and 90 per cent of Ixil Maya villages. This was more than mass murder; it was a violent restructuring of Guatemalan society to serve the interests of the national bourgeoisie and its imperialist allies. The destruction of families, communities, and social systems paved the way for a new era of exploitation: the commodification of children.
A Market Built on Genocide
The adoption industry that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s was not driven by humanitarian concern for war victims. Instead, it functioned as a market fueled by the violence of US imperialism. Many children were “stolen, coerced from impoverished families, or simply taken after military operations and funnelled into an industry that regarded Guatemalan children as commodities.” This sector was managed by lawyers, judges, police, military personnel, and international organisations. It was maintained through bribes and justified with the rhetoric of “rescue.” However, fundamentally, it was an extension of counterinsurgency strategies. The same government that massacred Indigenous parents was also selling their children abroad.
The United States and Europe, whose governments provided arms to the Guatemalan military, became primary destinations for these children. The imperialist powers responsible for the destruction of Guatemalan society ultimately absorbed its displaced populations, transforming the victims of genocide into commodities for middle-class consumption.
The Continuity of Social Crime
The causes behind this trafficking continue and have deteriorated over time. Guatemala now has a poverty rate of 59.3%, with nearly half of all children suffering from chronic malnutrition. Child welfare institutions remain unsafe, exemplified by the 2017 “safe home” fire that killed dozens of girls locked inside by authorities. In 2016, one facility alone reported 73 disappearances.
These horrors are not just remnants of past conflicts, but an ongoing reality under a capitalist system that subjects the masses to repression, hunger, and forced migration. The Guatemalan bourgeoisie—corrupt, self-interested, and heavily dependent on US imperialism—maintains control over a society in ruin. The former guerrilla group, URNG, has long since shifted away from the working class and become part of the state apparatus. Their trajectory underscores the failure of all nationalist and Stalinist movements.
Imperialism’s Ongoing War Against the Poor
The fate of Guatemala’s disappeared children is deeply linked to the deaths of Guatemalan migrants in US custody. The same imperialist power that supplied arms to the Guatemalan military now also detains Guatemalan children at the border. The pattern is evident: from scorched-earth campaigns to militarised borders; from kidnapping Indigenous children to separating migrant families; from mass graves in the highlands to anonymous graves in the desert. These are not isolated tragedies but symptoms of a global system that devalues human life.
II.The Genocidal Foundations of the Adoption Industry
Rachel Nolan’s book appropriately highlights the UN Historical Clarification Commission’s conclusion that “the Guatemalan military and state caused 93 per cent of the deaths,” a figure that destroys the myth of an equal-force “civil war.” The Guatemalan government, supported by Washington through weapons, training, and funding, waged a brutal war against the rural poor. During Ríos Montt’s regime, the army conducted “nearly 600 massacres in a scorched-earth strategy,” destroying entire communities. In the Ixil region, “between 70 and 90 per cent of its villages” were wiped out. These numbers are not just statistics; they form the basis for child disappearances, as the army’s massacres of parents left infants and toddlers as casualties of war.
The counterinsurgency teachings at the School of the Americas explicitly portrayed Indigenous communities as a “breeding ground” for subversion. Disrupting the family was not accidental but a deliberate goal. The adoption industry that arose in the 1980s and 1990s can be seen as a privatised, commodified extension of this governmental strategy.
III.The Adoption Industry as Counterinsurgency by Other Means
The book states that children were “stolen, coerced from destitute families, or simply taken after military operations and funnelled into an adoption industry that regarded Guatemalan children as commodities.” This aptly describes a system where lawyers, judges, police, military personnel, and international adoption agencies worked together to profit from the social destruction caused by the war.
Rachel Nolan’s research shows that the adoption system was not an isolated criminal operation but a sanctioned market. The Guatemalan bourgeoisie, which had gained wealth through land theft, repression, and US support, realised that Indigenous children’s bodies could be turned into cash. The United States and Europe—governments that supported the killers—became the main buyers of these children. This exemplifies imperialism: demolition of a society followed by the extraction of value from its remains.
IV.Postwar Guatemala: The Continuity of Social Crime
An article in the WSWS reported on the 2017 “safe home” fire, where dozens of girls were burned alive after being locked in by state authorities. It highlights that “in 2016 alone, there were 73 disappearances from just one facility.” These numbers show that the violence apparatus did not dismantle with the 1996 peace accords but was instead repurposed. The same government that carried out massacres against Indigenous communities now oversees: • youth shelters that act as prisons and brothels, • widespread malnutrition—“nearly half of all Guatemalan children suffer chronic malnourishment”— • and a societal structure where “59.3 per cent of the population lives in poverty.”
The URNG, formerly guerrilla fighters, now serves as an administrator of austerity. The document correctly notes that they “abandoned the class struggle after the peace accords” and integrated into the bourgeois state. Their path is similar to that of the FMLN in El Salvador and the Sandinistas in Nicaragua: nationalist movements that cannot escape the limits of capitalism.
This article argues that child trafficking stems from capitalism’s tendency to treat all human lives as commodities, an intrinsic feature. The genocides and the adoption industry are not moral failings but structural elements of a system that demands the dissolution of communal landownership and the control of labour. The Guatemalan bourgeoisie, which depended on US capital, relied on fear and extracting profit from every human interaction. Unable to create an independent national project, its survival hinged on oppressing the rural poor and opening the country to foreign markets, including those for children. The nationalist guerrilla groups, influenced by Stalinist and Maoist ideas of a “two-stage revolution,” subordinated the working class through alliances with the bourgeoisie. Their defeat was not predetermined but resulted from a flawed strategy.
VI.The International Dimension: Migration, Death, and the Global Market
The book clearly links the missing children to migrants killed in US custody. The same imperialist nation that provided arms to the Guatemalan military also detains Guatemalan children at the border. The pattern is clear: from scorchedearth strategies to ICE detention facilities; from military kidnappings to family separations; from disappeared children in the highlands to those held in US custody. These are not isolated tragedies but components of a coordinated global exploitation system.
VII.Conclusion: The Necessity of Revolutionary Internationalism
The missing children of Guatemala are not just remnants of past conflicts; they are living proof of capitalism’s ongoing war against humanity. Their situation condemns not only the Guatemalan government but the entire imperialist system.
The fight for justice for these children cannot be carried out through NGOs, nationalist parties, or corrupt Guatemalan institutions. Instead, it requires building a revolutionary Marxist movement in Guatemala, connected to the international working class and guided by the goal of a global socialist revolution.
Introduction: The Manufacture of a Counter‑History
Gerald Horne’s The Counter-Revolution of 1776 has been praised in some academic and media circles as offering a radical reinterpretation of the American Revolution. However, it exemplifies what Trotsky termed “the Stalin school of falsification”—a tactic in which the past is not thoroughly examined but is instead reshaped to align with current political agendas. The book’s main argument—that the American Revolution was a pro-slavery counter-movement opposing an abolitionist British Empire—is not only false but also a politically driven reversal of history, achieved through repeated misquoting, misattribution, and the intentional omission of evidence that contradicts its narrative.
Horne’s thesis does not hold up under scrutiny; the book is largely a work of fiction. This article aims to do two things: first, to reveal the falsehoods underlying Horne’s narrative; second, to place his approach within the wider context of racialist political ideology in the U.S., as exemplified by the 1619 Project and its associated pseudo-left supporters.
The Historical Record and the Fabrication of a Pro‑Slavery Revolution
The American Revolution arose from intensified conflicts between the colonies and Britain over issues like taxation, sovereignty, and representation. This is supported by extensive historical evidence, including the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townshend Acts of 1767, the Boston Tea Party of 1773, the Intolerable Acts of 1774, and the ongoing debate over Parliament’s authority. Notably, none of the key revolutionary texts refers to the Somerset case or British abolitionism.
This is a decisive point. The Somerset ruling of 1772—Horne’s key case—was a narrow legal decision about the status of an enslaved man brought to England. It did not end slavery across the empire, did not spark an abolitionist movement (which was non-existent then), and was not part of the political focus of the revolutionary generation. By 1772, the revolutionary crisis was already in progress.
Horne’s thesis asks the reader to accept that the colonists fought for independence to safeguard slavery from a British Empire that wouldn’t abolish it for another sixty-one years (1833). This is not a historical fact but a conspiracy theory cloaked in academic language.
The Method of Falsification: Inversion, Omission, and Fabrication
Horne’s book contains a series of egregious distortions that reveal not error but method.
1. Inversion of Sources
Horne quotes a Virginia Gazette letter as if it defended slavery. In reality, the full text is a “blistering attack on the absurdity of enslaving people based on skin colour.” This is not a mistake. It is an inversion of meaning.
2. Misattribution
Horne attributes a Loyalist pamphlet to the revolutionary William Henry Drayton, claiming Drayton was “apoplectic” about Somerset. An anonymous Loyalist wrote the words. This transforms a pro‑British argument into an anti‑British one.
3. Erasure of Abolitionists
Benjamin Franklin—who published anti‑slavery essays, collaborated with Granville Sharp, and later led the Pennsylvania Abolition Society—is portrayed as a pro‑slavery figure. This requires suppressing Franklin’s own writings, including his attack on slavery in the London Chronicle.
4. Factual Incompetence
The Gaspee Affair is mangled beyond recognition. Horne claims the Gaspee was a slave ship arriving from Africa. It was a customs enforcement vessel that had been patrolling American waters for years.
5. Suppression of Contradictory Evidence
Rhode Island is depicted as a slaveholding stronghold rebelling to protect slavery. Horne omits that Rhode Island banned slave importation in 1774 and passed gradual emancipation in 1784—explicitly linking these measures to revolutionary ideals.
These are not just occasional mistakes but part of a consistent pattern: each distortion steers the narrative toward a preset conclusion. This isn’t genuine scholarship; it amounts to propaganda.
The Political Function of Horne’s Narrative
The political context of Horne’s book involves his association with the Communist Party USA, which has ties to Stalinism. Stalinist ideology has a history of distorting facts, not as a personal critique of Horne but as an analysis of his approach. Historically, Stalinism has consistently manipulated history—up from the Moscow Trials to the reinterpretation of the October Revolution—to serve political objectives. Horne’s methodology reflects this pattern.
The modern importance of The Counter-Revolution of 1776 is not about Stalinism itself but about how it aligns with the racialist politics of the American pseudo-left. The book’s positive reviews from outlets like the New York Times, The Guardian, Democracy Now!, and academic journals show its usefulness for a political agenda that prioritises race over class as the key lens for analysing history.
The 1619 Project, citing Horne as a primary source, clearly exemplifies this pattern. It’s claimed that the Revolution was fought to preserve slavery, which is directly drawn from Horne’s biased interpretations. The intention isn’t to enhance historical knowledge but to deepen racial divisions within the working class. They serve as tools to split the working class along racial lines—replacing race with class as the main driver of history.
The Marxist Interpretation: Revolution, Class, and Historical Development
Countering this misconception, the Marxist perspective views the American Revolution as a bourgeois-democratic uprising. Marx and Engels recognised that the Revolution overthrew feudal property systems in North America, increased the political power of the emerging bourgeoisie, was closely linked to Enlightenment ideas, and inspired both the French Revolution and other democratic movements.
Instead of dismissing the contradiction of slavery, this view considers it as part of broader social relations. The Revolution spurred forces that challenged slavery’s foundations: Northern states abolished slavery during and after the war, anti-slavery sentiments grew rapidly in the 1780s and 1790s, and the Revolution laid the groundwork for the Civil War, called the “Second American Revolution,” which ended chattel slavery. This perspective is dialectical, not moralistic. It emphasises that revolutions are complex processes driven by class forces, not racial essences.
V. Horne’s Methodology: A Marxist Critique
Horne’s methodology is the antithesis of Marxism. It is characterised by:
1. Idealism
Horne treats race as the primary motor of history, independent of material conditions. This is a retreat into pre‑Marxist, quasi‑theological thinking.
2. Presentism
He projects contemporary racial politics backwards into the 18th century, reading modern anxieties into historical actors who did not share them.
3. Source Manipulation
Rather than deriving conclusions from evidence, he reshapes evidence to fit conclusions. This is the hallmark of Stalinist historiography.
4. Rejection of Class Analysis
The class struggle—central to any Marxist account—is absent. The Revolution becomes a morality play of white oppressors and Black victims, not a conflict between colonial bourgeois forces and imperial authority.
5. Political Instrumentalism
History is shaped to serve current racialist politics rather than seeking genuine understanding. Its purpose is to mobilise resentment. That’s why the pseudo-left favours Horne’s work: it offers a superficially radical appearance while backing a reactionary agenda.
Conclusion: The Necessity of Historical Truth for Working‑Class Unity
The falsification of the American Revolution is not an academic dispute. It is a political intervention aimed at disarming the working class by severing it from the progressive traditions of the past. The Revolution was not a counter‑revolution. It was a decisive step in the global struggle against feudalism and absolutism. This struggle created the conditions for the later abolition of slavery and the emergence of the modern working class.
A Trumpet of Sedition 