Tag: imperialism

Miguel Ángel Asturias, United Fruit, and the Class Dynamics of the Guatemalan Bourgeoisie.

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Verso’s republication of Miguel Ángel Asturias’s Weekend in Guatemala provides not only a literary reflection on the 1954 CIA coup but also a chance to examine the underlying class struggles that facilitated such foreign intervention. The fall of Jacobo Árbenz’s government was not merely an external imposition on a united nation; it stemmed from an internal class conflict where the national bourgeoisie—hesitant, dependent, and structurally unable to resist imperialism—gave way at the critical moment.

Imperialism and the Guatemalan Bourgeoisie: A Relationship of Dependency, Not Invasion

The main liberal-nationalist story, common in mid-20th-century Latin American literature, depicts the coup as an external attack: the United States, via the CIA and supporting United Fruit, intervenes in Guatemala to crush its democratic efforts. While this is accurate to a degree, it overlooks the internal class dynamics that rendered Guatemala particularly susceptible.

Guatemala’s bourgeoisie was not a class capable of independent national development. It was a comprador stratum whose wealth came from its integration into foreign capital, initially British and later predominantly American. United Fruit did not just operate in Guatemala; it influenced the country’s entire economic system. The fortunes of the national elite were linked to the plantation economy, export dependency, and semi-feudal land relations. Árbenz’s modest agrarian reform threatened not only United Fruit’s assets but also the social order that the Guatemalan ruling class relied on.

When the crisis occurred, the bourgeoisie failed to defend the elected government. Instead, they either fled, hesitated, or collaborated with the coup plotters. The officer corps—trained, funded, and ideologically influenced by the United States—acted as the domestic tool for imperial intervention. The coup was not just foreign aggression; it was a coordinated effort between imperialism and its internal allies.

The Limits of Reformism: Árbenz and the National Democratic Illusion

Árbenz’s government marked the peak of Guatemala’s reformist nationalism. It aimed to modernise the nation by redistributing land, building infrastructure, and limiting foreign corporate influence. However, it operated within a capitalist framework, encouraging the national bourgeoisie to spearhead a “democratic development” project.

This strategy failed. The Guatemalan bourgeoisie could not support democratic reform because of its structural ties to imperialism. Its economic interests were tied to foreign capital, its political stance was influenced by anti-communism, and its social foundation depended on sustaining landlord authority. When faced with the choice between promoting national development and succumbing to imperial control, it chose the latter.

Árbenz’s tragedy reflects the broader failure of reformist movements trying to balance national sovereignty with capitalist property relations. His government failed to mobilise the working class and peasantry as an independent political force due to fears of radicalisation. Instead, it aimed for a compromise with an uncooperative class, leading to isolation, paralysis, and eventual defeat.

Asturias’s book vividly captures the sensory experience of the coup—the aircraft overhead, the panic, and the social fragmentation. However, the underlying mechanism was economic. United Fruit’s control over Guatemala extended beyond land ownership, functioning as an extraction system that prioritised corporate profit over national well-being. The company governed vast arable lands, railways, ports, telecommunication systems, political patronage networks, and the ideological machinery of anti-communism.

When Árbenz proposed compensating United Fruit based on the land’s declared tax value—considerably lower than its real worth—the company responded by leveraging the entire power of the US state. This coup clearly demonstrated how corporate interests can lead to military intervention. It painfully revealed that imperialism is not just a foreign policy but also a class struggle: the global enforcement of capitalist property rights through force.

Asturias’s Weekend in Guatemala and the Pseudo‑Left

Miguel Ángel Asturias’s Weekend in Guatemala remains one of the most furious literary indictments of imperialist violence in Latin America. Yet its renewed relevance today lies not only in its depiction of the 1954 CIA coup, but in how sharply it exposes the political bankruptcy of the contemporary pseudo‑left—those forces that speak the language of anti‑imperialism while accommodating themselves to the very structures that produced Guatemala’s catastrophe.

Asturias wrote from the standpoint of a society shattered by foreign intervention. His polyphonic, documentary style captures the disintegration of national life under the combined pressure of United Fruit, the CIA, and Guatemala’s own comprador elites. What the novel reveals—often more clearly than the nationalist frameworks of its era—is that imperialism operates through internal allies: landlords, military officers, and a bourgeoisie structurally dependent on foreign capital. The coup succeeded not because Guatemala was weak, but because its ruling class was organically tied to US interests.

This insight stands in stark contrast to the politics of today’s pseudo‑left. In place of a materialist analysis of class forces, they offer moral outrage, identity‑based rhetoric, and selective anti‑imperialism that leaves the foundations of capitalist power untouched. They denounce “intervention” in the abstract while supporting governments and parties that collaborate with imperialism in practice. They celebrate “progressive” administrations that, like Árbenz’s reformist project, seek to reconcile national sovereignty with capitalist property relations—an impossibility demonstrated with brutal clarity in 1954.

Asturias’s novel exposes the hollowness of such politics. The coup was not defeated by appeals to national unity, nor by the moral denunciation of foreign aggression. It required the independent mobilisation of the working class and peasantry—something Árbenz’s government, constrained by its reformist program, could not undertake. The pseudo‑left repeats this failure today, substituting NGO activism, parliamentary manoeuvring, and cultural radicalism for the class struggle necessary to confront imperialism’s economic foundations.

The recurring motif of aircraft overhead—imperialism arriving first as noise, then as fire—remains an apt metaphor for contemporary pseudo‑left politics. They hear the noise, comment on it, aestheticise it, and produce endless discourse about its symbolic meaning. What they refuse to confront is the mechanism that produces the sound: the fusion of corporate power and state violence, defended by domestic elites and sustained by global capitalism.

Asturias’s Weekend in Guatemala therefore reminds us that imperialism is not a moral failing but a structural necessity of capitalism. The pseudo‑left, which seeks to humanise or regulate this system rather than abolish it, stands politically closer to the forces that destroyed Árbenz than to those who resisted them. The novel’s rage, its fragmentation, its refusal of narrative consolation—all point toward a truth the pseudo‑left cannot acknowledge: that only the independent political action of the working class can confront the combined power of domestic and international capital.

In this sense, Asturias’s book is not merely a historical document. It is a warning. The catastrophe of 1954 was not an aberration but a demonstration of what capitalist property relations require. The pseudo‑left’s task has become to obscure this reality. Asturias’s achievement is to make it impossible to forget.

Asturias’s Weekend in Guatemala and Contemporary Historiography

Miguel Ángel Asturias’s Weekend in Guatemala has once again become a topic of scholarly debate, especially as historians now view the 1954 coup not as a Cold War anomaly but as a clear example of US imperial intervention in support of corporate interests. Recent research supports Asturias’s core political argument: that Washington orchestrated Árbenz’s overthrow, carried it out through the CIA, and defended it with propaganda that framed the action as an anti-communist effort while actually protecting United Fruit’s landholdings.

Recent studies characterise the novel as a documentary-style intervention, blending literary techniques with historical reconstruction. Asturias’s polyphonic structure—shifting between reportage, grotesque satire, and psychological portraiture—is seen as a conscious effort to depict the fragmentation of national life under imperial pressure. Scholars highlight that this variety is driven by realism influenced by catastrophe: the coup broke narrative coherence, and Asturias’s structure reflects that disruption.

Historians analysing the coup have expanded the economic perspective that Asturias only hints at. They now precisely document United Fruit’s dominance over land, infrastructure, and political influence, highlighting its role in mobilising the US government as a classic case of corporate and state collaboration. Recent research also emphasises the role of Guatemala’s elite—landlords, officers, and the comprador bourgeoisie—whose reliance on foreign capital made them willing collaborators. Asturias largely omits this aspect, reflecting mid-20th-century nationalist views that often saw imperialism as an external force rather than a relationship maintained by local elites.

Asturias’s depiction of imperialism as a sensory invasion is especially perceptive. The repeated imagery of aircraft flying overhead—a sound warning of coming violence—mirrors historical accounts of psychological warfare, aerial bombings, and radio propaganda aimed at spreading panic and lowering morale. Today, historians see these tactics as early examples of hybrid warfare, a concept Asturias grasped intuitively.

In today’s historiography, Weekend in Guatemala stands out as both a literary milestone and an early form of counter-history concerning the coup. Its main limitations—particularly its shallow class analysis—mirror the ideological perspective of its time. However, its strengths—such as its documentary drive, formal experimentation, and bold depiction of imperial violence—make it increasingly essential. The novel foresaw a view now widely accepted by historians: that the fall of Árbenz’s government marked the beginning of a prolonged counterrevolution, which eventually led to a civil war rooted in a single weekend of imperial exploitation.

The June 1954 events went beyond a simple regime change; they signified a class counterrevolution. The toppling of Árbenz’s government restored landlord dominance, strengthened the military, and increased Guatemala’s dependence on US capital. The working class and peasants—who had started to envision land reforms, literacy programs, and political participation—were pushed back into repression. The long civil war that ended in 1996 was the enduring consequence of this counterrevolution. Over 200,000 people, mostly indigenous peasants, died. The coup not only eliminated a government but also triggered decades of state terror designed to suppress any future threats to the social order.

The fall of Árbenz’s government illustrates how, in the imperialist era, capitalist property rights are actively defended. It shows that democratic reforms threatening corporate profits often face violence; dependent national bourgeoisies cannot lead democratic revolutions; imperialism is driven by class interests rather than geopolitics alone; and the working class must spearhead efforts for national and social liberation. Asturias’s book, with its intense and fragmented style, captures the human experience of these realities.

Sources and Bibliography

Primary Works

  • Asturias, Miguel Ángel. Fin de semana en Guatemala. Buenos Aires: Losada, 1956.
  • Asturias, Miguel Ángel. Weekend in Guatemala. Trans. David Unger. London: Verso, 2024.
  • Árbenz, Jacobo. Discursos y documentos de gobierno, 1951–1954. Guatemala City: Editorial Universitaria, 1955.
  • United Fruit Company. Annual Reports, 1945–1955. Boston: United Fruit Corporate Archive.

Historical Studies of the 1954 Coup

  • Gleijeses, Piero. Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954. Princeton University Press, 1991. The definitive archival history of the coup; indispensable for understanding US intervention and internal class dynamics.
  • Immerman, Richard H. The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention. University of Texas Press, 1982. Key study of CIA planning, propaganda, and military coordination.
  • Cullather, Nick. Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952–1954. Stanford University Press, 1999. Declassified internal CIA narrative; essential for understanding operational detail.
  • Grandin, Greg. The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War. University of Chicago Press, 2004. Links the coup to the long arc of counterrevolution and civil war.

Contemporary Historiography and Literary Scholarship

  • Azurdia, Gabo. “Fin de semana en Guatemala como novela documental.” Revista de Literatura Hispanoamericana, 2020. Frames Asturias’s work as documentary fiction and a counter‑history of the coup.
  • Regazzoni, Susanna. “Asturias y Vargas Llosa: dos narrativas del golpe de Estado de 1954.” Revista Iberoamericana, 2021. Compares Asturias’s documentary realism with Vargas Llosa’s historical reconstruction.
  • García Duarte, Nohemy. “La polifonía y la sátira política en Fin de semana en Guatemala.” Cuadernos Americanos, 2025. Analyses Asturias’s polyphonic structure and political form.
  • Schlesinger, Stephen & Kinzer, Stephen. Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. Harvard University Press, 2005 (rev. ed.). Journalistic but authoritative; widely used in contemporary scholarship.

Marxist and Political‑Economic Analyses

  • Foster, John Bellamy & McChesney, Robert W. The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly‑Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval. Monthly Review Press, 2012. Useful for situating United Fruit within the broader structure of monopoly capital.
  • Petras, James & Veltmeyer, Henry. Empire with Imperialism: The Globalising Dynamics of Neoliberal Capitalism. Zed Books, 2005. Provides a structural analysis of imperialism relevant to the coup.
  • Williams, Eric. Capitalism and Slavery. University of North Carolina Press, 1944. Foundational for understanding plantation capitalism and its modern corporate successors.
  • World Socialist Web Site (WSWS). Articles on Guatemala, US imperialism, and Cold War interventions (1998–2026). For the pseudo‑left critique and class analysis consistent with your essay’s framework.

Studies of United Fruit and Corporate Imperialism

  • Bucheli, Marcelo. Bananas and Business: The United Fruit Company in Colombia, 1899–2000. NYU Press, 2005. Corporate history showing how United Fruit operated as a political actor.
  • Kepner, Charles David & Soothill, Jay Henry. The Banana Empire: A Case Study of Economic Imperialism. Vanguard Press, 1935. Classic early critique of United Fruit’s domination in Central America.
  • McCann, Thomas P. An American Company: The Tragedy of United Fruit. Crown, 1976. Insider account of corporate strategy and political influence.

Guatemalan Civil War and Long Aftermath

  • CEH (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico). Guatemala: Memoria del silencio. United Nations, 1999. The official truth commission report; essential for understanding the coup’s long-term consequences.
  • Sanford, Victoria. Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Links the 1954 coup to the genocidal violence of the 1980s.

Suggested Archival Sources

  • US National Archives: RG 59 (State Department), RG 263 (CIA).
  • Guatemalan National Archives: Records of the Árbenz government and military communications.
  • United Fruit Company Corporate Archive: Boston Public Library.

Imperial Hubris Then and Now: Thucydides, Kirshner, and the Crisis of American Hegemony

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Jonathan Kirshner’s essay in Foreign Affairs goes beyond just reinterpreting Thucydides. It serves as a political statement from a segment of the American foreign-policy establishment that is growing more concerned about the Trump administration’s frank declaration of the “iron laws” of imperialist violence. Kirshner is not opposed to American power. He is opposed to its stupid exercise. Therefore, his critique doesn’t reject empire entirely but seeks to reform or preserve it. By exploring the historical parallels Kirshner hints at, we can better understand what his argument uncovers—and hides—about the American imperialism crisis in 2026.[1]

Athens and the United States: Imperial Democracies in Decline

Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War serves as the fundamental work of realist international relations. It details the rise and decline of the Athenian empire, a naval power with democratic governance that also exercised brutal control overseas. Similarly, the United States has historically portrayed itself as a democratic nation whose global leadership is both inevitable and benevolent.

Kirshner’s unease with Trump stems from his removal of the ideological disguise. Stephen Miller’s statement that the world is “governed by force” and “governed by power” reflects the straightforward Athenian logic of the Melian Dialogue, expressed plainly without euphemism.

The comparison is clear: Athens operated as a democracy, managing an empire through tribute, coercion, and military strength. Likewise, the United States is a democracy that rules a global empire using financial influence, military bases, sanctions, and alliances like “coalitions of the willing.” Both countries justified their dominance with universalist rhetoric—Athens with “freedom” and America with “democracy”—but enforced subjugation through significant force.

Melos and Venezuela: The Strong Do What They Can

The Melian Dialogue is a well-known excerpt from Thucydides. Athens demands that Melos submit; Melos appeals to justice; Athens responds, “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” Afterwards, the Athenians massacre the men and enslave the women and children.

The similarity to Venezuela is difficult to ignore. In 2026, the United States kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro, conducted covert operations, and threatened military intervention. These actions represent a “qualitative escalation in the criminality of American imperialism.”

The US justification—that Venezuela threatens regional stability, democracy, or human rights—serves as a typical ideological pretext that Thucydides would expose as baseless. However, Trump’s foreign-policy team went further, openly stating that force is the dominant principle in international affairs. Melos was destroyed not for its danger but for its defiance. Venezuela is targeted not due to any threat to the US but because it resists American dominance. 

Sicily and Iran: Imperial Overreach and Catastrophe

Some argue that Thucydides’ real lesson isn’t the Melian Dialogue but the Sicilian Expedition, where Athenian hubris caused catastrophe. Similarly, Trump’s reckless actions risk a comparable disaster. The analogy with Iran is strong. Athens believed its power was unlimited during the Sicilian Expedition, underestimating resistance, overextending, and facing destruction. Likewise, the US has issued repeated threats of bombing, regime change, and economic sanctions against Iran. However, Iran, a large and capable nation with regional allies and asymmetric tactics, presents a different challenge.

A potential war with Iran would be similar to the modern Sicilian disaster: it would involve a prolonged, large-scale conflict with heavy casualties, trigger a global economic shock, cause alliances to break down, and intensify domestic crises. Kirshner’s warning is pragmatic, emphasising that excessive imperial ambitions could threaten the empire’s survival.

The Collapse of the “Rules‑Based Order”: From Pericles to Pompeo

The post-1945 “rules-based international order” functions similarly to the Periclean ideology, serving as a legitimising story for imperial domination. However, this order “was never a true limit on American aggression—rather, it was a tool for navigating inter-imperialist conflicts amid US dominance.” Just as Athens used democratic rhetoric to conceal its coercive empire, the US’s claim to uphold international law conceals its global dominance.

When Athens faced a crisis, its democratic facade faltered, leading to the execution of generals, the purging of dissidents, and chaos. Similarly, in 2026, the U.S. is experiencing a decline: mass deportations, press suppression, civil service purges, overt authoritarian language, and militarised police. These actions are inciting increased strikes and protests, showing that imperialism’s crisis translates into a democratic crisis.

Kirshner’s idea of a ‘real Thucydides trap” suggests that imperial overreach leads to disaster. However, this isn’t an unchanging psychological rule but rather a particular manifestation of capitalism’s inherent contradictions during its imperialist phase.

Lenin showed that imperialism is an unavoidable result of monopoly capitalism, driven by the pursuit of profit. This drive leads to expansion, which in turn causes conflict, ultimately resulting in crises. The ‘iron law’ of imperialist barbarism will be confronted with the ‘iron law’ of the class struggle. The working class is not merely a passive victim of imperial decline; it is the active force capable of overthrowing the system responsible for war.

The Lesson for the Working Class

The working class does not prefer either Trump’s blunt imperialism or Kirshner’s polished version, as both are factions of the same oligarchy. Both approaches lead to war, austerity, and dictatorship. The response to Trump’s ‘might makes right’ mentality isn’t a reinstatement of the polite imperialism associated with the Council on Foreign Relations, but rather the international mobilisation of the working class and the building of a global socialist society.

This is Thucydides’ key lesson when viewed from a Marxist perspective: Empires decline not due to imprudence but because of exploitation. Imperial democracies crumble as their internal contradictions grow unmanageable. The working class alone has the power to end imperialist wars. Athens fell, and the American empire is currently facing its Sicilian moment. The responsibility of the working class is not to preserve it but to replace it.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

  • Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War.
  • Lenin, V.I. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism.
  • Trotsky, Leon. In Defence of Marxism: The Revolution Betrayed.

Secondary Sources (Classical and IR)

  • Kagan, Donald. The Peloponnesian War.
  • Meiggs, Russell. The Athenian Empire.
  • Finley, M.I. The Ancient Economy.
  • Badian, E. From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the History and Historiography of the Pentecontaetia.
  • Gilpin, Robert. War and Change in World Politics.
  • Keohane, Robert. After Hegemony.
  • Mearsheimer, John. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
  • Kirshner, Jonathan. “The Real Thucydides Trap.” Foreign Affairs (2026).

Marxist and WSWS Analyses

  • North, David. The Crisis of American Democracy.
  • International Committee of the Fourth International. The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party.
  • Damon, Andre. WSWS Perspectives on US foreign policy (2025–2026).
  • Walsh, Bill Van Auken, and other WSWS correspondents on Venezuela, Iran, and the “rules‑based order.”

[1] The Strong Do What They Can—and Suffer What They Must: What Thucydides Really Thought About Power Jonathan Kirshner- http://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/strong-do-what-they-can-and-suffer-what-they-must

Letter to T. G. Otte and The Coming Storm

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Sir,

Your reply exemplifies the genre: sophisticated, polite, and carefully balanced—yet it entirely avoids addressing the central issue. You claim that your initial letter was “modest,” merely reminding readers of the “plurality” of interpretations surrounding 1914. But modesty does not equal neutrality, and plurality is not inherently virtuous when it functions to obscure decisive historical realities.

The core issue is not whether historians may legitimately differ; they always have, and they always will. The issue is why, in 2026, an expanding body of scholarship seeks to explain the origins of the First World War through vague concepts such as “complexity,” “interplay,” and “multiple explanations,” while systematically avoiding the one category that renders those explanations coherent: imperialism.

You argue that emphasising imperialism “elevates any one causal chain to the status of dogma.” Yet imperialism is not a dogma. It is a historically specific stage of capitalist development, analysed with scientific precision by Lenin, Luxemburg, and Bukharin, and confirmed by the subsequent course of the 20th century.¹ This framework clarifies why the great powers were driven into conflict, why diplomacy repeatedly failed, and why the July Crisis unfolded as it did. To treat imperialism as merely one “mode of explanation” among many is not methodological pluralism—it is historical abdication.

Your defence of Thucydides reveals further ideological implications. You claim that invoking him was simply a caution against unreflective analogies. But the very choice of Thucydides—whose narrative naturalises great‑power conflict as an eternal feature of human affairs—already performs ideological work.² It shifts attention away from the capitalist foundations of modern war and toward timeless geopolitical tragedy. This is precisely the function Thucydides serves in contemporary strategic discourse, from Graham Allison’s “Thucydides Trap” to Pentagon doctrinal literature.³ You may not intend to naturalise conflict, but the analogy does so nonetheless.

Your portrayal of Sir Edward Grey exemplifies how diplomatic history sanitises imperialism. You argue that praising Grey’s “skill” does not equate to endorsing British imperialism. Yet Grey’s diplomacy cannot be disentangled from the imperial interests it served. The London Conference of 1912–13 was not a display of statesmanship but an imperialist partition of the Balkans.⁴ Its short‑term success did not demonstrate the vitality of the Concert of Europe; it revealed the limits of diplomatic management under conditions of irreconcilable imperialist antagonisms. To describe this as a “settlement” is to adopt the perspective of the imperial powers themselves.

Your conclusion urges caution, warning against “conscripting the past into present‑day battles.” But the past is already being conscripted—by governments preparing for war, by think tanks rehabilitating great‑power rivalry, and by historians who, knowingly or not, provide intellectual cover for these developments. The relativisation of German responsibility for 1914, the elevation of “complexity” over causality, and the retreat from the category of imperialism are not neutral scholarly trends. They are ideological responses to a world in which the great powers are once again hurtling toward conflict.

The working class requires clarity, not cultivated ambiguity; analysis, not interpretative pluralism; and above all, recognition that imperialist war is not a tragic accident but the inevitable product of capitalism. To obscure this truth is not modest—it is dangerous.

Yours faithfully, Keith Livesey

Footnotes

  1. V. I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916); Rosa Luxemburg, The Accumulation of Capital (1913); Nikolai Bukharin, Imperialism and World Economy (1915). These works established the theoretical foundations for understanding imperialism as a structural stage of capitalist development, not a diplomatic phenomenon.
  2. Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War has long been used to frame great‑power conflict as cyclical and inevitable, a tendency reinforced by realist international relations theory from Hans Morgenthau to John Mearsheimer.
  3. Graham Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? (2017). Allison’s thesis has been widely adopted in US strategic circles, often without critical engagement with its ideological implications.
  4. For a detailed account of the London Conference and its imperialist character, see Sean McMeekin, The Balkan Wars (2012), and Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions (1969), which situate the Balkan crises within the broader imperialist rivalries of the pre‑1914 period.

Red Card: The 2026 World Cup, Sportswashing, and the FIFA Greed Machine

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Introduction: A Book That Documents Much and Explains Little

Jules Boykoff’s Red Card comes at a time when the 2026 World Cup has already revealed the profound corruption within global capitalism. Hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada, the tournament has become a platform for militarisation, xenophobia, financial greed, and the overt display of American dominance. Therefore, Boykoff’s book is especially relevant. It provides a comprehensive list of abuses, including FIFA’s internal corruption and the blatant profiteering by the host countries.

However, the book’s political structure—highlighted right in its title—is fundamentally flawed. “Sportswashing” is not a neutral analytical category but an ideological tool. It originates in Western liberalism to criticise the misconduct of rival nations while concealing the far greater crimes of imperialist powers. Boykoff’s dependence on this framework, combined with Dave Zirin’s role as the introducer, guarantees that “Red Card” remains confined within the pseudo-left sphere from which it originates.

The book highlights symptoms of capitalist decay and exposes corruption, yet it hides its root causes. While condemning abuses and lamenting exploitation, it does not address class rule or imperialism, offering no revolutionary alternative. Essentially, it is a critique that ultimately supports the very system it criticises.

The 2026 World Cup: A Case Study in Imperialist Barbarism

Boykoff’s Red Card honestly details the authoritarian measures surrounding the 2026 tournament. The information is striking: ICE agents at every stadium, transforming venues into extensions of the US deportation system. Dynamic pricing has skyrocketed ticket costs — starting at $10,990, with one reportedly listed at $2.3 million. Iran’s team was prevented from spending a night on US soil, a petty act of geopolitical spite. The Haitian team’s Vertières symbol was forcibly removed, erasing the only successful slave revolution in history. Somali referees were detained and expelled, held for eleven hours without reason. Meanwhile, a “FIFA Peace Prize” was awarded to Donald Trump, a grotesque distortion of reality.

These incidents are part of a consistent pattern: turning a global sporting event into a tool for state repression and imperialist propaganda. The 2026 World Cup is not just commercialised; it has become militarised. It is not only corrupt; it exhibits outright authoritarian tendencies. Boykoff documents these facts but doesn’t explain.

The Ideology of “Sportswashing”

Red Card’s main flaw lies in its dependence on the idea of “sportswashing.” This term, widely promoted by Western NGOs, academics, and media, claims that authoritarian regimes use sports to improve their image. It has been frequently used against Qatar (2022), Russia (2018), China (2008), and Saudi Arabia’s LIV Golf project. However, the 2026 World Cup reveals the shortcomings of this ideological approach.

 Few terms have spread as quickly across the academic, NGO, and media worlds as “sportswashing.” It’s regularly used: Qatar “sportswashed” the 2022 World Cup; Russia “sportswashed” the 2018 tournament; Saudi Arabia “sportswashed” its LIV Golf project; China “sportswashed” the 2008 Olympics. The underlying message remains consistent: authoritarian regimes leverage sport to clean up their images.

This idea is not merely insufficient; it is ideologically toxic. It hides the true forces behind global power, sustains Western imperialism’s moral claims, and distracts from the capitalist system that has turned sports into a multimillion-dollar tool for exploitation and propaganda. “Sportswashing” isn’t just a descriptive term; it’s a strategic political tool.

The Liberal Origin of the Concept

The term did not originate in Marxist theory but rather in Western think tanks, human-rights NGOs, and media aligned with US foreign policy interests. It belongs to the same ideological toolkit as terms like “authoritarianism,” “rogue states,” “malign influence,” “hybrid warfare,” and “democratic values.” These are not neutral labels; they serve as geopolitical signals that justify the actions of imperialist powers and portray their opponents as threats.

The brutality is not concealed; it is flaunted. The Haitian team is ordered to remove the symbol of the only successful slave revolution in history. The Iranian team is barred from sleeping on US soil. ICE agents patrol stadiums. Ticket prices reach $2.3 million. A Somali referee is detained and expelled.

The phrase ‘what is being washed’ is misleading; nothing is actually being cleaned. The violence is the actual focus. The idea falls apart because it was never meant to analyse imperialism, only to conceal it. In section IV, the double standard becomes clear: Qatar and Russia are labelled sportswashes, but the US isn’t. Western media in 2022 held Qatar accountable for migrant worker deaths to criticise a geopolitical rival. Meanwhile, U.S. actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen—costing hundreds of thousands to millions of lives—were not called ‘sportswashing’ or ‘human rights abuses’ related to sports. This double standard shows how the concept is used selectively to serve Western foreign policy goals.

The Class Function of the Concept

“Sportswashing” is not just hypocritical; it serves a specific ideological purpose. It individualizes systemic issues by shifting the blame for corruption onto “bad regimes,” ignoring the broader global capitalist system. It moralizes politics by replacing analysis of class relations with a focus on virtue and vice. It diverts attention from imperialism, with US and allied crimes hidden behind moral condemnation aimed at rivals. It obscures the involvement of Western corporations—such as Nike, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa, Fox, Comcast, and JP Morgan—that are the real profiteers. Lastly, it depoliticizes the working class. In essence, “sportswashing” functions as a bourgeois mystification.

The Pseudo‑Left’s Embrace of the Concept

The pseudo-left, including figures like Dave Zirin, Jacobin writers, and the academic “sports activism” community, has eagerly adopted the term. This is no coincidence. The pseudo-left tends to dismiss class analysis in favor of identity politics, aligns with the Democratic Party’s foreign policy goals, moralizes politics rather than analyzes it, and replaces revolutionary strategies with activism. “Sportswashing” seamlessly fits into this ideological framework, enabling the pseudo-left to appear radical while supporting the geopolitical narratives of the US government.

The United States Is Not “Washing” Anything

The US is not hiding its crimes behind the World Cup; instead, it is using the event to promote them. The genocide in Gaza is openly defended rather than concealed. The offensive against Iran is being escalated rather than softened. The militarization of the US–Mexico border is celebrated openly instead of being disguised. The shift toward authoritarianism is being normalized rather than mitigated. What is the supposed ‘washing’? The brutality is not hidden; it is displayed proudly.

“Sportswashing” Is a Tool of Imperialist Hypocrisy

As WSWS writers like Peter Schwarz have highlighted, the Western media’s criticism of Qatar’s migrant worker policies was never genuinely about human rights. These outlets remained silent on the over a million deaths caused by US-led wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. The term “sportswashing” is used as a geopolitical weapon rather than a sincere ethical critique. Boykoff adopts this perspective uncritically, which causes him to overlook a key point: the core issue isn’t authoritarianism, but imperialism; not corruption, but capitalism.

Dave Zirin and the Politics of the Pseudo‑Left

Having Dave Zirin, the sports editor of The Nation, as the introducer highlights a political stance. Zirin symbolises the American pseudo-left: he is radical in speech but reformist in action, and his politics are aligned with the Democratic Party. While he condemns racism, exploitation, and corruption, he does not see the working class as the revolutionary force that can end these issues. His approach favours ongoing protest rather than socialist change.

Zirin’s framework considers racism and sexism as independent systems, separate from capitalist social relations. This approach enables him to criticize injustice without questioning the underlying economic structures that cause it. Zirin supported Bernie Sanders, whose role was to direct working-class frustration within the Democratic Party. However, his critique of sports capitalism does not advocate for the working class to disconnect from the Democrats and form an independent political movement. Boykoff’s book, introduced by Zirin, shares these limitations.

What the Book Cannot Say: The Marxist Explanation

A truly groundbreaking analysis of the 2026 World Cup must begin with these fundamental assumptions: 1. Sport as a Social Product of the Working Class: Football is not merely a bourgeois invention but a collective cultural creation of the working class, later exploited by capital. 2. FIFA as a Tool for Global Finance Capital: FIFA’s corruption is not just individual misconduct but results from its structural connections to media monopolies, financial institutions, corporate sponsors, and the geopolitical interests of major imperialist countries. 3. The 2026 World Cup as a Political Event: It highlights the intertwining of sport with political agendas, state repression, the use of mega-events to normalize militarization, the subordination of culture to capital, and the ideological mobilization of nationalism to divide workers. These insights fall outside the conceptual scope of Boykoff and Zirin.

Conclusion: A Book That Reveals the Crisis but Conceals Its Cause

Red Card presents a contradictory stance. It passionately condemns the barbarity of the 2026 World Cup but fails to propose solutions. Its liberal perspective doesn’t address imperialism’s realities and instead directs anger toward reformist dead-ends. While highlighting corruption, it neglects to critique the capitalist system that sustains it. Overall, Red Card isn’t a radical critique; it underscores the ideological limits of the pseudo-left. The working class’s goal isn’t to reform FIFA or combat sportswashing but to overthrow capitalism, which has turned every facet of life, including sports, into a space of exploitation, repression, and profit.

The Class Prejudice Behind the “Two Shakespeares” Myth

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The recent rise in Anti-Stratfordian theories—like Graham Phillips’ claim that there were “two William Shakespeares,” one an actor-playwright in London and the other a wealthy grain merchant in Stratford—is less about new knowledge and more a social phenomenon. It exemplifies a recurring ideological pattern: some middle-class groups refusing to accept that England’s greatest writer came from their perceived lower social classes. As the document rightly observes, this is “simply a new coat of paint on a very old piece of class snobbery.”

The continued existence of these theories isn’t backed by evidence—there is none—but by the social anxieties of their supporters. The anti-Stratfordian movement started in the late Victorian era, a time when the bourgeoisie, having achieved its historic rise, became fearful of the social forces that had helped it reach power. The idea that a glover’s son from a small provincial town could have authored Hamlet or King Lear was unacceptable to a class increasingly focused on controlling cultural boundaries and shielding “high culture” from the masses.

The Historical Record and the Bourgeois Artist

The evidence supporting Shakespeare of Stratford as the author of the works is strong and has been affirmed by numerous scholars over time. The dedications of Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, signed “William Shakespeare,” are written in a modest tone typical of a commoner addressing a noble sponsor—an unlikely style for an aristocrat like the Earl of Oxford. Furthermore, Ben Jonson’s tribute in the First Folio refers to him as the “Sweet Swan of Avon,” with no associations to any aristocratic estate or London riverbank. Additionally, the plays reference events after 1604, the year of Oxford’s death, such as the 1609 Bermuda shipwreck that inspired The Tempest.

However, anti-Stratfordians are not genuinely investigating history; instead, they are erasing it. Their argument rests on a completely ahistorical assumption: that someone who bought property, lent money, or traded grain could not also be a playwright. This idea is incorrect. Shakespeare was a shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a part-owner of the Globe, and a savvy investor. He was not a starving artist living a bohemian lifestyle but a prosperous bourgeois during a time when the bourgeoisie was a revolutionary class. To deny this is to deny the social conditions that made Shakespeare possible.

The Class Roots of Anti‑Stratfordianism

The anti-Stratfordian tendency fundamentally reflects a class bias. Jonathan Bate noted that this movement arose as the Victorian middle classes grew more sensitive to perceived threats from lower social groups. Christmas Humphreys, an Oxfordian, candidly expressed this sentiment by calling it “offensive” to credit a “petty-minded tradesman” as the playwright. The quoted statement highlights this bias clearly: the disdain is obvious, and the underlying ideology is unmistakable. This is not genuine scholarship but merely class prejudice disguised as scholarly pursuit.

The “two Shakespeares” theory is just the latest effort to justify this bias by creating unnecessary divisions. It offers no real explanation. It fails to resolve any contradictions. Its only purpose is to uphold the idea that genius must be aristocratic, that culture belongs to the elite, and that the greatest works of human imagination could not have been written by someone who also knew the cost of barley.

Why These Theories Persist

The real question isn’t about who authored the plays but rather why some people doubt that Shakespeare did. The answer is tied to the social role of anti-Stratfordianism. These theories reveal a deep-seated hostility towards the notion that human creativity is universal, meaning that artistic brilliance isn’t limited to individuals of noble birth or privileged education.

Shakespeare’s greatness is tied to the historical context of his era: the ascent of the bourgeoisie, the decline of feudal stability, and the emergence of new intellectual and emotional perspectives. The Elizabethan stage reflected this societal upheaval and a world in flux. His background in the “middling sort” and his deep ties to early modern England’s complex, evolving society enabled him to understand and depict human life comprehensively.

Denying Shakespeare’s authorship is dismissing this history. It also dismisses the revolutionary nature of the bourgeois era and the ability of ordinary individuals to produce extraordinary art.

The Political Meaning of the Attack on Shakespeare

Ultimately, the anti-Stratfordian myth challenges the democratic and egalitarian values reflected in Shakespeare’s life and work. It aims to reassert a feudal view of culture, suggesting that true genius belongs only to the elite. This reactionary idea seeks to deny the historical fact that the greatest English writer was the son of a tradesman. That a ‘petty-minded tradesman’ could have written Hamlet and King Lear is not a problem to be explained away by conspiracy theories—it is a fact to be celebrated.” Indeed. Shakespeare’s life exemplifies humanity’s creative potential. The anti-Stratfordian movement, in all its forms, reveals the insecurity and decline of a ruling class that no longer trusts in that potential..

Comment On the Observer’s A Declaration of Interdependence

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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.

Disappeared Children, Coercive Adoptions, and the Continuity of Counterrevolution in Guatemala

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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. 

The Counter Revolution of 1776: Gerald Horne’s Historical Falsification and the Politics of Racialist Reaction

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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.

The Blood Never Dried: A People’s History of the British Empire by John Newsinger – Bookmarks Publications, ‎Updated Second Edition 2013

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 “The blood of India is on England’s hands… the whole system of English rule in India is one of systematic plunder and oppression.”

Ernest Jones

“In the boundless areas of India, Egypt, Persia, over which the gigantic octopus of British imperialism sprawls—in this uncharted human ocean vast internal forces are constantly at work, upheaving huge waves that cause tremors in the City’s stocks and hearts.”—

Leon Trotsky on Britain

We plough and sow, we’re so very, very low, That we delve in the dirty clay; Till we bless the plain with the golden grain, And then we’re thrust away.

Ernest Jones

“They are closely bound up with and dependent upon British capitalism. They tremble for their own property. They stand in fear of the masses. They seek compromises with British imperialism, no matter what the price, and lull the Indian masses with hopes of reforms from above.”—

Leon Trotsky’s Writings on Britain

John Newsinger’s The Blood Never Dried offers a powerful refutation of the widely held belief that British imperialism served as a benevolent, civilising force. Drawing upon the evocative words of Chartist poet Ernest Jones for its title, Newsinger’s work forcefully asserts that violence and coercion were not exceptions but fundamental to the Empire’s foundation and maintenance. The book traces this thread of brutality from the conquest of Ireland through to the Opium Wars in China, the forceful suppression of the 1857 Indian Rebellion, and the post-war counterinsurgency campaigns in places like Malaya and Kenya.

In doing so, it provides a necessary critique of the resurgence of imperial nostalgia in contemporary discourse. This challenge is particularly pertinent given recent attempts by figures such as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to portray Western colonialism as a positive legacy, thereby highlighting the ongoing political relevance and urgency of Newsinger’s intervention.

Ernest Jones: The Revolutionary Tradition the Pseudo-Left Buries

Ernest Jones (1819–1869) remains one of the most important yet often overlooked figures in British radical history, primarily because his ideas threaten the superficial politics of the pseudo-left. He was the leading revolutionary figure of the later Chartist movement, a close political ally of Marx and Engels in England, and possibly Britain’s first to deliberately combine the fight for democratic rights with a clear socialist agenda rooted in the working class.

Jones had an unlikely background, born in Germany to a British military officer, raised as a gentleman, and trained as a lawyer. However, by the 1840s, he was fully dedicated to the workers’ cause. A gifted speaker and poet, he conveyed genuine class anger in his poetry. His 1852 “Song of the Lower Classes,” penned during two years of hard labour in Tothill Fields prison for his Chartist activism, remains one of the most powerful expressions of working-class consciousness in English. We plough and sow, we’re so very, very low, That we delve in the dirty clay; Till we bless the plain with the golden grain, And then we’re thrust away.

This was not mere sentimental reformism. Jones advocated for expropriating landlords and capitalists, nationalising land and industry, and empowering the working class politically. Unlike many of his Chartist peers, he understood that the six points of the People’s Charter were not the final objective but, as Engels observed, “a mere means to further ends,” specifically, the socialist transformation of society.

Marx and Engels held Jones in high regard. After the 1848 defeats of Chartism, when many leaders shifted toward bourgeois liberalism, Jones remained committed to the revolutionary agenda and maintained close ties with Marx and the International Workingmen’s Association (the First International). In a 1858 letter to Engels, Marx emphasised Jones’s significance, describing him as “the only educated Englishman (in the professional sense) among the politicians who is fundamentally on our side.” Jones lectured on political economy, using Marx’s categories, and maintained regular correspondence with Marx. He understood—more than most of his British contemporaries—the international nature of the workers’ struggle.

Importantly, Jones was among the rare figures in 19th-century Britain’s labour movement to adopt a principled anti-colonial position regarding Britain’s empire. During the peak of the 1857 Indian Rebellion—referred to by the British ruling class as the “Indian Mutiny”—as patriotic media demanded retribution, Jones spoke at large gatherings advocating for the Indian people’s right to oppose British authority. He described the rebellion in his publication, People’s Paper: “The blood of India is on England’s hands… the whole system of English rule in India is one of systematic plunder and oppression.”

This was not merely moral indignation. Jones understood the connection between the exploitation of colonised peoples abroad and the exploitation of the working class at home — that the same ruling class that ground down the Lancashire mill workers also bled India dry through the East India Company, that the surplus extracted from colonial peoples helped finance the bribery of the upper layers of the British working class. This is precisely the insight — the connection between imperial exploitation, the labour aristocracy, and the corruption of the working-class movement that Lenin later theorised in Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, and that Trotsky built upon in his analysis of Britain.

Jones’s legacy offers a clear political lesson. British schools seldom teach about him. When the pseudo-left discusses British radical history, it usually focuses on the “Moral Force” branch of Chartism—represented by William Lovett—emphasising respectability, petitions, and reform, rather than the revolutionary tradition of Jones and the Newport Rising. The true revolutionary aspect of Chartism, advocating for the working class to directly challenge the capitalist state both nationally and internationally, is deliberately downplayed by the pseudo-left.

John Newsinger’s The Blood Never Dried: A People’s History of the British Empire (first published in 2006, updated in 2013) is an accessible, unflinching chronicle of the British Empire’s crimes: the slave trade and its defenders, the conquest of India and the deliberate creation of famines, the brutal suppression of the 1857 Rebellion, the Opium Wars forced upon China, the conquest of Egypt and Sudan, the Boer concentration camps, the suppression of the Irish, the Mau Mau torture camps in Kenya, the Malayan “Emergency,” and the bloody retreat from empire through the mid-20th century.

Newsinger writes from a socialist perspective and plays a significant role in recovering the voices of those who resisted, including not only the colonised peoples but also the small number of British workers and radicals who refused to reconcile with the Empire. The book serves as a valuable popular history and offers a helpful counterpoint to the imperial nostalgia that periodically emerges in British society. Nonetheless, a Marxist critique of Newsinger’s work must go beyond mere appreciation. Newsinger spent many years as a member of the Socialist Workers Party, the same organisation identified as a key vehicle for pseudo-left politics in Britain. The political limitations inherent in the SWP’s tradition influence even Newsinger’s most notable work.

The fundamental theoretical problem is this: The Blood Never Dried tends to present the crimes of the British Empire primarily as a moral and political outrage, which of course they are, without fully grounding them in the structural logic of capitalism itself. The Empire was not an aberration from British history that can be condemned and then set aside while preserving the existing social order. It was the product of British capitalism at its most expansive, driven by the imperatives of capital accumulation, the search for markets, raw materials, and fields of investment. As Marx wrote in Capital, capitalism came into the world “dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.” The enclosures that dispossessed the English peasantry, the slave trade that financed the industrial revolution, and the colonial famines that generated surplus value for British capital were not separate phenomena; they were facets of a single system.

This issue is extremely significant for contemporary politics. If the British Empire’s wrongdoings are viewed simply as a historical moral scandal — terrible acts committed in the past by bad actors under a now-defunct empire — then the natural political response tends toward “decolonisation” rhetoric, reparations, and cultural politics within the current capitalist system. This pattern is evident in the SWP environment, which has shifted from a nominally anti-imperialist stance to becoming entangled in identity politics and “decolonise the curriculum” campaigns that fail to challenge capitalism and instead tend to divide the working class along racial lines.

The British Pseudo-Left’s Approach to Empire: Moral Outrage Without Class Politics

This underscores the main problem with how the British pseudo-left, including groups like the SWP, Counterfire, and various Corbynite factions, approaches the history and legacy of Empire today. Their stance is characterized by three interconnected shortcomings. Firstly, they see imperialism mainly as a moral concern rather than a structural one. While they rightly condemn particular atrocities, they neglect to connect them to the underlying logic of capitalist accumulation. This view enables them to cling to the false hope that a reformed Labour government or a different foreign policy could make British imperialism “ethical.” For instance, the Stop the War Coalition’s proposal for Britain to pursue an “independent foreign policy” modeled after France and Germany reflects this belief: that imperialism can be made more humane from within, without challenging the capitalist class that sustains it.

Secondly, there is a shift from traditional class politics towards identity politics and the discourse of “decolonisation.” The SWP’s support for racial and gender issues, its endorsement of “intersectionality” as compatible with Marxism, and its focus on the professional-managerial classes in universities all tend to reduce the class debate to a cultural concern. While the atrocities of Empire are real and must be addressed, genuine confrontation occurs only when they are linked to the capitalist system that causes and sustains them. In contrast, identity politics promotes the absurd idea of a “diverse” British military—including women, people of color, and LGBT soldiers—participating in actions like bombing Afghanistan or supporting the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Representation within the imperial state is not a form of anti-imperialism; it is merely its latest cultural facade.

Most importantly, the pseudo-left fails to develop a vital political tool: an independent revolutionary party that genuinely represents the working class, the only force capable of ending imperialism. Ernest Jones understood that the working class needs its own party, program, and leadership that are fundamentally opposed to the bourgeoisie. In contrast, the SWP mainly revolves around the Labour Party, pressures the trade union bureaucracy, and confines anti-imperialist ideas within controlled bourgeois channels.

Alongside pseudo-left critiques of the British Empire, a new wave of right-wing and racist historiography has emerged, led by figures like Kehinde Andrews. Andrews’ *The New Age of Empire* warrants serious critical analysis from a Marxist perspective because, although it rightly condemns imperialism and capitalism’s crimes, it is fundamentally rooted in postcolonial theory and racial idealism. This framework, despite its radical rhetoric, ultimately offers a political dead end for the working class.

Andrews rightly sees that colonialism is an ongoing issue, not just a closed chapter in history. The exploitation of the Global South—through wealth extraction via unequal trade, debt dependence on international financial institutions, and the persistence of neocolonial regimes—remains a continuous aspect of capitalism. His critique of Western liberal hypocrisy is also valid. However, recognising these symptoms alone does not provide a full diagnosis, and this is where the book’s framework falls short.

Andrews focuses on race rather than class as his central analytical category. He views racism—defined as a system of white supremacy rooted in colonialism and still ongoing—as the main organising principle of the modern world. This perspective resembles postcolonial theory presented as radicalism, yet it has historically favoured the interests of the upper-middle class and the national bourgeoisie in former colonial countries, rather than the working class.

His framework lacks an explanation for this history because it doesn’t clearly see it. When race is the primary lens instead of class, it’s difficult to understand why formally “decolonised” nations led by Black and brown bourgeoisie remain trapped in poverty and dependence. The Marxist perspective is explicit: capitalism and imperialism are primarily class projects, and they employ race merely as a division tool.

“The Blood Never Dried” serves as a stark reminder that the crimes of the British Empire are ongoing. British imperialism has sent Challenger tanks to Ukraine and provided arms to Israel for the Gaza genocide. They detained Julian Assange and used the entire colonial state apparatus against its own working class through austerity and wage suppression. The blood continues to flow because the system responsible for shedding it remains unoverthrown. While “The Blood Never Dried” is valuable for exposing imperial crimes, workers seeking to understand the reasons for imperialism, how to oppose it, and what political strategies are needed should study Lenin’s “Imperialism,” Trotsky’s “Permanent Revolution,” and the daily analysis on the World Socialist Web Site. Ultimately, the history of empire is the history of capitalism; only when the international working class overthrows capitalism will it end.

Postal Workers and the Question of Leadership

~ freerein61 ~ Leave a comment

Given that the average age for a United Kingdom postal worker is around fifty-five, it is a fair bet that the majority of postal workers have witnessed over four decades of betrayals by the Communication Workers Union(CWU).

A small number of postal workers in their late sixties or seventies, believe it or not, are still working. They would remember the first national postal strike in 1971[1]. I raise this matter because the most pressing question facing postal workers at the moment is the issue of leadership.

Over the last five decades, postal workers have witnessed betrayal after betrayal and have seen their pay and working conditions decimated. It is time to face the facts: the CWU is nothing more than a company union that is doing the current owner, Daniel Kretinsky’s, dirty work. There is no line it will not cross to impose Amazon-style working conditions that will turn Royal Mail into an Amazon-style company with all the implications that entails.[2]

Postal workers have not been taking these attacks by the company and the union lying down. They have met these attacks head-on with every weapon at their disposal. However, it is time to face the facts: the old way of struggle has not worked. Do not get me wrong, I am not saying not to strike, but what is the new perspective that postal workers must fight for?

Leadership is an art. As the Russian Marxist Leon Trotsky said, “There is an ancient, evolutionary-liberal epigram: Every people gets the government it deserves. History, however, shows that the same people may in the course of a comparatively brief epoch get very different governments (Russia, Italy, Germany, Spain, etc.) and that the order of these governments doesn’t at all proceed in the same direction: from despotism to freedom as was imagined by the evolutionist liberals. The secret is this, that a people is comprised of hostile classes, and the classes themselves are comprised of different and in part antagonistic layers which fall under different leadership; furthermore, every people falls under the influence of other peoples who are likewise comprised of classes. Governments do not express the systematically growing “maturity” of a “people”. Still, they are the product of the struggle between different classes and the different layers within the same class, and, finally, the action of external forces – alliances, conflicts, wars and so on. To this should be added that a government, once it has established itself, may endure much longer than the relationship of forces which produced it. It is precisely out of this historical contradiction that revolutions, coup d’etats, counterrevolutions, etc., arise.

The very same dialectic approach is necessary in dealing with the question of the leadership of a class. Imitating the liberals, our sages tacitly accept the axiom that every class gets the leadership it deserves. In reality, leadership is not at all a mere “reflection” of a class or the product of its own unrestrained creativeness. Leadership is shaped in the process of clashes between the different classes or the friction between the various layers within a given class. Having once arisen, the leadership invariably arises above its class and thereby becomes predisposed to the pressure and influence of other classes. The proletariat may “tolerate” for a long time a leadership that has already suffered a complete inner degeneration but has not as yet had the opportunity to express this degeneration amid significant events. A great historic shock is necessary to reveal sharply the contradiction between the leadership and the class. The mightiest historical shocks are wars and revolutions; precisely for this reason, the working class is often caught unawares by war and revolution.[3]

It is pretty clear that postal workers have been caught unawares by the unprecedented nature of the attacks on their pay and conditions. They have, in Trotsky’s words, witnessed a great historical shock. It is time to face reality square on and realise that the CWU is dead and is just waiting to be buried.

Postal workers have tolerated the CWU for a long time because they did not really have an alternative, but now they do. Firstly, they have the World Socialist Website (wsws.org). Its analysis has been second to none in terms of accuracy and perspective. It offers a new way forward for postal workers. The CWU bureaucracy knows it is in a fight to the finish, so much so that it has lashed out at the WSWS on several occasions.[4]

Postal workers need a new organisation. The way forward is the struggle to build the Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee (PWRFC). Although it is small at the moment, it has the only socialist perspective to take on both the CWU bureaucracy and Royal Mail. While it must join and build this new organisation, the task facing postal workers is a political one. The philosopher Hegel was fond of saying, “The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the coming of the dusk”, and this is true for postal workers today. To be blunt, postal workers do not have much time to build this leadership. Any delay in building the PWRFC will mean that, soon, there will be nothing left to defend.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_United_Kingdom_postal_workers_strike

[2] UK postal workers discuss fightback against gutting of Royal Mail and Kretinsky takeover-www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/29/zmzb-a29.html

[3] The Class, the Party and the Leadership-https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/xx/party.htm

[4] Communication Workers Union’s Martin Walsh attacks WSWS over opposition to “USO reform” pilots- http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/04/01/nxgz-a01.html