I. Introduction: Philosophy and the Degeneration of a Revolutionary Movement

The crisis that affected the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) in the late 1970s and early 1980s was not solely due to tactical errors, organisational excesses, or Gerry Healy’s personal decline. Its origins are much deeper, rooted in a significant theoretical confusion that was most clearly reflected in Healy’s Studies in Dialectical Materialism. These writings, which were presented to the membership as the pinnacle of Marxist philosophy since Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks, actually represented a rejection of the fundamental principles of dialectical materialism.

David North’s ‘A Contribution to a Critique of G. Healy’s “Studies in Dialectical Materialism”‘ (1982) should be seen not as an academic critique but as a significant political act. It was crafted during a time when the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) faced its most serious threat to both its theory and organisation since the fight against Pabloite revisionism. The WRP’s alliances with bourgeois nationalist regimes, its suppression of internal democracy, and the cult of Healy’s infallibility were not mere mistakes but stemmed from a deep philosophical crisis.

Healy’s “Studies” served as the ideological backbone for this degeneration. They offered a pseudo-theoretical rationale for discarding historical materialism, prioritising subjective perception over objective reality, and replacing the tangible class struggle with abstract logical concepts. As the document states, Healy’s philosophical education turned into “a form of ideological mystification aimed at producing uncritical cadres.”

North’s critique defends classical Marxism, citing works such as The German Ideology, Capital, Lenin’s Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, and Trotsky’s In Defence of Marxism. It reaffirmed the materialist view of history in opposition to the idealist distortions that had entered the WRP. The critique also points out that the WRP’s crisis was not accidental but resulted from a method that strayed from Marxist principles. This struggle was crucial, as it could determine the survival of the Fourth International as a revolutionary Marxist entity.

II. The Historical Setting: From Anti‑Pabloism to Opportunist Degeneration

The WRP’s decline into political and theoretical chaos must be seen in the context of its past successes. The Socialist Labour League (SLL), which later became the WRP, was pivotal in the ICFI’s fight against Pabloite liquidationism during the early 1960s. It upheld the Leninist view of the revolutionary party, opposing the SWP’s acceptance of Castroism and the concept of “blunted counterrevolution.”

By the late 1970s, the WRP had diverged from its core principles. Its political approach became more opportunistic, accepting funding from regimes like Libya and Iraq and tailoring its program to fit their diplomatic goals. Internal dissent was suppressed, and Healy’s authority was almost revered. This decline was not just political but also involved a shift towards idealist philosophy. Healy’s “Studies” became the ideological foundation for this opportunism, replacing Marxist class analysis with ideas like “cognition,” the “creative element,” and the “infinite development of consciousness.” North’s critique highlights this philosophical shift as a key factor in the WRP’s political downfall. Abandoning materialism in theory led to abandoning proletarian independence in practice.

III. The Central Indictment: Healy’s Rejection of the Marx–Hegel Break

North criticises Healy for erasing the fundamental break between Marx and Hegel. Healy often mentions training cadres “in the spirit of Hegel, Marx, Engels and Lenin,” implying these thinkers belong to a single, ongoing philosophical tradition. This isn’t just an oversight; it’s a rejection of Marxism.

Between 1843 and 1847, Marx’s intellectual development involved a shift from Hegel’s philosophy to The German Ideology, characterised by his rejection of Hegelian idealism. In the Afterword to the second German edition of Capital, Marx asserted, “My dialectical method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite.” Therefore, Healy’s attempt to combine Hegel and Marx reflects a return to the views of the Left Hegelians, whom Marx and Engels critiqued in works like The Holy Family and The German Ideology.

North shows that Healy replicates exactly the mistakes Marx criticised: viewing logical categories as the underlying essence of reality, deriving the concrete from the abstract, and replacing the movement of history with the flow of thought. This is not true Marxism but a return to pre-Marxian idealism.

IV. The Idealist Deformation of Cognition

A key aspect of Healy’s approach is his view of cognition as an “infinite process.” Healy states that “the development of consciousness is an infinite process” and that “the cognition of the external world is an infinite process.” North highlights the idealist undertones in this idea. While thought is indeed evolving historically, it is always rooted in concrete, socially situated human beings. To see cognition as an abstract, endless process is to disconnect it from its material foundation and to turn it into a self-sustaining Absolute Idea. This interpretation aligns with pure Hegelian philosophy.

Healy extends this idea by asserting that the “process of cognition” allows modern Marxists to “stand on the shoulders” of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. North counters that it is not cognition but the actual development of global capitalism and the historical efforts of the working class that make this possible. Attributing historical progress solely to the movement of thought is, according to him, to abandon materialism entirely.

V. The Political Consequences: Mystification, Falsification, and the Cult of Leadership

Healy’s philosophical mistakes in the “Studies” extend beyond theory, directly impacting politics. North explains that Healy’s idealist approach results in distortions of history. For instance, Healy asserts that Stalin was “deliberately plotting” to destroy the Left Opposition as early as 1924. North counters this by quoting Trotsky’s “Stalin,” pointing out that Trotsky explicitly rejected such a view.

This falsification is deliberate, arising from a method that replaces objective historical progress with subjective intent — a characteristic of Left Hegelianism. Furthermore, Healy’s philosophical mystification aimed to legitimise the cult of leadership within the WRP. By turning cognition into an abstract, almost mystical process, Healy cast himself as the ultimate interpreter of this process. The cadres were educated not in Marxism, but in obedience to the leader’s “method.”

VI. Conclusion: The Defence of Marxism and the Future of the Fourth International

North’s critique of Healy’s “Studies” stands as a key theoretical document in the history of the ICFI. It reaffirms the core principles of dialectical materialism, countering idealist distortions. The critique shows that the WRP’s crisis stemmed from a philosophical betrayal of Marxism. Additionally, it laid the groundwork for the 1985–86 political split, which maintained continuity within the Fourth International.

The fight against Healyism is thus a crucial lesson for modern Marxists, not just a historical aside. Idealism continues to underpin all revisionist trends — from Pabloism to the pseudo-left. North’s critique offers the essential theoretical tools to counter these threats and uphold the materialist view of history.

VII. The Philosophical Structure of Healy’s Idealism: The Return of the Absolute Idea

To fully understand Healy’s deviation, it is important to analyse the core of his philosophical reasoning. North reveals that it is not merely a collection of isolated mistakes but a consistent—albeit unconscious—rebuilding of the Hegelian Absolute on a pseudo-Marxist base.

Healy’s “Studies” focus on the progression of abstract logical categories such as Being, Essence, Notion, Appearance, and Contradiction. However, these categories do not originate from an analysis of specific social relations. Instead, they are not derived from the material world, as Marx emphasised in the Introduction to the Grundrisse, where he stated that the movement from abstract to concrete is “the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete” because the abstract itself is a historical construct based on real relations.

Healy contradicts this approach by starting with the logical category before moving to the concrete. This is the exact reversal that Marx criticised in Hegel: Marx viewed the logical as reflecting the real, whereas Hegel saw the real as a manifestation of the logical. Despite using Marxist terminology, Healy’s method aligns more with Hegel’s perspective.

North precisely characterises this inversion. Healy views the logical category as the “hidden essence” underlying all phenomena, with the goal of cognition being to uncover this essence. This aligns with Proudhon’s perspective, which Marx refuted in The Poverty of Philosophy. Proudhon thought that contradictions in political economy could be resolved through the manipulation of logical categories. Healy echoes this mistake in philosophical terms.

The outcome is a system where the progression of thought drives history forward. The Absolute Idea — presented without Hegelian terms but keeping its core structure — reemerges as the “infinite development of cognition.” This is not dialectical materialism; rather, it is the revival of idealism disguised as Marxist pedagogy.

VIII. The Hedging of Materialism: “Being is Primary… Under These Conditions”

A particularly critical moment in North’s critique focuses on Healy’s statement that “Being is primary, consciousness is secondary… under these conditions.” Although it appears to be a minor qualification, it actually represents a philosophical concession. Materialism is not a conditional claim; it is the fundamental principle of Marxist theory: the dominance of matter over consciousness and objective reality over subjective perception.

By adding the phrase “under these conditions,” Healy suggests that consciousness could be primary in different circumstances. This mirrors Hegel’s approach in the Phenomenology of Spirit, where the initial concept of “Being” is quickly evolved into the dominance of consciousness.

North’s critique emphasises that Healy’s hedging is deliberate, stemming from a view that regards cognition as an autonomous, limitless process. If consciousness is limitless and cognition drives historical change, then the dominance of matter is simply an empirical observation — valid for now but not necessarily fundamental. This underpins the WRP’s political opportunism: by placing consciousness above objective reality, the party leadership—seen as the epitome of “cognition”—becomes the ultimate authority. Consequently, the material world is subordinate to the leader’s interpretation. Thus, a single phrase — “under these conditions” — reveals the entire structure of Healy’s idealism.

IX. The Falsification of Lenin: Selective Quotation as Method

North’s presentation of Healy’s falsification of Lenin is a particularly notable example of the document. Healy cites Lenin’s claim that the “highest task” of dialectics is understanding “the objective logic.” However, he leaves out the important phrase that comes after: “the objective logic of economic evolution (the evolution of social life).”

Removing the historical-materialist aspects, Healy reinterprets Lenin as a Hegelian metaphysician focused on the movement of abstract logical categories. This is a significant editorial choice, reflecting a deliberate restructuring of Lenin’s argument to support Healy’s idealist view. In his polemic in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Lenin explicitly criticises such idealist abstraction. He emphasises that the “objective logic” is simply the laws governing the material world, especially those of capitalist development.

Healy’s truncation thus distorts Lenin’s philosophical views. It employs a quotation method that reflects his advocated approach to understanding: abstract, decontextualised, and disconnected from historical reality. North’s effort to restore the full passage is more than just a philological correction; it is a political stance. It reaffirms the materialist basis of Leninism in opposition to Healy’s effort to repurpose Lenin for an idealist agenda.

X. Historical Materialism and the Erasure of Class Struggle

One of the most damaging aspects of Healy’s “Studies” is their almost complete lack of historical materialism. Healy describes human history as “the history of the growth of the creative element, man’s initiative, both employers and working class.” This perspective directly rejects Marx’s view of history as driven by class struggle. Instead, it reduces historical progress to the development of a “creative element,” a concept rooted not in Marxism but in the Left Hegelian tradition associated with Feuerbach, Bauer, and Stirner.

North situates this as a return to the perspective of The Holy Family, where Marx and Engels critiqued the Left Hegelians for replacing real social relations with “critical activity.” Marx emphasised that the foundation of historical analysis must be grounded in “real, active men” and their material life processes. Healy, however, starts from the idea of the material world rather than the world itself. He focuses on the concept of “creativity” rather than class struggle. Additionally, Healy begins with the movement of thought rather than the movement of history.

This explains why Healy’s “Studies” lack an analysis of capitalism, fail to examine the contradictions of imperialism, and do not address the global economic crisis. The material world is only shown as an example of logical concepts, not as the basis of theory.

XI. The Political Function of Mystification in the WRP

Healy’s philosophical deviations were more than just theoretical mistakes; they served as ideological tools for WRP leaders to sustain their power and defend their opportunistic strategy. Mystification played a specific political role. The decline of the WRP was characterised by alliances with bourgeois nationalist regimes, suppression of internal dissent, elevation of Healy’s authority to infallibility, and neglect of a class-based analysis of global politics.

These developments needed a theoretical framework to explain them. Healy’s “Studies” offered exactly that. By depicting cognition as an autonomous, endless process accessible only to the “trained dialectician,” Healy established himself as the ultimate authority on reality. The cadre was instructed not to analyse the world but to interpret it using Healy’s categories.

North highlights that the “philosophical training” was not merely a teaching activity; it served as a tool of political control. As the philosophical concepts grew more abstract and idealistic, the cadre grew more reliant on the leader who claimed to understand them. The mystification of dialectics reflected the ideological side of the WRP’s bureaucratic decline. The personality cult around Healy was not a mistake but a natural result of a method that prioritised subjective understanding over objective reality.

XII. Opportunism and the Abandonment of the Materialist Conception of History

The link between Healy’s idealism and the WRP’s opportunist politics is deliberate. Opportunism consistently entails placing the working class under the control of alien class forces. To rationalize this approach, the objective laws of capitalist development are either hidden or denied. Idealism offers the philosophical tools to achieve this.

By separating cognition from the material world, Healy established a theoretical realm where political decisions were justified not through class analysis but by the perceived insights of leadership. The partnerships with bourgeois nationalist regimes—such as Libya, Iraq, and the PLO leadership—were justified not by imperialism analysis but by the leader’s “dialectical” understanding of the regimes’ progressive nature.

North’s critique reaffirms the Marxist perspective: the revolutionary party must base its program on the objective laws governing capitalism’s development, rather than on the subjective impressions of its leaders. The materialist view of history is not just a philosophical stance; it is essential for maintaining proletarian independence. Healy’s abandonment of historical materialism thus led to the WRP’s political surrender. Consequently, the party stopped representing the conscious interests of the working class and instead became an extension of bourgeois nationalist forces.

XIII. North’s Critique as the Restoration of Classical Marxism

North’s Contribution to a Critique should be seen as part of a wider theoretical initiative by the ICFI in the early 1980s. Authored alongside Leon Trotsky and the Development of Marxism, it aims to systematically reaffirm the core principles of dialectical materialism in opposition to the idealist distortions promoted by Healy.

North’s intervention is significant for several reasons: it reaffirms the Marx–Hegel break as the cornerstone of Marxist philosophy, emphasizes the importance of objective reality over subjective understanding, underscores the central role of historical materialism and class struggle, and reveals how philosophical deviations can lead to political consequences, showing that idealism often results in opportunism. Additionally, it equips the cadre for the political struggle that ultimately led to the 1985–86 split with the WRP.

In this context, North’s critique not only rejects Healy but also reaffirms the entire theoretical tradition of the Fourth International. It continues the SLL’s opposition to Pabloism, the Workers League’s resistance to Wohlforth’s pragmatism, and Trotsky’s own defense of Marxism against Stalinist distortions. Therefore, this document is a significant milestone in revolutionary Marxism history, signifying the ICFI’s reassertion of its theoretical independence and the preservation of the Marxist method’s continuity.

XIV. Contemporary Relevance: Idealism and the Pseudo‑Left

Healy’s philosophical tendencies still persist and have resurfaced in new ways within today’s pseudo-left. These include replacing class with consciousness, prioritizing subjective identity over social relations, and retreating into academic idealism, all of which echo the same core approach that North identified in 1982.

Today’s pseudo-left movements—whether based on postmodernism, identity politics, or the academic obsession with “radical theory”—have several common traits with Healy’s method. They view consciousness as the main force shaping history. They replace concrete class relations with abstract notions like race, gender, and identity. They disconnect theory from the material realities of capitalist production. Additionally, they prioritize subjective experience over objective analysis.

North’s critique offers essential theoretical tools to counter these tendencies. It shows that defending dialectical materialism is inherently linked to maintaining the political independence of the working class. The fight against idealism — whether through Healyism or modern pseudo-leftism — is fundamentally a defense of the Marxist method. Thus, the importance of North’s document is not just historical but urgent, as it directly addresses the current theoretical challenges facing the revolutionary movement.

XV. The Dialectic of Theory and Practice in the ICFI’s Struggle

The fight by the International Committee of the Fourth International against Healy’s philosophical distortions is not just an intellectual debate. It exemplifies the dialectical connection between theory and practice. The ICFI’s support for Marxist philosophy is directly linked to its safeguarding of the political independence of the working class.

Marxism is fundamentally a guide for revolutionary action, not merely contemplative thought. Its validity is judged by how well it reveals the inherent contradictions of capitalism and guides the working class toward resolving them. Healy’s approach failed this criterion because it prioritized cognition over real-world objective reality, breaking the essential connection between theory and practice. Consequently, the party stopped analyzing the world directly and instead began interpreting it through the leader’s abstractions.

North’s critique reaffirms the essential unity of theory and practice through dialectical reasoning. It emphasizes that: theory should stem from analyzing objective reality, rather than from the self-driven development of thought; practice must be directed by theory rather than subjective leader impressions; and the revolutionary party’s program should be grounded in the laws governing capitalism’s dynamics, not in the unpredictable factors of diplomatic alliances or nationalist regimes.

In this context, the ICFI’s opposition to Healyism reaffirmed the Marxist view of the party as the conscious expression of the working class’s historical movement. It also denounced the bureaucratic approach where party leaders replace their understanding with the actual interests of the proletariat.

XVI. The Philosophical Roots of Bureaucratic Degeneration

The bureaucratic degeneration of the WRP did not arise spontaneously. It was rooted in a philosophical method that elevated the subjective authority of the leadership above the objective laws of history. Idealism is the philosophical foundation of bureaucracy.

Healy’s “Studies” created a theoretical environment in which the leader’s cognition became the ultimate arbiter of truth. The cadre were trained not to analyse the world but to interpret it through the categories provided by Healy. This produced a form of intellectual dependency that mirrored the membership’s organisational dependency on the leadership.

North’s critique highlights the core mechanism of this process: idealism breaks down the objective constraints of reality, enabling leadership to justify any political shift. The focus shifts from the collective cognition to the leader, who asserts exclusive insight into the flow of thought. Suppressing criticism becomes a philosophical necessity, as dissent is seen as a failure to understand the leader’s dialectical perspective. Consequently, the party drifts away from the working class, since its direction is shaped not by objective conditions but by the leader’s subjective interpretations.

This is why the WRP’s political decline was accompanied by increasingly authoritarian internal practices, which the philosophical method required. When cognition is viewed as the main driver of history, the leader symbolizes this cognition, turning the party into an extension of his will. Consequently, the ICFI’s opposition to Healyism was a defense against the bureaucratic distortion of the revolutionary party. It aimed to uphold the Leninist idea of democratic centralism, where unity in action depends on the maximum freedom for theoretical debate.

XVII. The Restoration of the Marxist Method After the Split

The split with the WRP in 1985–86 was more than just an organizational split; it was the result of a long-standing theoretical conflict. North’s critique was instrumental in readying the cadre for this division by revealing the philosophical foundations behind the WRP’s decline.

Following the split, the ICFI embarked on a systematic effort to revive the Marxist method. This included reaffirming the importance of historical materialism as the foundation of revolutionary theory, reestablishing the Marx–Hegel rupture as the core of dialectical materialism, and shifting the movement toward objective analysis of world capitalism instead of focusing on leaders’ subjective impressions. They aimed to rebuild the party based on democratic centralism, emphasizing theoretical clarity and political independence, while reconnecting with the working class, whose struggles form the objective basis for revolutionary action.

This restoration was not a simple return to previous practices but a renewal of the Marxist method adapted to current conditions. It reaffirmed the ongoing existence of the Fourth International and guaranteed that the experiences gained from the fight against Healyism would guide the movement’s future growth.

XVIII. Toward a Concluding Synthesis: The Significance of North’s Critique

North’s Contribution to a Critique remains one of the most vital theoretical texts in ICFI history. Its importance is not only in countering Healy’s philosophical mistakes but also in reaffirming core Marxist principles. The document shows that philosophical errors have political effects: idealism results in opportunism, bureaucracy, and neglect of the working class. Defending dialectical materialism is linked to defending proletarian political independence. The revolutionary party must base its program on the objective laws of capitalism’s development, not just the subjective understanding of its leaders. Combating revisionism is an ongoing task, demanding continuous vigilance and clear theory. The survival of the Fourth International relies on maintaining the Marxist method, which underpins revolutionary practice.

By highlighting the idealist roots of Healy’s “Studies,” North not only defended Marxism from misrepresentation but also set the stage for future political battles. His critique continues to be an essential resource for modern Marxists facing the rise of idealism through identity politics, postmodernism, and the pseudo-left. Consequently, this document is more than just a historical record; it remains a vital and active contribution to the ongoing fight to preserve the theoretical and political integrity of the revolutionary movement.

XIX. Conclusion: The Struggle for Marxism Against Idealist Degeneration

David North’s critique in *A Contribution to a Critique of G. Healy’s “Studies in Dialectical Materialism’* marks a significant moment in the history of the Fourth International. It goes beyond simply countering philosophical mistakes to exemplify the unbreakable link between Marxist theory and revolutionary action. The fight against Healy’s idealism was fundamentally a battle to defend the scientific basis of the revolutionary movement.

The degeneration of the WRP exposed a core truth: a revolutionary party’s crisis is fundamentally a crisis of Marxist theory. Opportunism doesn’t occur randomly; it appears when the leadership departs from the materialist approach, replacing objective analysis with subjective feelings. This shift is rooted in idealism, which erodes the constraints of reality, boosts leadership authority, and turns the party into a tool of bureaucratic control.

Healy’s “Studies” were the ideological expression of this process. By reconstructing the Hegelian Absolute in the guise of Marxist dialectics, Healy severed the connection between theory and the material world. Cognition became an autonomous, infinite process; the leader became the embodiment of this process; and the cadre became passive recipients of his insights. The result was a party that no longer oriented itself to the working class but to the diplomatic needs of bourgeois nationalist regimes.

North’s critique dismantled this ideological structure, reaffirming the Marx–Hegel division as the core of dialectical materialism. It emphasized the importance of objective reality over subjective perception, reaffirmed the significance of historical materialism and class struggle, and highlighted the political outcomes of philosophical errors, showing how idealism naturally results in opportunism, bureaucracy, and the loss of proletarian independence.

The importance of this struggle goes well beyond the specific collapse of the WRP. The tendencies associated with Healy—such as replacing class analysis with individual consciousness, prioritizing subjective identity over social relations, and turning to abstract idealism—have reappeared in new ways within today’s pseudo-left. The academic obsession with “radical theory,” the fixation on identity, and the dismissing of universal class politics all demonstrate the same fundamental approach that North identified in 1982.

The defense of dialectical materialism is an ongoing necessity rather than a one-time historical task. The revolutionary movement must constantly reaffirm the materialist view of history, resisting the influence of idealism. Its program should be grounded in the objective laws governing capitalism’s development, not in the subjective perceptions of leaders or the ideological trends of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. Additionally, it must maintain the unity of theory and practice, understanding that the validity of a philosophical approach is measured by its ability to guide the working class toward seizing political power.

North’s critique continues to stand as a prime example of Marxist polemic. It merges philosophical thoroughness with political clarity, offering historical insight aligned with revolutionary aims. The critique shows that the fight for Marxism is inherently linked to resisting all types of idealist mystification. It also stresses that the ongoing existence of the Fourth International relies on maintaining the Marxist method—the scientific basis for the proletarian revolution.

In this context, criticizing Healy’s “Studies” goes beyond being just a chapter in the history of the ICFI. It serves as a contribution to the ongoing fight for the ideological and political unity of the revolutionary movement. It reminds us that defending Marxism is not simply an academic matter but a vital practical necessity, crucial for the emancipation of the working class and the achievement of socialism worldwide.

I. Introduction: Philosophy as a Site of Class Struggle

Any thorough analysis of Marxism must recognise that the Stalinist counterrevolution was not just a political shift but a profound epistemic rupture. The eradication of the Left Opposition, the liquidation of the Old Bolsheviks, and the bureaucratic strengthening in the 1930s were all accompanied by a targeted attack on Marxism’s philosophical roots. This key insight is captured in Yakhot’s The Suppression of Philosophy in the USSR, a work that transcends the usual boundaries of Soviet intellectual history. Yakhot argues that Stalinism’s triumph involved destroying dialectical reasoning, silencing ideological debates, and physically eliminating the philosophical scholars.

In this context, Yakhot’s book serves not only as a historical record but also as a historiographical intervention. It highlights the philosophical dimension of the bureaucratic counterrevolution—an aspect frequently concealed by Stalinist falsification and post-Soviet liberal revisionism. For a monograph examining the development of Marxist theory during Stalin’s period, Yakhot’s work is indispensable.

II. The Early Soviet Philosophical Renaissance and Its Historiographical Erasure

Yakhot starts by analysing the intellectual culture of the early Soviet era, directly challenging mainstream historical accounts. Contrary to the simplified view of Bolshevism as anti-intellectual, he illustrates that the period after 1917 experienced an extraordinary surge in Marxist theoretical activity. The publication of Under the Banner of Marxism, featuring key letters by Lenin and Trotsky, marked the alliance of revolutionary action with philosophical exploration.

This is an important point in historiography. The Stalinist narrative, later embraced by Cold War liberalism, claims that Marxism is deeply dogmatic, opposes intellectual freedom, and is unable to evolve philosophically. Yakhot’s analysis of the 1920s shows this view as a retrospective interpretation. In fact, the early Soviet period was the most intellectually dynamic phase in Marxism’s history. Therefore, the latter catastrophe should be seen not as a natural consequence of Marxism’s internal logic but as the violent rejection of its foundational ideas.

III. The Mechanists, the Deborinists, and the Political Stakes of Philosophical Debate

Yakhot’s approach to the mechanist–Deborinist debate is crucial for historiography. He avoids simplifying the discussion to factional rivalry or superficial Sovietology labels. Instead, he demonstrates that both sides made sincere efforts to engage with Marxism’s philosophical heritage during a time of revolutionary change.

The mechanists, who reduced dialectics to natural science through a positivist approach, represented the pressures of a society struggling to industrialise. In contrast, the Deborinists upheld the Hegelian core of Marxist methodology. Their focus on contradiction, mediation, and totality aligned, whether explicitly or implicitly, with the intellectual seriousness of the Left Opposition. Yakhot’s historical analysis highlights that the philosophical debates of the 1920s were deeply intertwined with the political conflict between the proletarian vanguard and the growing bureaucracy. The Deborinists’ connection to Trotsky’s ideas made them unacceptable to the emerging Stalinist regime. Their defeat was less about losing a philosophical argument and more about bureaucratic force suppressing intellectual independence.

IV. Stalin’s Intervention: Philosophy as a Police Operation

As Yakhot explains, the pivotal moment occurred when Stalin, in December 1930, accused Deborin of “Menshevizing idealism.” This accusation is logically meaningless; its purpose is political. Stalin’s directive for philosophers to “expose the philosophical foundations of Trotskyism” exposes the true aim of the purge.

Historically, this moment is pivotal because it marks philosophy’s transformation from a simple field of study to a means of political dominance. Yakhot’s analysis shows how bureaucracy suppresses theory not through discussion but through administrative commands, accusations, and intimidation. Philosophy becomes indoctrination, dialectics turn into inflexible doctrine, and Marxism becomes a lifeless relic. This point requires rewriting the historiography of Soviet philosophy. The eradication of philosophical debate was less about intellectual disagreement and more a class struggle within the realm of theory.

V. Diamat as Bureaucratic Ideology

Yakhot’s critique of Stalinist “Diamat” stands as a significant contribution to the historiography of Marxist philosophy. He argues that Diamat was not an evolution of Marxism but its bureaucratic perversion. It is overly simplistic, rigid, resistant to contradiction, and unable to comprehend the social totality fully.

Historically, many see Diamat as the official philosophy of Marxism, a view held by Stalinists, anti-communists, and some Western Marxists. However, Yakhot shows this is incorrect. Instead, Diamat was used as an ideological tool to control, providing the bureaucracy with a universal justification for its arbitrary authority. Equating Diamat with Marxism means accepting Stalinist distortions without question. Yakhot’s research offers an essential correction.

VI. The Great Terror and the Physical Liquidation of Marxist Philosophy

Yakhot’s description of the Great Terror forms the moral core of his book. He outlines the destruction of the philosophical intelligentsia with a sober tone, heightening the sense of horror. The Institute of Red Professors is dismantled; its students and faculty are arrested, executed, or vanish. Philosophical journals are cleansed; archives are rewritten; names disappear from bibliographies.

From a historiographical perspective, this chapter is devastating. It demonstrates that Stalinism did not just distort Marxism but ultimately eradicated it. The annihilation of Soviet philosophy was not merely an intellectual loss but a political atrocity. The ruling bureaucracy maintained its power by physically eradicating those who embodied Marxist ideals. This is the point at which the historiography of the USSR must confront the full implications of the Stalinist counterrevolution. 

VII. Trotsky’s Philosophical Legacy and Its Restoration

Yakhot’s effort to reestablish Trotsky’s philosophical importance stands as one of the most daring parts of the book. In 1981, he challenged decades of Stalinist distortions and post-Soviet liberal reinterpretations. Trotsky’s analyses of Plekhanov, Lenin, and dialectics are given the serious attention they merit. From a historiographical perspective, this is crucial. Trotsky has been systematically omitted from Soviet philosophical history, not because of irrelevance but because his presence highlights the intellectual failures of Stalinism. Yakhot’s act of reclaiming Trotsky’s role is inherently political: it reaffirms the continuity of Marxist theory in opposition to the bureaucratic break.

VIII. The Long Shadow of Suppression: From Zhdanov to Gorbachev

Yakhot’s analysis of the post-Stalin period emphasises the lasting effects of a philosophical crisis. The stagnation during Brezhnev’s rule and Gorbachev’s ideological uncertainty are connected to the rupture in the 1930s. This perspective is important in historical studies. The collapse of the USSR should be seen as linked to the disintegration of Marxist philosophy. A society that discards its fundamental theoretical basis cannot sustain a socialist system.

IX. Conclusion: Yakhot and the Historiography of Marxist Catastrophe

Yakhot’s The Suppression of Philosophy in the USSR is more than just a historical analysis; it is a crucial intervention in historiography. It reasserts the philosophical aspects of the Stalinist counterrevolution, highlights the intellectual destruction caused by the bureaucracy, and reestablishes Trotsky’s importance in Soviet philosophical history. For a monograph on the trajectory of Marxist theory, Yakhot’s work is essential. It shows that defending Marxism goes hand in hand with clarifying its philosophical roots—and that revitalising Marxism depends on revisiting its dialectical principles.

X. 1. Yakhot and the International Historiography of Marxism

Yakhot’s work gains greater significance when viewed within the wider context of international Marxist historiography. For many years, mainstream narratives— ranging from Stalinist and liberal to much of Western Marxism—have shared a central idea: that the decline of Soviet philosophy was an intrinsic part of Marxism itself. This perspective is often expressed through terms like “Leninist authoritarianism,” “the totalitarian logic of dialectics,” or “the inherent dogmatism of Marxist theory,” which collectively reinforce the idea of an ideological victory by the bureaucracy.

Yakhot’s intervention challenges this consensus by showing that the destruction of philosophy was not a result of Marxism’s internal contradictions, but rather a bureaucratic denial of Marxism. This marks a major historiographical break, reasserting the role of revolutionary intellectuals, emphasising the political substance of philosophical discussions, and highlighting the class nature of the Stalinist counterrevolution.

In this context, Yakhot’s work subtly aligns—though not overtly—with the Trotskyist historiography tradition of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). Both emphasise that the trajectory of Marxist theory is linked to the political conflict between the proletarian vanguard and the bureaucratic caste.

X. 2. Against the “Totalitarian” Paradigm: Yakhot’s Materialist Corrective

A key historiographical function of Yakhot’s book is its critique of the “totalitarian” paradigm that has dominated Western scholarship since the Cold War. This model claims that Stalinism naturally results from Leninism and that the suppression of philosophy merely reflects a unified, ideology-driven state.

Yakhot’s evidence systematically challenges this view. The early Soviet state enjoyed a rich, diverse, and creative intellectual environment. The suppression of philosophy was not rooted in Marxist ideology but served as a political move by a rising bureaucratic class. The attack on dialectics was driven not by ideological dogmatism but by bureaucratic necessity to suppress theoretical awareness.

In essence, Yakhot reestablishes the specific historical context that the totalitarian framework usually overlooks. He argues that Stalinism did not represent the peak of Marxism but was actually its opposite—a point Trotsky emphasised repeatedly, yet one that mainstream history has often ignored.

X. 3. Yakhot and the Critique of Western Marxism

Yakhot’s work highlights the limitations of Western Marxism, especially in branches that discarded dialectical materialism in favour of structuralism, phenomenology, or neo-Kantianism. These trends often viewed Soviet philosophy as a single entity, overlooking the lively debates of the 1920s and the rigid dogma of the 1930s. By reconstructing the real philosophical struggles of the early USSR, Yakhot prompts a rethinking of the development of Western Marxism. 

He argues that the decline of dialectics in the West was not due to Marxism’s fundamental flaws but was a response to the Stalinist caricature of Marxist thought. Thus, Western Marxism internalised the distortions it aimed to oppose. Overall, Yakhot’s work serves a dual purpose: it recovers the suppressed history of Soviet philosophy and reveals the ideological distortions that influenced Western Marxist self-perception.

X. 4. The Historiographical Stakes: Marxism, Bureaucracy, and the Destruction of Theory

Yakhot’s book teaches that the fate of Marxist philosophy is tied to the class struggle within the Soviet Union. The dismantling of dialectics was not just an intellectual mistake but a political move by the bureaucracy. Stalinism’s philosophical collapse is inherently linked to the political collapse of the Soviet Union. This understanding significantly affects Marxist historiography: it contradicts the idea that Marxism is inherently authoritarian or dogmatic. Instead, it shows that suppressing theory was a counterrevolutionary action. It reaffirms the connection between Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky as proponents of dialectical materialism. It also reveals how Stalinist and liberal histories serve ideological purposes. Yakhot’s work becomes an important tool in reclaiming Marxism from its distorters.

X. 5. Transition: From Yakhot to the ICFI’s Philosophical Struggle

Yakhot’s work holds particular historiographical importance when compared to the philosophical debates within the International Committee of the Fourth International during the 1982–86 crisis. As Frederick Choate notes in his preface, Yakhot’s manuscript circulated within the ICFI at a critical time, when the organisation was grappling with internal disagreements over dialectics, Hegel, and Marxist philosophy. There are clear parallels: in both instances, the core issue was defending dialectical materialism against idealist distortions. Additionally, in both cases, the philosophical struggle was closely linked to political orientation, and the eventual outcome shaped the future of the revolutionary movement. From the Soviet Catastrophe to the Crisis of Marxist Method: Why Yakhot Matters for the ICFI

Yakhot’s work has far-reaching historiographical implications beyond the Soviet Union. His analysis of Stalinism’s philosophical collapse prompts a re-evaluation of the global trajectory of Marxist theory in the 20th century. If the breakdown of dialectics was a prerequisite for the USSR’s bureaucratic counterrevolution, then defending dialectical materialism becomes a crucial goal for any revolutionary movement aiming to prevent a similar outcome.

This is where the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) comes into view. Unlike other Marxist factions, the ICFI emphasised that fighting Stalinism was inherently linked to defending Marxist philosophy. The internal crisis within the ICFI between 1982 and 1986—focused on Britain’s Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP)—was not incidental but a confrontation with the same philosophical issues Yakhot highlights in the 1920s Soviet Union.

Hence, Yakhot’s work acts as a conceptual link between the philosophical devastation under Stalinism and the internal struggles within the Trotskyist movement. These parallels are not surface-level; they are indeed structural.

X. 7. The Recurrence of the Philosophical Question: Dialectics as the Axis of Revolutionary Continuity

Yakhot’s notable contribution lies in demonstrating that the philosophical debates of the 1920s were more than mere academic disputes; they reflected the class struggle within the Soviet Union. The mechanists’ positivism, the Deborinists’ Hegelianism, and the bureaucratic enforcement of Diamat all served as political stances cloaked as philosophical ideas. This understanding carries significant implications for the history of the ICFI.

The 1982–86 crisis also centred on philosophical conflicts that revealed underlying political trends: the WRP leadership’s shift toward idealism, subjectivism, and pseudo-Hegelian voluntarism, the move away from historical materialism towards an impressionistic, “practice-based” epistemology, the rise of charismatic authority over theoretical clarity, and the weakening of the Marxist view of the party as the conscious representative of the working class.

These trends reflect, albeit distantly, the philosophical decline that Yakhot identified in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. Unlike the Soviet intelligentsia, however, the ICFI had a deliberate theoretical foundation—Trotsky’s In Defence of Marxism—which helped it resist and ultimately overcome the revisionist tendencies. Thus, Yakhot’s analysis offers illumination on the ICFI’s fight by presenting a historical example: the dismantling of dialectics invariably leads to political decline.

X. 8. The Bureaucratic Logic of Philosophical Revisionism

Yakhot’s analysis of how Stalinist repression targeted philosophy uncovers a key rule of bureaucratic systems: they cannot accept dialectical thinking because it reveals their internal contradictions. This principle extends beyond the Soviet context and applies to any organisation where bureaucratic tendencies develop. The decline of the WRP exemplifies this pattern vividly: the leadership’s rejection of theoretical debate, the prioritisation of “practice” over theory to justify opportunism, the labelling of criticism as disloyalty, and the turning of philosophical issues into personal loyalty tests. 

These mechanisms mirror Stalin’s actions against the Deborinists—different forms, same underlying logic. Bureaucratic power suppresses dialectical consciousness to maintain control. Thus, the ICFI’s fight against the WRP leadership was not only organisational but also deeply philosophical, aimed at defending the integrity of the Marxist method.

X. 9. Yakhot and the Necessity of Philosophical Vigilance

Yakhot’s core argument is that the future of Marxist philosophy is fundamentally linked to the fate of the revolutionary movement. The collapse of dialectics in the USSR enabled a bureaucratic counterrevolution. Therefore, defending dialectics within the ICFI was not merely theoretical but a vital political act.

This understanding justifies the next part of this monograph. The ICFI’s struggle from 1982 to 86 should be seen not as an internal conflict but as the ongoing battle—on a different level—of the same struggle lost in the Soviet Union during the 1920s. Yakhot’s work thus offers a conceptual framework for understanding the ICFI’s crisis.

The following will explore the philosophical fight within the ICFI, illustrating how defending dialectical materialism was crucial to maintaining Marxism’s continuity amid bureaucratic decline.

The ICFI’s Philosophical Struggle (1982–86):

Dialectics, Bureaucracy, and the Fight Against Neo-Hegelian Revisionism

I. Introduction: The Return of the Philosophical Question

The conflict within the International Committee of the Fourth International from

The period from 1982 to 1986 was more than an organisational dispute or a clash of personalities. It centred on the core issue highlighted by Yakhot: the future of dialectical materialism under bureaucratic pressure. Just as the Stalinist bureaucracy could not accept the existence of a philosophically aware Marxist intelligentsia, the rising bureaucratic currents within the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) in Britain clashed with Marxist theoretical principles. Consequently, the struggle within the ICFI was not just about tactics or leadership but fundamentally about the philosophical method that supports the revolutionary movement.

Yakhot’s reinterpretation of the Soviet 1920s offers the essential concept for understanding this crisis. The similarities are clear: in both instances, the suppression or misrepresentation of dialectics acted as the ideological foundation for political decline.

II. The WRP’s Drift into Idealism: The Philosophical Roots of Opportunism

The decline of the WRP leadership under Gerry Healy primarily manifested in philosophical issues. What initially seemed like political opportunism—including alliances with bourgeois nationalist regimes, unprincipled dealings with Middle Eastern governments, and the abandonment of a consistent working-class focus—stemmed from a deeper shift in theory. The WRP leadership increasingly adopted a neo-Hegelian subjectivism, where the party’s “practice” became the final measure of truth. This voluntarist approach reversed the Marxist method: practice was no longer seen as the unity of theory and action shaped by social relations but as the direct expression of the leadership’s will.

This was the philosophical equivalent of the bureaucratic logic Yakhot describes in Stalin’s intervention against the Deborinists. In both cases, the leadership replaced dialectical analysis of objective contradictions with its own authority. The WRP’s philosophical revisionism thus provided the ideological basis for its political opportunism. Dropping dialectics was not just an intellectual mistake but a political necessity as the leadership moved away from the working class. III. The ICFI’s Response: Reasserting the Marxist Method

The International Committee’s response to the WRP’s decline was rooted in defending dialectical materialism. This was more than an abstract philosophical debate; it was a political effort to maintain the unity of the Marxist movement. The ICFI emphasised the importance of objective social contradictions over subjective perceptions, the link between theory and practice, the historical nature of consciousness, and the role of the working class as the revolutionary agent. These principles were not merely theoretical ideas but the core methodological principles of Trotskyism. Consequently, the ICFI’s critique of the WRP leadership was a reassertion of Marxist methodology against bureaucratic misrepresentation.

This struggle mirrors the Deborinists’ defence of dialectics against mechanists and, later, against Stalin’s suppression. However, unlike Soviet philosophers of the 1930s, the ICFI had a clear theoretical tradition—Trotsky’s In Defence of Marxism—that allowed it to resist and eventually overcome the revisionist trend.

IV. The Philosophical Stakes: Dialectics or Bureaucracy

The main issue in the ICFI’s 1982–86 conflict was similar to what Yakhot describes in the Soviet 1920s: whether Marxist philosophy would stay the conscious approach of the revolutionary movement or be replaced by a bureaucratic pseudo-theory. The WRP leadership’s neo-Hegelianism acted as a form of ideological self-justification. By placing the party’s “practice” above objective analysis, it protected the leadership from criticism and turned theoretical disputes into political disloyalty. This mechanism mirrors Yakhot’s description of Stalin’s criticism of the Deborinists: philosophy becomes a test of obedience rather than a tool for understanding.

The ICFI’s support for dialectics was thus a defence of the revolutionary party as a conscious, collective, and historically rooted organisation. It opposed the bureaucratic approach that had dismantled Soviet philosophy and jeopardised the Trotskyist movement.

V. The Outcome: The Restoration of Marxist Theory

The defeat of the WRP leadership in 1985–86 marked a decisive victory for Marxist philosophy. The ICFI’s reaffirmation of dialectical materialism prevented the development of a bureaucratic caste within the movement and maintained the continuity of Trotskyism. 

This outcome sharply contrasts with the Soviet experience: while the Deborinists were defeated, the ICFI succeeded; where the Soviet philosophical intelligentsia was destroyed, the ICFI defended and expanded the Marxist method; and where Stalinism triumphed through the suppression of theory, the ICFI succeeded through its defence of theory. In this way, the ICFI’s struggle symbolises the complete rejection of Stalinist philosophical repression. It continues the tradition that Yakhot aims to revive.

VI. Conclusion: Yakhot, the ICFI, and the Continuity of Marxism

Yakhot’s The Suppression of Philosophy in the USSR  offers both a historical and theoretical foundation for understanding the ICFI’s struggles from 1982 to 86. Central to this is the shared issue: the link between dialectical materialism and the political integrity of the revolutionary movement.

This completes the historiographical arc initiated by Yakhot: from the suppression of philosophy under Stalinism to its defence within the ICFI. The next part will examine the implications of this struggle for the contemporary crisis of Marxist theory and the tasks of revolutionary philosophy today.

Dialectical Materialism: A Revolutionary Epistemology: The Method Restored

 I. Introduction: Why Method Matters

The success or failure of any revolutionary movement ultimately depends on its method. While political programs can be changed, tactics can be adjusted, and organisational structures redefined, the core epistemological foundation—the way a movement understands the world—determines whether it can act consciously within that framework. Dialectical materialism is not merely an optional philosophical add-on to Marxism; it constitutes the very essence of Marxist consciousness. Without it, Marxism risks degenerating into empiricism, voluntarism, or bureaucratic dogma.

The earlier chapters have illustrated this with historical accuracy. Yakhot’s analysis of the Soviet collapse indicates that the dismantling of dialectics was essential for the emergence of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Similarly, the ICFI’s fight from 1982 to 1986 demonstrates that defending dialectics was crucial for maintaining Trotskyism. The clear lesson is that the destiny of Marxist philosophy is directly linked to the future of the revolutionary movement.

II. The Essence of Dialectical Materialism: Contradiction, Totality, Mediation

Dialectical materialism starts with the idea that reality is dynamic and inherently contradictory. Social structures do more than exist; they evolve, change, and break down through conflicts between opposing forces. This is a scientific perspective, not a metaphysical one. Capitalism exemplifies a system full of contradictions: conflicts between labour and capital, use-value and exchange-value, the global scope of production versus the national state, and the socialisation of labour versus the appropriation of private surplus value.

Understanding these contradictions is key to understanding the course of history. Dialectics is not just the study of contradiction; it encompasses the study of totality. Every phenomenon must be understood in relation to the entire system. Empirical facts alone reveal nothing on their own. They gain meaning only when considered within the context of social relations. Additionally, dialectics involves studying mediation—the concrete processes through which contradictions develop. Mediation counteracts both mechanical determinism and subjective voluntarism by showing how objective tendencies are realised through human actions and how human agency influences them. This triad—contradiction, totality, and mediation—is fundamental to Marxist epistemology.

III. Against Empiricism: The Poverty of “Facts” Without Theory

Empiricism, the dominant ideology of bourgeois thought, treats facts as self-evident givens. It assumes that knowledge arises from the accumulation of data, that the world reveals itself directly to the senses, and that theory is merely a classificatory tool.

Marxism rejects this. Facts do not speak for themselves; they are interpreted through concepts. The “raw data” of capitalism—prices, wages, profits, productivity—conceal the underlying social relations that produce them. Empiricism, therefore, reproduces the surface appearance of capitalist society and mistakes it for its essence.

This explains why empiricism tends to be politically conservative. It fails to understand the contradictions within capitalism because it only perceives surface appearances. It observes stability amidst crises, continuity amid ruptures, and reform where revolutionary change is needed. Conversely, dialectical materialism uncovers the system’s inner dynamics, turning the chaotic flow of empirical information into a clear comprehension of the inevitable course of history. IV. Against Idealism: The Limits of Consciousness Without Materialism

If empiricism leads to passivity, then idealism tends to become voluntarism. Idealism regards consciousness as autonomous, sees history as driven by ideas, and considers political struggle as an expression of subjective will. This underpins both bourgeois liberalism and bureaucratic pseudo-Marxism. The WRP’s neo-Hegelian shift in the 1980s vividly demonstrates this risk. By prioritising the party’s “practice” over objective analysis, the leadership used theory to justify its authority. This mirrors Yakhot’s critique of Stalin’s suppression of the Deborinists: the replacement of objective analysis with subjective authority.

Dialectical materialism dismisses this idea, asserting that consciousness is not independent but mirrors objective social relations. However, consciousness is not passive; it becomes a material force when it recognises the contradictions in reality and acts accordingly. This harmony between objectivity and subjectivity forms the core of the Marxist method.

V. The Party as the Bearer of Dialectical Consciousness

The revolutionary party is more than just an organisational structure; it has served as the bearer of dialectical consciousness throughout history. While the working class directly experiences capitalism’s contradictions, it does not naturally develop a scientific understanding of these conflicts. This understanding necessitates theory, particularly the dialectical method. Consequently, the party acts as a bridge between objective contradictions and subjective awareness. It analyses systemic evolution, recognises developmental tendencies, and creates a program that reflects the historical interests of the working class.

However, this function relies entirely on the party being rooted in dialectical materialism. Without this foundation, the party risks becoming either a bureaucratic entity enforcing its authority on the class or a tailist organisation simply following spontaneous movements. Therefore, dialectics is not merely an academic luxury; it is essential for effective revolutionary leadership.

VI. The Restoration of Method: Lessons from the ICFI

The ICFI’s victory in the 1982–86 struggle marks the reestablishment of dialectical materialism within the Trotskyist movement. By opposing the idealist distortions espoused by the WRP leadership, the ICFI emphasised the importance of method in revolutionary politics. This renewal consisted of three key elements: reaffirming objectivity and understanding that the movement should be driven by analysing objective contradictions, not subjective impressions; defending theory by asserting that Marxism is a scientific approach rather than just slogans or opportunist justifications; and reaffirming historical continuity by acknowledging that the fight for dialectics is fundamentally a fight for the ongoing validity of Marxism itself.

In this context, the ICFI’s fight was a rejection of Stalinist suppression of philosophy. While Stalinism eradicated dialectics to strengthen bureaucratic control, the ICFI defended dialectics to maintain revolutionary continuity.

VII. Conclusion: Dialectical Materialism as the Consciousness of the Future

Dialectical materialism remains a vital framework for understanding the future, not just a relic of the past. In today’s era of global economic, ecological, and geopolitical crises, it is more important than ever to analyse capitalism’s inherent contradictions scientifically. Restoring the dialectical method is therefore a political necessity, not just an academic pursuit.

The revolutionary movement depends on a conscious understanding of society’s laws of change. Action requires understanding, which in turn requires a method, and that method is rooted in dialectical materialism. Consequently, revitalising Marxist epistemology is essential for revitalising the revolutionary project itself.

The Contemporary Crisis of Marxist Theory :

Neoliberalism, Postmodernism, and the Eclipse of Dialectics

I. Introduction: The Vacuum After the Counterrevolutions

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent wave of neoliberal triumphalism resulted in more than just a political setback for the working class; it triggered a deep epistemological crisis. Global capitalism’s ideological tools declared the “end of history,” claimed Marxism was outdated, and asserted that systemic alternatives were impossible. This ideological push did not merely suppress revolutionary movements; it transformed the very landscape of theoretical thought. Consequently, dialectical materialism faced a significant eclipse. When stripped of its revolutionary aspects, Marxism was either reduced to a cultural critique within academic circles or dismissed as a relic of the 20th century. Meanwhile, postmodernism, identity-focused epistemologies, and neoliberal technocratic approaches filled the void created by the collapse of Soviet philosophy and the fragmentation of the international left.

This part examines the modern crisis of Marxist theory as the ideological reflection of both stability and instability in global capitalism under neoliberalism. It contends that the decline of dialectics is not coincidental but a structural requirement for a system in crisis.

II. Neoliberalism and the Ideology of the Market: The New Empiricism

Neoliberalism presents itself not as an ideology but as a natural order. Its epistemology is empirical, technocratic, and anti-theoretical. It claims that markets are neutral mechanisms, individuals are rational agents, society is a collection of preferences, and history is a series of policy changes. This perspective is a modern version of the empiricism Marx criticised in the 19th century. It simplifies social relations to measurable data, hiding the underlying class dynamics that drive them. Like the 19th-century vulgar economist, the neoliberal economist focuses only on prices, incentives, and equilibria, ignoring exploitation, contradiction, or crisis.

The ideological role of neoliberal empiricism is to obscure capitalism, making it difficult to see its full scope. Reducing social relationships to data points prevents a comprehensive critique. This approach acts as the epistemological equivalent of capital’s globalisation. Consequently, dialectical materialism, which emphasises contradiction and totality, clashes with neoliberal ideology. Its decline becomes a political necessity for those in power.

III. Postmodernism and the Fragmentation of Theory: The New Idealism

If neoliberalism is viewed as the new form of empiricism, then postmodernism can be seen as the new idealism. It arose in the late 20th century as a response to the failures of Stalinism and the setbacks faced by the working class. Postmodernism rejects the idea of totality, dismisses the concept of historical necessity, and breaks down social structures into discourses. Its main claims include: There is no single, coherent subject of history; only fragments exist. There is no absolute truth, only narratives. There is no class, only various identities. 

This stance represents a philosophical rejection of Marxism. Unlike Marxism, which aims to uncover society’s objective laws of development, postmodernism denies that such laws exist. While Marxism regards the working class as the revolutionary agent, postmodernism dissolves the notion of a unified subject into multiple positionalities. Additionally, where Marxism advocates for the unity of theory and practice, postmodernism reduces theory to textual play. Postmodernism’s political role is to make revolutionary action impossible. By rejecting the existence of objective structures, it also denies the possibility of changing them.

IV. The Eclipse of Dialectics: A Convergence of Empiricism and Idealism Neoliberal empiricism and postmodern idealism may seem like opposites, but they both oppose dialectical thinking. They dismiss concepts like totality, contradiction, and the necessity of historical change. Instead, they reduce social reality to surface appearances—be they data points or discourses—and deny the objective laws of motion. This similarity is intentional, stemming from the needs of a capitalist system that cannot endure scientific critiques of its contradictions. Thus, the decline of dialectics symbolises the ongoing crisis of global capitalism.

The outcome is a conceptual framework in which Marxism is either reduced to cultural critique, integrated into identity politics, or regarded as a flawed political endeavour. The revolutionary components of Marxism—such as its class analysis, crisis theory, and idea of historical necessity—are consistently pushed to the margins.

V. The Academic Left and the Retreat from Revolution

The modern academic left has largely given in to this ideological climate. While Marxism persists in universities, it often exists in a diluted form, serving as a tool for literary analysis or cultural studies, or as a historical oddity. The revolutionary aspects of Marxism—its critique of capitalism as a contradictory totality and its emphasis on the working class as the driver of historical change— are frequently missing. 

This shift reflects the defeats the working class faced in the late 20th century. Without a revolutionary movement, Marxism becomes merely academic; without dialectics, it turns eclectic; and without historical materialism, it reduces to cultural theory. Consequently, the crisis within Marxist theory is inherently linked to the crisis in Marxist politics.

VI. The Resurgence of Marxism After 2008: Crisis as Epistemological Rupture

The 2008 global financial crisis broke the ideological base of neoliberalism. It revealed the irrational nature of markets, the vulnerability of global finance, and the structural conflicts within capitalism. Additionally, it sparked renewed interest in Marxism, especially among younger people.

However, this resurgence has been inconsistent. It has brought back Marxist critique but not the Marxist method. Much of today’s left is still caught between empiricism—focused on policy reform—and idealism—centred on identity politics. The dialectical analysis of capitalism as an integrated system remains on the fringe. Therefore, reviving dialectical materialism is directly linked to rebuilding a revolutionary movement.

VII. The ICFI and the Restoration of Method in the 21st Century

The International Committee of the Fourth International remains virtually unique in defending dialectical materialism against both neoliberal empiricism and postmodern idealism. Its focus on the unity of theory and practice, along with its analysis of global capitalism as a contradictory totality and its championing of the working class as the revolutionary subject, continues the tradition Yakhot aimed to recover.

The philosophical struggle of the ICFI from 1982 to 86, discussed in the previous chapter, is not just a historical footnote but a crucial foundation for today’s Marxist revival. It maintained the method essential for understanding the ongoing crisis of global capitalism.

VIII. Conclusion: The Necessity of Dialectics in an Age of Crisis

The current crisis in Marxist theory reflects the broader crisis of global capitalism. Neoliberal empiricism and postmodern idealism have overshadowed dialectical materialism, leading to fragmented theory and weakening the left. However, capitalism’s inherent contradictions—exacerbated by financial instability, ecological crises, and geopolitical conflicts—necessitate a method capable of understanding totality, contradiction, and historical inevitability. Dialectical materialism is that method, and its revitalisation is not just an academic concern but a revolutionary necessity. The survival of Marxism hinges on reclaiming its epistemological roots.

The Tasks of Revolutionary Philosophy Today:

Dialectics, Class, and the Rebirth of Marxist Theory**

I. Introduction: Philosophy at the Threshold of a New Epoch

The global capitalist crisis has reached a new phase. The prolonged neoliberal cycle—characterised by financialisation, deindustrialisation, and the repression of working-class resistance—has worn out. Economic instability, ecological disasters, imperialist wars, and the revival of class conflict have broken the ideological illusions of the post-1991 world order.

In this context, the role of revolutionary philosophy becomes more urgent than it has been since the early 20th century. The decline of dialectics due to neoliberalism and postmodernism has left the modern left without a strong theoretical foundation. The splintering of Marxist theory, the prominence of identity-based epistemologies, and the move away from class analysis have created a situation in which the fundamental contradictions of capitalism exceed the left’s capacity to understand them. Therefore, the main task of revolutionary philosophy today is to rebuild Marxist consciousness globally. This involves reestablishing dialectical materialism as the working class’s scientific approach.

II. The Objective Basis for the Rebirth of Dialectics

Dialectical materialism isn’t a set of dogmas imposed on reality; rather, it is the conceptual reflection of reality’s inherent contradictory dynamic. Consequently, the revival of dialectical thinking is fundamentally connected to the ongoing objective crisis of capitalism. Three tendencies define the present epoch:

1. The intensification of global contradictions

The contradictions identified by Marx—between labour and capital, production and appropriation, globalisation and the nation-state—have reached explosive levels. These contradictions cannot be understood through empiricism or idealism; they require a dialectical analysis of totality.

2. The re-emergence of the working class as a global force

From logistics strikes to mass protests against austerity, the working class is re-entering history as a conscious agent. This development demands a theoretical framework capable of grasping the unity of global processes and local struggles.

3. The crisis of bourgeois ideology

Neoliberalism has lost its legitimacy; postmodernism has exhausted its intellectual resources. The ideological vacuum created by this collapse opens the space for the revival of Marxist theory. The rebirth of dialectics is therefore not a matter of academic preference but a historical necessity.

III. The Centrality of Class: Against the Fragmentation of the Subject

A key aspect of modern theory is the fragmentation of the subject. Postmodernism breaks down the working class into various identities; neoliberalism views individuals primarily as market participants; academic Marxism often treats class as just one of several factors. Revolutionary philosophy needs to counter this division. The working class should not be viewed as a single identity among many; rather, it is the universal class whose liberation entails eliminating all forms of exploitation. This universality is rooted in the actual structure of capitalist production.

Restoring the concept of class as the key element of revolutionary theory reestablishes the potential for historical agency. Without class, there is no active subject in history; without a subject, the occurrence of revolution becomes impossible.

IV. The Unity of Theory and Practice: The Party as the Organ of Consciousness

The tasks of revolutionary philosophy are inherently linked to revolutionary organisation. The party is not just an external tool imposed on the class; it represents the historical form through which the working class gains awareness of its own role. Therefore, the unity of theory and practice is essential: theory without organisation is merely academic, while organisation without theory risks becoming bureaucratic. 

Their combined unity is what fosters revolutionary consciousness. The ICFI’s effort to defend dialectical materialism during the 1982–86 struggle proved that maintaining Marxist methodology is inseparable from safeguarding the revolutionary party. This principle remains valid today.

V. The Philosophical Tasks of the Present: A Programmatic Outline

Revolutionary philosophy today faces three interrelated tasks:

1. The reconstruction of totality

Marxism must reassert the analysis of capitalism as a global system. This requires integrating economic crisis theory, imperialism, ecological contradictions, and the global division of labour. Only a dialectical conception of totality can grasp the unity of these processes.

2. The restoration of historical materialism

History must be understood as the movement of social contradictions, not as a sequence of cultural narratives or identity-based experiences. This requires rejecting postmodern relativism and reaffirming historical necessity.

3. The re-centring of the working class

The working class must be reestablished as the core revolutionary force. This involves critiquing theories that fragment or overlook class relations and developing a Marxist analysis of current labour processes—ranging from platform work to logistics and global supply chains. These efforts are inherently political, not academic. They form the theoretical basis for reviving the revolutionary movement.

VI. The Role of the ICFI: The Custodian of Marxist Method

The International Committee of the Fourth International occupies a unique position in the contemporary theoretical landscape. It is the only political movement that defends dialectical materialism, analyses capitalism as a global totality, identifies the working class as the revolutionary subject, and maintains the historical continuity of Marxism from Marx to Lenin to Trotsky.

The ICFI’s philosophical struggle from 1982 to 86 was more than an internal disagreement; it was a significant world-historical event. It upheld the approach now essential for understanding the crisis of global capitalism. Today, the goals of revolutionary philosophy are inseparable from the ICFI’s political leadership.

VII. Conclusion: Toward a New Epoch of Marxist Theory

The global capitalist crisis has paved the way for a resurgence of Marxist theory. However, this revival will not happen automatically; it requires deliberate efforts to restore dialectical materialism, emphasise the primacy of class as the primary analytical category, and develop a revolutionary party capable of integrating theory and practice. Today, revolutionary philosophy must be dialectical in its approach, materialist in its ontology, historical in its outlook, internationalist in scope, and proletarian in its political stance. The tasks of revolutionary philosophy are inherently linked to revolutionary politics. The revival of Marxist theory is essential for the renewal of the socialist movement.

CONCLUSION  Marxism, History and the Politics of Truth

 I. The Struggle for Marxism as a Struggle for Historical Consciousness

The previous chapters follow a continuous thread through the crises and conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries: Marxism’s fate is closely linked to the survival of historical consciousness. Stalinism’s assault on philosophy was not just an intellectual loss; it was a political destruction of the proletariat’s ability to comprehend its own reality. The bureaucratic counterrevolution suppressed dialectics because it exposes social contradictions—and, by extension, the contradictions within the bureaucracy.

Yakhot’s ‘The Suppression of Philosophy in the USSR’ clearly revealed what few Soviet thinkers dared to say. His account of the philosophical scene in the 1920s and its subsequent destruction showed that Stalin’s regime could only strengthen its control by erasing the working class’s theoretical awareness. The eradication of the Deborinists, mechanists, Red Professors, and the entire generation of Marxist philosophers was a parallel to the political suppression of the Left Opposition. History, in this sense, is not a neutral record of events. It is a terrain of struggle. The politics of truth is the politics of class.

II. Trotsky, Dialectics, and the Continuity of Marxism

While Stalinism denied the core principles of Marxism, Trotsky upheld its ongoing relevance. His advocacy of dialectical materialism—especially in *In Defence of Marxism*—was driven by political necessity, not just philosophical interest. Trotsky recognised that the revolutionary movement needed a scientific approach to understand capitalism’s inherent contradictions to survive. Consequently, the continuity of Marxism was preserved not through Soviet state institutions but via the theoretical efforts of the Fourth International. Trotsky’s emphasis on the inseparability of method and politics continues to underpin revolutionary theory today.

The ICFI’s fight from 1982 to 86 reaffirmed this ongoing tradition. By triumphing over the neo-Hegelian revisionism promoted by the WRP leadership, the ICFI safeguarded the dialectical method from bureaucratic corruption. This victory was not only organisational but also philosophical, ensuring that the disaster that had affected Soviet philosophy would not recur within the Trotskyist movement.

III. The Contemporary Crisis: Capitalism Without Illusions

The collapse of the Soviet Union, the triumph of neoliberalism, and the emergence of postmodernism have triggered a deep crisis in Marxist theory. The decline of dialectics, the fragmentation of the subject, and the avoidance of class analysis left the modern left politically and theoretically unprepared. However, the global crises of the 21st century—such as financial instability, ecological collapse, imperialist conflicts, and renewed class struggles—have broken down the ideological certainties that defined the post-Cold War period.

Capitalism today faces the world without illusions, with its contradictions clear to millions and its legitimacy waning. Its ideological tools are faltering, making the conditions for a Marxist revival not only present but urgent. However, this revival won’t happen on its own. It demands a deliberate revival of dialectical materialism, a reaffirmation of class as the key analytical category, and the building of a revolutionary party that can combine theory and practice.

IV. The Politics of Truth: Marxism Against the Falsification of History

The fight for Marxism is fundamentally connected to combating historical distortion. Stalinism manipulated history to legitimise bureaucratic domination.

After the Soviet era, liberalism rewrote history to support the restoration of capitalism. Today, anti-communism distorts history to undermine socialism itself. In response, Marxism maintains that truth relies on objective social relations, not just narratives. Therefore, defending the accurate history of the October Revolution, the Left Opposition, and the global Marxist movement is crucial for supporting revolutionary awareness.

This monograph aimed to support that argument. It demonstrated that the eradication of philosophy under Stalinism was a political crime, that Trotsky’s advocacy of dialectics was a significant historical achievement, that the ICFI’s revival of method marked a crucial victory, and that the current crisis in Marxist theory can only be resolved by deliberately reaffirming dialectical materialism.

V. The Future of Marxism: A Revolutionary Epistemology for a Revolutionary Epoch

Revolutionary philosophy faces daunting tasks today, including reasserting Marxist theory as a scientific critique of global capitalism, reaffirming dialectical materialism as the foundational method of revolutionary consciousness, repositioning the working class as the universal agent of history, and creating a revolutionary party that unites theory with practice. These responsibilities are inherently political, stemming from capitalism’s objective contradictions and the inevitable rise of socialist revolution. Marxism is not just a historical doctrine; it embodies the consciousness of the future. Its validity is rooted not in tradition but in the very course of historical development. Therefore, the politics of truth is fundamentally the politics of revolution.

Epilogue — The Open Horizon

History is ongoing. It gathers, solidifies, and erupts. The debates covered in these pages—philosophical, political, and organisational—are not merely isolated incidents of the 20th century. Instead, they represent living contradictions, unresolved issues, and ongoing tasks. The suppression of philosophy during Stalinism, Trotsky’s defence of dialectics, the reestablishment of method within the ICFI, and today’s crisis in Marxist theory are interconnected moments in a continuous process: the working class’s struggle to achieve self-awareness.

Today, we face a world where old certainties have vanished, but new ones haven’t emerged yet. Capitalism struggles through repeated crises, failing to resolve its contradictions, yet it can still cause great suffering. The ideologies that once supported it—neoliberal optimism, technocratic rationality, and postmodern relativism—are depleted. The ruling elite governs without conviction; the intellectuals theorise incoherently; and the political leaders govern without legitimacy.

Beneath the surface of fragmentation, the objective forces of history persist in their relentless progress. The working class, once scattered and disoriented for decades, is now reuniting worldwide. Emerging forms of labour, new grounds for struggle, and novel circuits of solidarity are taking shape. The contradictions inherent in capitalism are once again creating their own destroyers. In this context, philosophy evolves beyond mere reflection, serving as guidance, preparation, and a weapon.

Dialectical materialism is not merely something to memorise; it’s a way of living it. It involves viewing the world as dynamic, understanding how opposites are interconnected, and recognising the necessity in what seems accidental, as well as the contingency in what appears inevitable. It embodies a class consciousness that requires understanding society as a whole to drive transformation.

Today, the role of revolutionary philosophy isn’t to retreat into mere commentary or get lost in academic jargon. Instead, it should engage actively—to clarify, to shed light, and to focus sharply on issues. Its purpose is to reclaim the theoretical legacy stolen from the working class by bureaucratic counterrevolutionaries. It aims to link current struggles with historical lessons, emphasising that history is not a closed loop but an open horizon.

The truth of Marxism is not assured; it must be actively defended and continually fought for. It needs to be protected from falsification, distortion, and erasure, and renewed through ongoing struggle. Making it conscious in the minds of millions is essential.

This book has charted the lengthy history of this struggle — from the philosophical revival of the early Soviet period, through Stalinist repression, to the survival of Marxist methodology in the Fourth International, and now, in the face of the current crisis in theory. However, this trajectory doesn’t stop here. It points toward the future, toward the battles still to come and the consciousness that remains to be gained.

The politics of truth align with the politics of emancipation. The core truth remains unchanged: the working class is the agent of history, and the world it must shape is still ahead of us. The horizon remains open.

The claim that George Orwell served as a “left-wing gatekeeper” who “vociferously opposed actual socialism” and was thus a “traitor to socialism” has some historical basis. However, as the document emphasizes, this is “a significant and genuinely complex question that requires a careful, historically informed answer.” While there is some truth to the accusation, it is part of a broader political and theoretical confusion—one that sheds more light on the ideological landscape of the twentieth century than on Orwell’s personal shortcomings.

This response traces Orwell’s political evolution to better understand the nature of his anti-Stalinism, the boundaries of his theoretical development, and why his work ultimately supported imperialist interests despite his proclaimed socialist beliefs. The argument aligns with the view of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), which rejects the simple dichotomy of viewing Orwell as either a hero or a traitor, instead advocating for a dialectical analysis of his complex legacy.

I. Orwell’s Political Crime: Collaboration with the British State

Any comprehensive Marxist analysis must confront the most damaging event in Orwell’s political history. In 1949, while gravely ill and just a year before his death, Orwell submitted a list of individuals sympathetic to Stalinism to the British Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD). The document states: “Orwell compiled a list of roughly 130 intellectuals… and passed approximately 35 of those names to the Information Research Department.” This act—regardless of Orwell’s personal motives—constitutes a political capitulation to imperialism. As Fred Mazelis observes: “He was willing to form a political alliance with British imperialism… This decision revealed his rejection of Marxism and a genuinely revolutionary perspective.”

From a Marxist perspective, collaborating with an imperialist propaganda machine is a grave political offense, not a minor mistake. It positioned Orwell clearly on the side of the bourgeois state during the Cold War’s rise as a worldwide ideological push against socialism. Later, Western propagandists exploited Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four to falsely link socialism with totalitarianism, worsening the reactionary impact of this choice.

II. The Limits of the Indictment: Stalinism Is Not Socialism

Labeling Orwell simply as a “traitor to socialism” overlooks a crucial distinction in Marxist analysis: the difference between Stalinism and socialism. Orwell’s opposition to Stalinism was not only justified but also, in some ways, brave. His book, Homage to Catalonia, is one of the earliest and most explicit critiques of the counterrevolutionary nature of the Stalinist machine during the Spanish Civil War. As the essay highlights: “Orwell, to his credit, was neither a dupe of Stalinism nor a bourgeois liberal defender of the Moscow regime.” In this regard, Orwell aligned more closely with the truth than most Western intellectuals of his era, who either capitulated to Stalinist defenses or supported the class-collaborationist policies of the Popular Front.

The issue was not Orwell’s anti-Stalin stance itself, but rather the lack of a Marxist theoretical framework that could clearly differentiate Stalinism from socialism. His political ties—including Britain’s Independent Labour Party and Spain’s POUM—were centrist groups that fluctuated between revolutionary rhetoric and accommodation within the Popular Front. As I mentioned, “Orwell’s anti-Stalinism was based more on emotion and sentiment than on scientific conviction.” This theoretical deficiency made Orwell susceptible to Cold War ideological pressures, where anti-Stalinism was increasingly controlled by the bourgeoisie.

III. The False Binary: Stalinism vs Bourgeois Democracy

The article highlights Orwell’s main political tragedy: being caught in the misleading binary that shaped twentieth-century ideological debates. “You dislike Stalin? Then you must support Churchill, Roosevelt, NATO.” This dichotomy of Stalinism versus bourgeois democracy was actively promoted by Western imperial powers. Orwell, without a revolutionary Marxist viewpoint, eventually embraced this framework. Consequently, he drifted rightward politically, not due to personal gain but because of theoretical confusion.

In contrast, the Fourth International proposed a third camp: an independent revolutionary movement representing the international working class. The document highlights that “Those who today praise Orwell as a solitary opponent of Stalinism… censor any mention of Trotsky, the Left Opposition and the Fourth International.” Orwell never understood this alternative. His anti-Stalinism, detached from Marxist theory, was co-opted into imperialism’s ideological framework.

IV. The Irony of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty‑Four

The article reveals a significant irony: Orwell emphasised that Nineteen Eighty-Four was “NOT intended as an attack on socialism.” Instead, it served as a warning against the bureaucratic distortion of socialism—a problem seen in fascism, Stalinism, and possibly Western capitalism. As noted in the text, “His novel… is a critique of unaccountable elite power in general, including capitalist power.”

Since Orwell lacked a clear Marxist analysis of bureaucracy, class, and the state, his work was frequently appropriated by the forces he sought to critique. During the Cold War, the establishment transformed 1984 into a symbol against socialism, diverging from Orwell’s true intent. This highlights a political lesson: without a strong theoretical basis, even sincere socialist critiques can be hijacked by reactionary groups.

Conclusion: Orwell’s Tragedy and the Necessity of Marxist Theory

The document concludes—and this rewrite confirms—that Orwell was not merely a treacherous figure but a deeply confused socialist whose mistakes stemmed from a lack of theoretical understanding rather than malicious intent. “Sentiment, moral outrage, and literary talent are no substitute for the scientific socialism that Trotsky embodied.” Orwell’s life shows that anti-Stalinism, unless based on Marxist theory and the Fourth International’s revolutionary program, can be misused to serve imperialism. Therefore, his legacy is not one of moral caution against individual betrayal but a historical defense of the importance of revolutionary theory, clear programmatic goals, and the active political engagement of the working class.

A Marxist Analysis of Historical Falsification and the Crisis of Bourgeois Historiography

Part I: The English Revolution and the Crisis of Historical Consciousness

1. The Political Stakes of Historical Interpretation

The seventeenth-century English Revolution holds a special place in human history. It marked the first successful overthrow of a feudal monarchy by a rising bourgeoisie and the first time a king was executed by his own people. It also represented the first continuous effort to establish a political system based not on divine right but on the secular needs of property, trade, and the growing global market. Essentially, it was the foundational moment of the modern world.

In today’s era—defined by the accelerating crisis of global capitalism, the breakdown of democratic institutions, and the resurgence of authoritarian governance—the English Revolution has been systematically misrepresented. The bourgeoisie, faced with the effects of its own historical decline, avoids acknowledging its revolutionary roots. It aims to hide the truth that its rise to power was not the result of slow reforms or constitutional changes, but was achieved through violent upheavals, mass mobilisation, and the overthrow of the old order.

The debate over Cromwell’s role in history is mainly a political contest regarding the interpretation of revolution. The bourgeoisie, facing a legitimacy crisis not seen since the early 20th century, struggles to accept its revolutionary origins. It tends to dismiss, downplay, or psychologize the English Revolution to preserve the illusion that social change happens through parliamentary politics, constitutional stability, and gradual reforms. In reality, the bourgeoisie seized power via insurrection, civil war, and severe suppression of radical left movements—actions that are unacceptable to a ruling class now cautious of the working class’s revolutionary capacity. Hence, the distortion of the English Revolution is shaped by current political interests.

2. The Bourgeoisie Renounces Its Own Revolution

The bourgeoisie’s ideological shift away from its revolutionary roots is a notable aspect of modern historical consciousness. In the 1800s, liberal historians like Macaulay praised the English Revolution as a victory for liberty over tyranny, Parliament over monarchy, and reason over superstition. At that time, the bourgeoisie, still convinced of its historical purpose, upheld the revolutionary aspects of its history.

However, as capitalism advanced into its imperialist stage—characterised by worldwide competition, colonial control, and the rise of the working class as a distinct political entity—the bourgeoisie began to distance itself from the revolutionary violence that had initially elevated it. By the mid-20th century, amid the rise of fascism, Stalinism, and the Cold War, the bourgeoisie had completely dissociated from revolutionary ideals. Its historians shifted focus, highlighting continuity, moderation, and constitutional principles.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, this stance shifted toward outright denial. Revisionist scholars—such as John Morrill and Mark Kishlansky—contend that the English Revolution was not truly a revolution. Instead, they describe it as a “war of religion,” a “crisis of authority,” or simply a “series of misunderstandings.” They minimise class conflict, dismiss mass mobilisation, regard the Levellers as a statistical anomaly, and depict Cromwell as a devout soldier caught in uncontrollable circumstances. This historiographical counter-revolution reflects the political interests of a ruling class that fears the resurgence of revolutionary movements. To deny the English Revolution is to deny the possibility of revolution today.

3. The Liberal-Biographical Tradition: Fraser and the Humanisation of Power

Antonia Fraser’s *Cromwell: Our Chief of Men* illustrates the liberal-biographical method. Fraser depicts Cromwell as a man driven by a strong conscience, a conflicted Puritan whose moral integrity is central to his greatness. The revolution acts as a backdrop that reveals his personality. This method plays three key ideological roles: it personalises structural change by framing class conflict through character; it moralises colonial violence by viewing Cromwell’s Irish atrocities as tragic yet somewhat understandable; and it limits the revolution’s focus to the development of English constitutional identity.

Fraser’s biography is not just inadequate; it is also politically reactionary. It portrays Cromwell — the military leader of a bourgeois revolution — as a tragic hero whose actions are only understandable through personal faith and psychological nuances. The masses vanish; class conflict is overlooked; the revolution turns into a moral story rather than a social upheaval. This exemplifies the ideological role of bourgeois biography: to humanise authority, sentimentalise violence, and conceal the structural forces driving history.

4. The Marxist Tradition: Hill, Manning, and the Restoration of Class

The Marxist tradition, chiefly represented by Christopher Hill and Brian Manning, opposes this falsification. Hill’s work is the most significant Marxist contribution to understanding the English Revolution. He reestablished the importance of the masses in history, highlighted the class dynamics in the conflict, and uncovered the ideological role of Puritanism.

Hill’s Cromwell is not a heroic figure but the political representative of the gentry faction within the emerging bourgeoisie. The Levellers are not just a fringe group but the revolutionary left of the movement. The New Model Army functions as a political entity rather than merely a military force.

Hill’s Marxism was influenced by the national scope of the Communist Party Historians’ Group. His view of revolution is centred on England, not the global context; his concept of bourgeoisie is confined to the nation, not the international scene; and his analysis stops short of framing the English Revolution within the broader emergence of capitalism worldwide.

In contrast, Manning’s work is more radical and considers wider international effects. He emphasises the importance of the lower classes, such as artisans, small producers, and soldiers, who played a key role in the revolutionary movement. Manning portrays the Levellers as a mass movement rather than a fringe group. He contends that the revolution was incomplete because the bourgeoisie feared that the lower classes’ democratic ambitions could threaten their interests.

Together, Hill and Manning exemplify the peak of Marxist historiography on the English Revolution. However, their work needs to be expanded, enhanced, and connected more broadly internationally.

5. The Internationalist Breakthrough: Pashukanis, Slaughter, and the World-Systemic Perspective

The most sophisticated Marxist analysis of the English Revolution does not originate from British Marxist historians but from the internationalist perspective crafted by the Trotskyist movement. Evgeny Pashukanis offers the key theoretical insight: the bourgeois revolution generates the legal subject, embodying the juridical expression of the commodity form. Cliff Slaughter, working within the International Committee of the Fourth International, provides the only fully coherent Marxist interpretation of the revolution. He situates the revolution within the global rise of capitalism rather than solely within England’s national development.

For Slaughter, Cromwell’s Irish campaign exemplifies primitive accumulation rather than a mere military conflict. In the end, the bourgeois revolution is viewed as a fundamental historical break that goes beyond just a constitutional change. This internationalist view shows the English Revolution as part of a worldwide process, including the shift from feudalism to capitalism, the rise of the global market, and the development of the modern state.

6. The Contemporary Relevance of the English Revolution

The political lessons from the English Revolution remain relevant today, directly addressing the current crisis of capitalism. The bourgeoisie rejects its revolutionary roots because it is now afraid of revolution. Liberal historians tend to sentimentalise Cromwell, as they avoid confronting the violence that accompanies capitalist growth. Revisionists omit the masses to prevent the resurgence of mass politics. Marxists emphasise the revolutionary nature of the seventeenth century because the working class needs to understand how ruling classes ascend and decline within historical processes. The English Revolution demonstrates that no ruling class relinquishes power voluntarily, that the masses make revolutions, and that the bourgeoisie, once victorious, turns ruthlessly against those who carried it to power.

Part II: The World-Systemic Origins of the English Revolution

1. The English Revolution as a Product of Global Transformation

Viewing the English Revolution as a global event requires rejecting the narrow, nationalist viewpoint common in both liberal and revisionist histories. It was not merely an isolated act of English exceptionalism or a simple domestic struggle over constitutional issues. Instead, it reflected a deep transformation in the world economy: the rise of capitalist social relations, the growth of the global market, and the breakdown of feudal systems across Europe.

The English Revolution must be viewed in the context of wider historical shifts from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. These include the growth of Atlantic trade, the increase of colonial silver wealth, the expansion of international commerce, the rise of financial capitalism in the Dutch Republic, the decline of feudal rent practices, and demographic and agricultural changes in early modern Europe.

England actively contributed to these forces, serving as a key testing ground. The enclosure movement, expansion of merchant capital, emergence of a commercially driven gentry, and deeper integration into global trade networks fostered social conditions conducive to revolutionary upheaval. Thus, the English Revolution was not merely a national anomaly but an essential stage in the worldwide shift from feudalism to capitalism.

2. The Bourgeoisie Before the Bourgeoisie: The Gentry and the Transformation of Property

A common myth in English historiography is the idea that the bourgeoisie was weak, marginal, or lacked political influence in the seventeenth century. This misconception supports the revisionist view that the Civil War was driven not by class struggle but by conflicts among elites over religion and constitutional power. In truth, the English bourgeoisie was emerging within the gentry — a class increasingly connected to capitalist agriculture, commercial rents, and trade investments. The gentry were not merely feudal remnants but served as the transitional class through which capitalist relations spread into the countryside.

The transformation of property relations—such as enclosure, leasehold reform, and the monetisation of rents—led to the emergence of a class whose interests conflicted with the absolutist state. The monarchy, reliant on feudal privileges, monopolies, and arbitrary taxation, hindered the free growth of capitalist accumulation. Consequently, the clash between Parliament and the Crown was not merely a constitutional dispute but a conflict between incompatible modes of production.

3. The New Model Army and the Political Form of the Bourgeois Revolution

The New Model Army served as the crucial force behind the revolution. More than just a military entity, it functioned as a political organisation — the first modern army in history, characterised by discipline, centralisation, and a unified ideology. Its members primarily came from the upper segments of the petty bourgeoisie, including artisans, small producers, and radicalised yeomen. The Army’s political discussions — such as the Putney Debates of 1647, the petitions from the Agitators, and the Leveller manifestos — mark the earliest sustained efforts to define a democratic political agenda rooted in the interests of the lower classes. In essence, the New Model Army was the revolutionary party of the seventeenth century.

The Army also embodied the revolution’s internal contradiction. While the bourgeoisie relied on the Army to overthrow the monarchy, it simultaneously feared the soldiers’ democratic hopes. The suppression of the Levellers in 1649, including the execution of the Burford mutineers, marked the point when the bourgeoisie turned against the very masses that had helped it rise to power. This illustrates the core dialectic of the bourgeois revolution: it mobilises the masses to dismantle feudalism, only to repress them to secure capitalist stability.

4. Cromwell as the Instrument of Class Necessity

Oliver Cromwell’s importance in history lies less in his personal traits, faith, or psychological intricacies—common themes in liberal biographies—and more in his role as the political figure who embodied the growing bourgeois class. He served as the means for the bourgeoisie to address and overcome the contradictions arising from the revolution.

Cromwell’s measures—such as dissolving Parliament, suppressing the Levellers, conquering Ireland, and establishing the Protectorate—were motivated by the goal of stabilizing the new social order rather than personal ambition. He executed the king not out of fanaticism, but because the monarchy clashed with bourgeois interests. His crackdown on the Levellers was a response to the bourgeoisie’s fear of the lower classes’ democratic aspirations, not tyranny. Meanwhile, his Irish conquest was driven by the need to seize land for capital accumulation, not cruelty. Cromwell is a key figure of the bourgeois revolution.

5. Ireland and the Colonial Foundations of Capitalism

No part of Cromwell’s legacy has been more distorted than his actions in Ireland. While some liberal historians like Fraser see the massacres at Drogheda and Wexford as tragic yet understandable parts of seventeenth-century brutal warfare, revisionists tend to diminish or relativise the violence, and nationalists often mythologise it. A Marxist perspective clarifies these distortions, showing that Cromwell’s Irish campaign was not an anomaly but a fundamental act of primitive accumulation.

The seizure of Irish land, the displacement of the Catholic peasantry, and the redistribution of property to English soldiers and settlers were crucial steps in forming a landless proletariat and a capitalist farming class. Ireland served as a testing ground for English capitalism. Cromwell’s campaign violence was driven not solely by religious fanaticism but by the inherent violence of capitalist development. The bourgeois revolution, especially in its colonial context, involved dismantling traditional property systems, expropriating peasants, and establishing a new legal and economic framework. The Irish case illustrates the global scope of the English Revolution, highlighting its links to colonial expansion, the Atlantic economy, and the creation of the world market.

6. The Restoration as the Consolidation of Bourgeois Power

The Restoration of 1660 is often seen as a failed revolution, with the monarchy returning and Cromwell’s legacy discarded. However, this view is mostly incorrect. The Restoration was more about strengthening existing gains than undoing them. The bourgeoisie had already secured key objectives: ending absolutism, asserting parliamentary dominance, protecting property rights, and establishing a legal system suitable for capitalism. The monarchy that came back in 1660 was not the same as Charles I’s; it was a constitutional monarchy that served bourgeois interests.

Charles I’s execution fundamentally changed the political scene. After 1649, no monarch felt truly secure on the throne. The Glorious Revolution of 1688—viewed by the bourgeoisie as their preferred revolution—was only feasible because the upheavals of the 1640s shattered the basis of absolutism. The Restoration served as the bourgeoisie’s strategy to secure the revolution’s gains while limiting its radical democratic prospects.

7. The English Revolution and the Birth of the Modern State

The modern state—characterised by centralisation, bureaucracy, secularism, and a focus on capital interests—originated from the English Revolution. During this period, feudal privileges were abolished, taxation was streamlined, a standing army was established, and a legal system rooted in property rights was developed.

The Protectorate, often regarded as a failed experiment, was in fact the initial effort to establish a modern bourgeois state. Its constitutional documents—the Instrument of Government and the Humble Petition and Advice—are among the earliest attempts to formalise the political structure of capitalist society. Consequently, the English Revolution was not just a political event but also a fundamental transformation of the state’s structure.

Part III: The Levellers, the Democratic Surge, and the Bourgeoisie’s Fear of the Masses

1. The Levellers and the Revolutionary Left Wing of the English Revolution

No part of the English Revolution has been more deliberately misrepresented by bourgeois history than the role of the Levellers. Liberal scholars see them as merely a group of troublemakers; revisionists consider them an insignificant statistical blip; and Cromwell’s biographers depict them as a bother he was compelled to contain. This misrepresentation is purposeful. The Levellers embody the democratic promise of the revolution—the idea that overthrowing absolutism could lead not only to property rule but also to political empowerment for the lower classes.

The Levellers were not just a fringe group but the earliest organised democratic movement in modern history. Their platform—outlined in The Agreement of the People, petitions from London radicals, and speeches by Army Agitators—called for: universal male suffrage, biennial Parliaments, legal equality, religious toleration, and the subjugation of political authority to popular consent. These demands were not mere idealistic dreams but reflected the real interests of artisans, small producers, and radicalised soldiers. The Levellers embodied the working-class foundation of the revolution—the social strata whose mobilisation enabled the overthrow of absolutism.

The bourgeoisie could not accept this wave of democracy. The Levellers’ agenda threatened the core of capitalist property rights. Allowing everyone to vote would have strengthened the lower classes; legal equality would have challenged the privileges of property owners; and popular sovereignty could have destabilised the nascent bourgeois state. Therefore, the Levellers were seen as internal enemies of the bourgeois revolution—a force that needed to be suppressed after the monarchy was overthrown.

2. The Putney Debates: The Revolution Thinks Aloud

The Putney Debates of 1647 are among the most remarkable events in history. For the first time, ordinary soldiers—artisans, small farmers, and radical democrats—challenged the political leadership of a revolutionary army and sought a voice in shaping the nation’s future. These debates vividly illustrate the class tensions of the revolution. On one side were the Levellers and the Army Agitators, advocating for political equality and popular sovereignty, while on the other were Cromwell and Henry Ireton, representing the interests of the propertied classes.

Ireton’s arguments exemplify classic bourgeois ideology. He argued that political power should be linked to property, claiming those without property lack a “permanent interest” in the nation, and warning that universal suffrage could destroy social order. These points—repeated by capitalists’ defenders over centuries—highlight the core contradiction of the bourgeois revolution: proclaiming universal rights while limiting political power to the propertied. The Putney Debates marked a turning point, when the revolution became self-aware—when the common people voiced their democratic hopes and the bourgeoisie expressed its fears.

3. The Suppression of the Levellers: The Bourgeoisie Turns Against the Masses

The repression of the Levellers in 1649 was not a mere anomaly but a natural result of the bourgeois revolution. After the monarchy was abolished and traditional structures were dismantled, the bourgeoisie no longer relied on the radicalised masses. The Levellers’ calls for popular sovereignty, legal equality, and democratic responsibility challenged the stability of the emerging social order, conflicting with the interests of the property-owning classes.

Cromwell’s suppression of the Levellers— arresting their leaders, destroying their presses, and executing the Burford mutineers—was not a personal act of betrayal but a class-driven necessity. The bourgeoisie needed to crush the lower classes’ democratic hopes to strengthen its power. The execution of the Burford mutineers— soldiers who fought for the revolution and now demanded their deserved rights— highlights a key moment in bourgeois history. It shows that while the bourgeois revolution was progressive in ending feudalism, it was also fundamentally reactionary in oppressing the masses. The Levellers were the first victims of the bourgeois counter-revolution.

4. The Diggers and the Limits of Agrarian Radicalism

If the Levellers were the democratic faction of the revolution, the Diggers embodied its agrarian-communist spirit. Under Gerrard Winstanley’s leadership, the Diggers tried to farm shared land at St. George’s Hill, asserting that the earth belonged to everyone as a ‘common treasury.’ Their goals—eliminating private land ownership, promoting communal farming, and establishing an equal society—were remarkably progressive for their era.

The Diggers weren’t proto-socialists in today’s terms, but their movement reveals the revolution’s hidden potential. The abolition of feudal property relations opened the door to a more radical change—one that could have challenged not just the monarchy but also the emerging capitalist system. The bourgeoisie could not accept this threat. The Diggers were suppressed as ruthlessly as the Levellers, with their communes destroyed, leaders arrested, and their movement suppressed. Their fate highlights the limits of the bourgeois revolution: it could dismantle feudalism but not establish a society of equality. It could mobilise masses but not empower them, proclaim universal rights but fail to realise them.

5. The New Model Army as a Revolutionary Organism

The New Model Army was the most sophisticated political institution of the seventeenth century. It stood out as the first modern army — disciplined, centralised, and ideologically united — and also marked the inaugural mass political organisation in world history. Its soldiers engaged in political debates, elected leaders, and expressed a democratic agenda.

The Army served as the revolutionary force of the seventeenth century, overthrowing the monarchy, defeating royalist armies, and enforcing Parliament’s will. However, it also reflected the revolution’s internal conflict, pitting bourgeois leaders against radicalised common people. Thus, it functioned both as a tool of bourgeois dominance and as a means for democratic hopes. The suppression of the Levellers marked the point at which the Army shifted from a revolutionary entity to an instrument of the bourgeois state.

6. The Bourgeois Revolution and the Dialectic of Liberation and Suppression

The English Revolution exposes the core dialectic of the bourgeois revolution: it starts by freeing society from feudalism and mobilising the masses to overthrow the old order. However, once the bourgeoisie secures its interests, it suppresses those same masses. This pattern is not unique to England but is seen in every bourgeois revolution: the suppression of the sans-culottes during the French Revolution, the betrayal of radical democrats in the American Revolution, the crushing of the Paris Commune by the French bourgeoisie, and the repression of Chartism in the nineteenth century. The bourgeoisie acts as a revolutionary class only against feudalism; once it establishes its power, it becomes a reactionary force. The English Revolution is the earliest and clearest example of this recurring pattern.

7. The Levellers and the Contemporary Working Class

The political lessons from the Levellers extend beyond the seventeenth century and directly relate to today’s working-class struggles. The Levellers were the first to try to develop a democratic agenda independent of the ruling class. Their suppression shows the limitations of bourgeois democracy and highlights the need for a separate political movement for the working class.

The Levellers’ focus on popular sovereignty, legal equality, and democratic accountability is still pertinent today. Their struggle highlights a core contradiction in capitalist society: the clash between the democratic hopes of the people and the economic goals of the ruling elite. The working class should learn from the Levellers—not by copying their policies, but by understanding how ruling classes historically ascend, strengthen, and silence the masses.

Part IV: The Legal Form, the Modern State, and the International Logic of the Bourgeois Revolution

1. The Bourgeois Revolution and the Emergence of the Legal Subject

The English Revolution not only dismantled feudal political institutions but also fundamentally changed the nature of law itself. This shift cannot be fully grasped through liberal constitutionalism, which views law as a neutral structure for politics. Instead, it is best understood via the Marxist theory of the legal form, as elaborated by Evgeny Pashukanis.

Pashukanis showed that the legal subject—abstract, equal, and formally free—represents the juridical expression of the commodity form. The rise of capitalist production relations necessitates a legal system where individuals interact as holders of rights, obligations, and property. Consequently, the law of the bourgeois state is not merely an ideological superstructure imposed from above, but a fundamental expression of capitalism’s social relations.

The English Revolution marked the first time this legal form appeared in its early stages. The abolition of feudal privileges, the restructuring of taxation, the codification of property rights, and the development of contract law all reflected new social relations forming beneath political conflicts. Although often seen as technical or administrative, the legal reforms during the revolutionary era actually laid the juridical groundwork for capitalist society.

2. The Instrument of Government and the First Bourgeois Constitution

The Instrument of Government (1653), which served as the constitution for Cromwell’s Protectorate, is one of the most overlooked documents in world history. Liberal historians view it as a failed experiment, revisionists see it as an authoritarian imposition, and constitutional scholars often ignore it completely.

A Marxist perspective highlights its significance: the Instrument of Government was the world’s first written bourgeois constitution. Its main features—such as a centralised executive, a standing army, regular Parliaments, and a legal system based on property—mark the earliest effort to formalise the political structure of capitalist society. The Instrument was not an idealistic plan but a practical measure for a class that seized power through revolution and sought to stabilise its dominance. The Protectorate represented the first modern state: a centralised, bureaucratic, secular system designed to serve capital’s interests. It laid the foundation for the bourgeois state, which later appeared in the Dutch Republic, the United States, and revolutionary France.

3. The Humble Petition and Advice: The Bourgeoisie Seeks Stability

The Humble Petition and Advice (1657), which proposed offering Cromwell the crown, exposes the internal contradictions of the bourgeois revolution. While the bourgeoisie had toppled the monarchy, they now aimed to reinstate a modified form of it to secure the stability of the new social order.

This seeming paradox is not a contradiction of principle but reflects class necessity. The bourgeoisie needs a state strong enough to safeguard property, enforce contracts, and control the masses, yet weak enough to prevent the return of absolutism. Cromwell’s proposed constitutional monarchy aimed to establish a political system that could balance these conflicting requirements.

Cromwell’s rejection of the crown—often idealised as a sign of republican virtue—actually acknowledged that the monarchy, even in a transformed state, conflicted with the revolutionary roots of the new government. The bourgeoisie would eventually reconcile this in 1688 with William of Orange’s rise to the throne under Parliamentary conditions. However, during the 1650s, the revolutionary wounds were still raw, and the contradictions too pronounced, making such a compromise impossible at that time.

4. The International Dimension: England, the Dutch Republic, and the World Market

The English Revolution should be viewed in conjunction with the Dutch Republic, which was the leading capitalist society of the seventeenth century. The Dutch pioneered financial capitalism, maritime trade, and global markets. Their political system — republican, commercial, and oligarchic — embodied the most advanced form of bourgeois governance in Europe.

England’s conflict with the Dutch during the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652–1654) was more than a fight for naval dominance; it was a clash between two models of capitalist development. The Navigation Acts, the growth of the English navy, and the proactive pursuit of colonial trade reflected England’s efforts to access the global market, which the Dutch then controlled. The English Revolution was not just a domestic upheaval but also part of the broader global contest for capitalist supremacy. England’s emergence as a world power—culminating in the 18th-century British Empire—was rooted in the revolutionary changes of the 1640s and 1650s.

5. Primitive Accumulation and the Colonial Foundations of Capitalism

Marx’s idea of primitive accumulation — involving the violent seizure of peasant land, the destruction of communal ownership, and the formation of a landless working class — is crucial to understanding the English Revolution. It accelerated long-standing processes such as enclosure, the shift to monetised rents, the commodification of labour, and the growth of colonial exploitation.

Cromwell’s Irish campaign marked a pivotal point in this history. The seizure of Irish land, the removal of Catholic peasants, and the redistribution of land to English soldiers and settlers were driven more by economic motives than military needs. The violence enacted during the 1650s colonial efforts established the groundwork for Ireland’s transition to capitalism and strengthened English influence across the Atlantic.

The English Revolution was both a domestic and colonial event, with internal changes closely linked to external expansion. The bourgeoisie that arose from the revolution became not only a national class but also a global player, focused on the world market and reliant on colonial exploitation.

6. The Restoration and the Completion of the Bourgeois Revolution

The 1660 Restoration is often perceived as a failure of the revolution, marked by the monarchy’s return and the rejection of Cromwell’s legacy. Yet, this perspective is fundamentally mistaken. The Restoration was not a defeat but a culmination. The bourgeoisie had achieved its primary objectives: dismantling absolutism, establishing parliamentary dominance, securing property rights, and developing a legal framework suited to capitalism. The restored monarchy in 1660 was not Charles I’s original monarchy but a constitutional one aligned with bourgeois interests. The execution of Charles I permanently altered the political landscape, as no monarch post-1649 could feel secure on the throne. The 1688 Glorious Revolution, favored by the bourgeoisie as a revolutionary act, only occurred because the revolutionary upheavals of the 1640s had weakened absolutist foundations. Consequently, the Restoration signified the bourgeois consolidation of the revolution’s achievements.

7. The English Revolution and the Birth of the Modern World

The English Revolution marked the first successful bourgeois revolution in history. It abolished feudalism, affirmed the authority of Parliament, developed the legal and political structures of capitalist society, and set the stage for England’s emergence as a global power.

Its importance cannot be overstated. The modern era—characterized by capitalist economies, constitutional governments, and a global market—originated from the revolutionary upheavals of the seventeenth century. When liberal and revisionist historians distort the history of the English Revolution, they do more than make an academic mistake; they engage in a political act. This distortion aims to hide the revolutionary roots of the modern world and to dismiss the potential for revolutionary change today.

Part V: The Crisis of Bourgeois Historiography and the Contemporary Relevance of the English Revolution

1. The Bourgeoisie’s Flight From Its Own Origins

The misrepresentation of the English Revolution is not just a scholarly mistake but reflects a deeper crisis in bourgeois historical awareness. A dominant class that believes in its revolutionary purpose embraces its origins, while a declining ruling class rejects them.

In the nineteenth century, the bourgeoisie maintained a sense of historical legitimacy. It celebrated Cromwell as a heroic figure who destroyed tyranny, saw Parliament as the symbol of liberty, and regarded the revolution as the basis of modern civilization. Macaulay’s *History of England* exemplifies this confidence: a triumphant narrative portraying the bourgeoisie as the rightful successors of progress.

However, as capitalism moved into its imperialist stage—characterized by international competition, colonial control, and the rise of the working class as a distinct political entity—the bourgeoisie started distancing itself from its revolutionary roots. The brutality of its beginnings was now considered shameful; the democratic hopes of the masses posed a threat; and the memory of revolution was seen as a danger.

By the late twentieth century, views had shifted to outright denial. Revisionist scholars—Morrill, Kishlansky, and their followers—claim the English Revolution was not a true revolution. They characterize it as a “war of religion,” a “crisis of authority,” or a “series of misunderstandings.” According to them, class conflict disappears, mass mobilization fails to materialize, the Levellers are just a statistical anomaly, and Cromwell is depicted as a devout soldier caught in circumstances beyond his control. This historiographical counter-revolution reflects the political needs of a ruling class afraid of revolutionary resurgence. To deny the English Revolution is to deny the possibility of revolution today.

2. The Postmodern Assault on Historical Truth

The crisis in bourgeois historiography worsens with the rise of postmodernism, which rejects the idea of objective historical truth. According to postmodernism, history isn’t about studying actual events but about interpreting texts; it’s not about analyzing social forces but deconstructing narratives; and it’s not about reconstructing the past but revealing linguistic structures.

This epistemological nihilism benefits the interests of the ruling class. Without objective truth, there is no definitive history of class struggle. If all narratives hold equal validity, then the revolutionary view of the English Revolution is just one among many “discourses.” If the past cannot be known, then the future remains unchangeable.

Postmodernism reflects a bourgeoisie struggling with its own legitimacy, embodying a ruling class that no longer believes in progress, distrusts its institutions, and no longer views itself as guiding historical development. In response to this intellectual decline, Marxism emphasizes that history results from concrete social forces, that revolutions are objective occurrences, and that past events can be understood scientifically through class analysis.

3. The English Revolution and the Crisis of the Modern State

The modern state—characterized by centralization, bureaucracy, secularism, and a focus on capital—originated during the English Revolution. This period saw the abolition of feudal rights, reforms in taxation, the establishment of a standing army, and the development of a legal system rooted in property rights.

However, the modern state is facing a crisis. The institutions established by the bourgeois revolution—such as Parliaments, constitutions, legal systems, and representative bodies—are becoming less capable of handling the tensions of global capitalism. The growing wealth gap, diminishing democratic rights, increasing militarization, and the emergence of authoritarian rule expose the limitations of the political structures developed in the seventeenth century.

The crisis faced by the modern state is essentially the crisis of the bourgeois revolution. The political structures established by the bourgeoisie can no longer hold back the social forces unleashed by global capitalism. The contradictions that fueled the English Revolution—such as those between traditional and modern property, the masses and the ruling class, and societal needs versus elite interests—are reemerging worldwide today.

4. The Lessons of the English Revolution for the Contemporary Working Class

The English Revolution offers crucial lessons for today’s working class, illustrating that no ruling class will willingly surrender power. The monarchy didn’t fall due to persuasive arguments or constitutional constraints; it was overthrown by a revolutionary movement that mobilised the masses and dismantled the old regime’s institutions. Additionally, it emphasises the vital role of the masses in shaping history. Groups like the Levellers, the Army Agitators, and the radicalised soldiers of the New Model Army were active participants rather than passive observers.

Their demands for democracy, equality, and popular sovereignty fueled the revolution. Third, it underscores the limitations of bourgeois democracy. The bourgeoisie rallied the masses to overthrow feudalism but later suppressed them to safeguard their own interests. The suppression of the Levellers, the dismantling of the Diggers, and the strengthening of the Protectorate reveal the fundamental contradiction of the bourgeois revolution: it claims to defend universal rights while restricting political power to property owners. Fourth, it emphasizes the importance of an independent political movement for the working class. The Levellers were defeated not because their program was unrealistic, but because they lacked an independent organizational base capable of challenging the bourgeoisie. Their defeat illustrates the need for a revolutionary party that can unite the masses and lead the struggle for power.

5. Conclusion: The English Revolution and the Future of Humanity

The English Revolution marked the first major bourgeois revolution in history. It dismantled feudal structures, established the modern state, and laid the groundwork for capitalist society. Its importance is immense. The modern world — characterized by a capitalist economy, constitutional governments, and a global marketplace — originated from the upheavals of the seventeenth century. However, the bourgeois revolution is now reaching its limits. The political systems it created face crisis; the social relations it fostered are no longer sustainable; and the contradictions it introduced pose a threat to humanity’s future.

The working class has yet to finish the historical journey started in the seventeenth century. The initial phase was the dismantling of feudalism; the subsequent phase is the overthrow of capitalism. The English Revolution shows both what bourgeois transformation can achieve and its boundaries. It proves that masses are the agents of history, that revolutions are essential, and that the future does not lie with the ruling class but with those fighting to change society.

The task of the present is to carry forward the revolutionary legacy of the past — not by returning to the Levellers’ programme or the institutions of the Protectorate, but by building a global working-class movement capable of resolving capitalism’s contradictions and creating a new world based on equality, democracy, and human liberation.

 I. Introduction: The ULR as a Historical and Political Problem

The Universities and Left Review (ULR), established in 1957 by Raphael Samuel, Stuart Hall, Gabriel Pearson, and Charles Taylor, has long been viewed within British historiography as the origin of the “first New Left.” Its editors are praised for their cultural innovation, rejection of Stalinism, and their perceived renewal of socialist ideas. However, the historiography of the ULR is predominantly written by those sharing its assumptions, environment, and political boundaries. What remains lacking is a historical-materialist perspective on the ULR as a political entity: an analysis that places it within the class dynamics of post-war Britain, the 1956 Stalinism crisis, and the broader development of petty-bourgeois radicalism during the second half of the twentieth century.

This chapter addresses that task directly. Its core argument is simple: the ULR should be evaluated not by its rhetoric of renewal but by the social content of its politics, the forces it represents, and the tangible impacts of its actions on the working class. From this perspective, the ULR is seen not as a revolutionary departure from Stalinism but as a petty-bourgeois reaction to Stalinism’s crisis. It replaced class struggle with cultural critique and moral protest for political organisation, and contributed to the ideological groundwork for the subsequent pseudo-left.

Raphael Samuel’s role in this formation is crucial. (1934–1996) would later become a leading British historian, pioneering “history from below” and founding the History Workshop movement. His research illuminated working-class life, popular culture, and daily experience, making it essential to socialist historiography. However, his outlook often favoured cultural memory over class struggle, local activism over revolutionary tactics, and moral critique over clear programs. Samuel’s time at the ULR exemplified these tendencies.

The ULR’s politics did not happen by chance. They openly expressed the beliefs of a specific social group: university intellectuals, former Communist Party members, and radical students who were neither proletarian nor bourgeois but petty-bourgeois and professionally dependent. This group, which emerged after 1956, aimed at a politics that preserved the moral intensity of Stalinist radicalism while rejecting its organisational discipline and its often distorted ties to the working class. The outcome was a form of cultural radicalism lacking a class-based strategy, a trend that later evolved into Cultural Studies, identity politics, and the academic left.

This chapter contends that the ULR was a dead end for socialist politics. Its dismissal of Marxism was not a move towards clearer revolutionary thinking but a fallback into culturalism, moralism, and academic radicalism. Its antagonism towards Trotskyism—shown in its handling of the Socialist Labour League (SLL) and the Labour Review—was the clearest sign that its editors had not genuinely broken away from Stalinism, at least conceptually. As Brian Pearce noted at the time, the ULR’s failure to critically examine Stalinism left it “unconsciously open to influence by false ideas absorbed during their period in the Stalinist camp.” That prediction proved to be accurate.

A historical-materialist approach should steer clear of idealising the Trotskyist movement. Gerry Healy’s influence in the late 1950s was both politically crucial and progressive: the SLL aimed to attract the thousands shifting from the CPGB to the Fourth International’s program. However, Healy’s later decline—culminating in the 1980s with the collapse of the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP)—must also be recognised. The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) acknowledged and opposed this degeneration. A dialectical perspective must, therefore, place both the ULR and Healy within the conflicting pressures of their historical context.

This chapter argues that the ULR’s politics were petty-bourgeois in class origin, anti-Marxist in theory, and ultimately conservative historically. Its cultural innovations are tied to its political shortcomings. The focus on “new readers and new writers” concealed a decline in support for the working class. Its incorporation of Gramsci and the Frankfurt School offered a theoretical framework that facilitated the abandonment of revolutionary politics. The resulting legacy—Cultural Studies, identity politics, and the academic left—demonstrates the long-term effects of this retreat.

Marxist historiography’s goal is not to dismiss Samuel or the ULR, but to situate them in their historical context, understand the social forces they represented, and extract key political lessons. Only by doing so can the authentic accomplishments of “history from below” be incorporated into a revolutionary approach, rather than being co-opted by capitalism’s ideological framework.

II. The Class Basis and Social Composition of the ULR

Any Marxist analysis of the Universities and Left Review should start with its class roots. The ULR did not develop naturally from the working class nor from the industrial struggles that characterised post-war Britain. Instead, it was created by a specific petty-bourgeois intellectual layer—comprising university lecturers, postgraduate students, cultural workers, and ex-Communist Party intellectuals—whose material situation influenced both their political approach and content.

This layer held a paradoxical role within British capitalism. While it became more proletarianised through the post-war expansion of higher education, the casualisation of academic jobs, and increased managerial oversight of universities, it also preserved access to cultural capital, professional connections, and institutional prestige. These conflicting influences led to a politics that was oppositional in rhetoric but conciliatory in practice: it criticised capitalism’s cultural aspects without challenging its economic base.

The ULR’s editors exemplified this intellectual community. Raphael Samuel, Stuart Hall, Charles Taylor, and Gabriel Pearson were all influenced by the post-1956 Stalinism crisis. Their departure from the Communist Party was motivated more by emotional and organisational concerns than by theoretical shifts. They opposed the CPGB’s bureaucratic authoritarianism while still maintaining its core ideas: replacing class struggle with cultural analysis, distrust of revolutionary organisation, and the belief that socialism could be renewed through moral critique rather than through political mobilisation of workers.

The ULR’s stance aligned with its social class position. Instead of focusing on the industrial working class—whose struggles were growing more urgent in the pits, docks, and factories during the 1950s—the ULR targeted students, ex-CP intellectuals, fellow travellers, radicalised middle-class youth, and cultural critics searching for a new ideological base.

This was not an accidental choice. It expressed the editors’ belief that the working class was no longer the central agent of revolutionary change. As Samuel himself later admitted, even during his time in the CP, he did not view the working class as a revolutionary force; he saw it as a repository of radical traditions, not as the subject of socialist transformation. This distinction is crucial. It explains why Samuel’s later “history from below” celebrated working‑class culture while avoiding the strategic questions of class power, political organisation, and revolutionary leadership.

The ULR’s class basis also shaped its political method. Its analyses tended to elevate questions of culture, identity,  representation, curriculum, “democratisation” of institutions, and moral critique over the Marxist categories of production, class struggle, and the state. This was not simply a theoretical preference; it was the ideological expression of a social layer whose own position was rooted in the institutions of bourgeois civil society—universities, publishing houses, cultural organisations—and whose political horizon rarely extended beyond reforming those institutions.

The outcome was a politics that replaced class-based interests with cultural radicalism. The ULR’s editors criticised the CPGB’s limited perspective, the Labour Party’s traditionalism, and the complacency of post-war British society. However, they expressed these critiques from a viewpoint still confined within the ideological limits of the petty-bourgeois intellectual class. Their form of radicalism leaned more towards moral and cultural aspects than towards strategic or political change, and was more reformist than revolutionary.

This also clarifies the ULR’s hostility towards Trotskyism. The Socialist Labour League (SLL), led by Gerry Healy, embodied a different tradition—one grounded in the industrial working class, dedicated to the principles of the Fourth International, and focused on building a disciplined revolutionary party. For the ULR’s editors—who rejected the organisational discipline of the CP but remained wary of revolutionary Marxism—the SLL symbolised what they sought to avoid: politics centred on class struggle, clear programmatic aims, and internationalism.

Samuel’s dismissive comment about the increasing number of inner-party groups and the dozen ‘vanguard’ parties vying to lead a “non-existent revolutionary working class” was not just a rhetorical flourish. It reflected the ULR’s core political stance: rejecting the working class as the driver of socialist change and turning inward to the cultural politics favoured by the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia.

The URL’s class background thus influenced its political path. Its editors aimed to foster a new socialist culture, but from within bourgeois institutions. They opposed Stalinism but did not fully adopt Marxism. While criticising capitalism, they refrained from questioning its core principles. Their political stance was influenced by the contradictions inherent in their social position, which ultimately shaped the direction of the British New Left.

III. 1956 and the Crisis of Stalinism: The Political Conjuncture of the ULR’s Formation

The Universities and Left Review did not arise in a political vacuum. Its creation in 1957 was directly linked to the 1956 crisis of Stalinism. This year undermined the ideological bases of Communist Parties throughout Europe and triggered a significant political shift among intellectuals, students, and parts of the working class. To understand the ULR from a historical-materialist perspective, one must start with the specific historical context that led to its emergence.

1. The Shock of Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech”

In February 1956, Nikita Khrushchev delivered his “Secret Speech” at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, partially acknowledging Stalin’s crimes in a self-serving manner. The speech was more a bureaucratic move than an act of political bravery: it aimed to stabilise the Soviet regime by separating the leadership from Stalin’s most extreme actions. Despite this, the speech had a profoundly explosive effect.

In Britain, the CPGB faced an unprecedented crisis, with thousands of members resigning. This included many prominent historians, such as E. P. Thompson, Christopher Hill, and John Saville, as well as a sizable group of younger intellectuals. Raphael Samuel, who had joined the CP in his teens and was active in the Communist Party Historians Group, was among those who departed.

Samuel later looked back on his years in the CP with a sense of romanticism, recalling a “powerful sense of apartness” alongside a desire for acceptance. Yet, this nostalgia masked a deeper political truth: he had never thoroughly critiqued Stalinism nor engaged with Trotskyist perspectives on the Soviet bureaucracy. His departure from the CP was motivated by moral outrage over Stalin’s atrocities, not a major ideological break from Stalinism. This point is important because it clarifies why Samuel and his colleagues later reproduced many of the Stalinist ideological assumptions in new cultural forms, despite believing they had left that world behind.

2. The Hungarian Revolution and the Collapse of Stalinist Legitimacy

If Khrushchev’s speech began to unravel the illusion of Stalinist authority, the Hungarian Revolution of October–November 1956 broke it down entirely. The uprising—organised by workers’ councils, students, and intellectuals—represented the most significant challenge to the Soviet bureaucracy since the 1920s. The brutal suppression by Soviet tanks revealed the counter-revolutionary nature of Stalinism with stark clarity.

For many CP members, the Hungarian events were a turning point. The CPGB leadership supported the Soviet invasion, condemning the revolution as a “fascist counter-revolution.” This stance was morally unjustifiable and politically disastrous. It hastened members’ leaving and left a void among disillusioned intellectuals and students.

The ULR arose directly from this vacuum. Its founders aimed to develop a new socialist politics that rejected Stalinism’s authoritarianism while maintaining the moral passion and cultural radicalism that initially attracted them to the CP. However, because they did not view Stalinism as a bureaucratic counter-revolution against October 1917, they struggled to abandon its fundamental theoretical foundations.

3. The Missed Opportunity: Trotskyism and the Labour Review

The 1956 crisis provided a historic chance for the Trotskyist movement. Under Gerry Healy’s leadership, the British section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) started the Labour Review in January 1957 to address the political confusion among former Communist Party members and to attract them to revolutionary Marxism.

The Labour Review had a vastly different political stance compared to the ULR. It was centred on the industrial working class, aimed to develop a disciplined revolutionary party, and was based on Trotsky’s theoretical fight against Stalinism. Its goal was to transform the spontaneous split from the Communist Party into a deliberate political shift toward the Fourth International.

The ULR rejected this stance, with its editors dismissing the SLL as one of the “mushrooming” vanguard groups vying to lead a “non-existent revolutionary working class.” While this comment is often cited to highlight the ULR’s realism, it actually reveals its petty-bourgeois pessimism and its refusal to recognise the working class as the driving force of socialist change.

Brian Pearce, a former CP historian who later joined the SLL, warned that the ULR’s hostility to Trotskyism clearly indicated that its editors had not conceptually distanced themselves from Stalinism. They had abandoned the CP’s organisational structure but still harboured the same ideological distrust of revolutionary Marxism. Pearce’s warning proved to be insightful. The ULR’s refusal of the SLL set in motion a path that, via the New Left Review, eventually led to Cultural Studies, identity politics, and the academic left—a shift characterised by the replacement of class politics with cultural critique.

4. The ULR’s Interpretation of 1956: Stalinism as Marxism

A key insight into the ULR’s politics was its view on Stalinism. Charles Taylor, writing in the ULR, claimed that Stalinism “grew out of Communism” rather than being a separate deviation. This view—common among many former CP intellectuals—was a serious theoretical error. It blurred the line between Marxism and its bureaucratic distortion, offering an ideological excuse to abandon revolutionary politics entirely.

Eric Hobsbawm, who stayed in the CPGB, made a similar argument. The editors of ULR, despite splitting from the CP, shared this perspective. Their opposition to Marxism was not because of Stalinism but because they disavowed the revolutionary tradition that Stalinism had compromised.

This interpretation of 1956 had significant implications. It enabled the ULR to frame its cultural shift as a needed reaction to the perceived “failure” of Marxism, rather than as a step back from the working class’s strategic goals. This perspective justified replacing class analysis with cultural studies, favouring moral critique over political organisation, and abandoning the proletariat as the central subject of history.

5. The Political Conjuncture and the ULR’s Formation

The ULR originated from a particular historical background: the 1956 Stalinism crisis, confusion among petty-bourgeois intellectuals, absence of a mass revolutionary party, rising managerial control over universities, and the prevailing ideological influence of cultural radicalism. These conflicting factors shaped its political position. It sought to create a new socialist culture but within bourgeois institutions. While criticising Stalinism, it did not fully embrace Marxism. Likewise, it critiqued capitalism but did not challenge its fundamental principles. Therefore, the ULR was both a reflection and a catalyst of the larger political change associated with the British New Left—a move from class-based politics to cultural issues, from political economy to identity, and from revolutionary tactics to moral protest.

IV. Culturalism, the Frankfurt School, and the Theoretical Foundations of the ULR

If the Universities and Left Review was influenced by its editors’ class background and the political climate of 1956, its intellectual focus shifted toward culturalism. This change replaced traditional Marxist concepts of class, production, and political economy with an emphasis on culture, identity, and ideology. This shift was deliberate, reflecting the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia’s search for a new political stance following the decline of Stalinist authority. Its theoretical basis draws from two related traditions: the Frankfurt School and a selective adaptation of Gramsci.

1. The Frankfurt School: Pessimism as Theory

The Frankfurt School, associated with figures such as Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse, arose from the setbacks faced by the European working class during the interwar years, the ascent of fascism, and the strengthening of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Its strong sense of intellectual pessimism was not just philosophical but also reflected the beliefs of a group of exiled intellectuals who had lost faith in the revolutionary potential of the proletariat.

The Frankfurt School argued that advanced capitalism had incorporated the working class into a system of mass consumption and ideological control, directly opposing the Marxist view of the proletariat as the revolutionary agent. Marcuse clarified this in his later writings, claiming that the working class in developed capitalist societies had developed a “proto-fascist syndrome,” which made it incapable of revolutionary awareness. He believed that liberation would instead stem from students, intellectuals, and marginalised groups.

This was not just a theoretical mistake; it reflected a specific class stance. It revealed the disdain of a confused petty-bourgeois intelligentsia for the working class and its shift toward cultural radicalism as a replacement for political activism. The ULR adopted this pessimism, with its editors supporting the Frankfurt School’s critique of mass culture, distrust of economic determinism, and focus on ideology and consciousness. However, they failed to recognise the class roots of these ideas. Consequently, their politics viewed culture as the main battleground and the working class as a passive subject of analysis rather than as a revolutionary agent.

2. Gramsci and the New Left: A Selective Appropriation

While the Frankfurt School offered the ULR a theoretical framework rooted in cultural pessimism, Antonio Gramsci supplied it with a vocabulary centred on cultural activism. The ULR’s editors adopted Gramsci’s concepts of hegemony, civil society, and the war of position as strategic tools to reframe socialist approaches within cultural contexts.

However, the version of Gramsci they adopted was not the one from the early Communist International, where he supported the dictatorship of the proletariat and the need for a revolutionary party. Instead, it was the Gramsci of the Prison Notebooks, selectively interpreted from the perspective of post-war Western Marxism. This view highlighted cultural struggle, ideological leadership, and gradual changes within civil society. He was portrayed as an alternative to Leninism, rather than as its continuation.

The ULR’s use of Gramsci fulfilled several political purposes: it justified replacing class struggle with cultural struggle, offered a theoretical basis for concentrating on universities, media, and civil society instead of workplaces and unions, enabled the editors to dismiss the Leninist idea of a vanguard party while keeping a radical language, and connected the ULR with the wider New Left’s rejection of the working class as the primary agent of socialist change.

Gramsci’s limitations—such as his critique of “economism,” his opposition to Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution, and his acceptance of Stalinism’s nationalist framework—made him especially appealing to the ULR’s editors. As Gramsci stated, “the point of departure is national,” a phrase that aligned well with the ULR’s focus on cultural nationalism.

3. Culturalism as a Political Project

The ULR’s shift towards culturalism was not just an intellectual change; it was a political initiative. It aimed to forge a new socialist culture that would go beyond the “dogmatism” of the CPGB and the “economism” of traditional Marxism. However, by rejecting the Marxist analysis of class and the strategic importance of the proletariat, this project was fundamentally limited. Culturalism provided critique without a plan of action, radicalism without organisation, moral protest without a political agenda, identity without class consciousness, and culture without the aim of revolution.

This enabled the ULR’s editors to uphold a sense of radical identity without engaging in the challenging tasks of creating a revolutionary movement—such as confronting trade-union bureaucracies, organising workplaces, and fighting for the political independence of the working class. The cultural shift also set the stage for the emergence of Cultural Studies in the 1960s and 1970s, which became a key academic discipline of the British New Left. More than just a neutral scholarly field, Cultural Studies embodied the political goals of the ULR, shifting focus from class analysis to identity politics, replacing political economy with discourse analysis, and turning socialist critique into a form of academic radicalism.

4. The ULR’s Cultural Politics in Practice.

The early issues of the ULR featured articles on youth culture, literature, film, popular music, education, and the “democratisation” of cultural institutions. While these topics were significant, they were treated as separate spheres, isolated from the influences of capitalist production and class conflict. The ULR’s editors criticised British society’s cultural conservatism but did not examine the capitalist relations behind it. They praised youth culture’s creativity but failed to link it to the material realities of working-class life.

The outcome was a politics that seemed radical in appearance but was actually conservative in its impact. It questioned the cultural aspects of capitalism while maintaining its economic base. It targeted the symptoms of capitalist society without addressing the underlying causes.

5. Culturalism and the Retreat from Marxism

The ULR’s cultural shift was both a sign and a driver of the wider decline of Marxism on the British left. It indicated the confusion of a petty-bourgeois intellectual class that had lost faith in the working class and was searching for new sources of radical identity. Additionally, it played a role in the ideological shift that shaped the New Left: replacing class with culture, political economy with identity, and revolutionary tactics with moral critique.

This retreat had enduring impacts. It influenced the development of Cultural Studies, identity politics, and the academic left. It laid the ideological groundwork for the rise of New Labour and the managerial politics of the 1990s. Additionally, it left the working class politically powerless in the face of neoliberal restructuring. The ULR’s focus on culturalism was thus not a renewal of socialism but a retreat from it. It embodied the ideological stance of a social class that had abandoned the working class’s strategic tasks and instead sought refuge in the cultural institutions of bourgeois society.

V. Raphael Samuel, “History from Below,” and the Limits of Cultural Radicalism

Raphael Samuel’s later legacy is primarily built on his pioneering role in ‘history from below” and as a founding figure of the History Workshop movement. These efforts were meaningful, challenging the elitist tendencies of traditional historiography, uncovering the experiences of working people, and broadening the scope of socialist historical awareness. However, from a Marxist perspective, Samuel’s historiographical innovations are intertwined with certain political constraints. His “history from below” was not aimed at revolutionary change but served as a cultural-democratic initiative, rooted in the same petty-bourgeois environment that gave rise to the Universities and Left Review.

1. Samuel’s CP Background and the Persistence of Stalinist Assumptions

Samuel’s involvement with the Communist Party Historians Group (CPHG) significantly influenced his subsequent work. This group was responsible for nurturing notable British Marxist historians of the twentieth century, such as E. P. Thompson, Christopher Hill, and Rodney Hilton. However, their work was rooted in Stalinist ideology. Their historiography focused on themes such as national traditions, popular radical movements, moral heroism, and the enduring nature of “progressive” struggles over centuries.

This approach echoed the CPGB’s Popular Front strategy, which placed the working class under the influence of ‘progressive’ bourgeoisie factions and replaced internationalist ideals with national-popular narratives. Samuel internalised this framework thoroughly. His later nostalgia for the CP—shown in The Lost World of British Communism—was not just sentimental; it also exposed his difficulty in breaking away from the Stalinist view of history.

Samuel’s memoirs of the CP are notable for their omissions. He notably “stays silent on Stalin’s murderous purges of the 1930s” and does not discuss the conflict between Trotsky’s Left Opposition and Stalin’s bureaucracy. His narrative leans more toward cultural memory than political analysis. This omission is deliberate, reflecting the enduring influence of Stalinist ideas in Samuel’s later work: replacing class struggle with cultural tradition, favouring national radicalism over international socialism, and steering clear of strategic debates about revolutionary leadership.

2. “History from Below” as Cultural Recovery, Not Revolutionary Strategy

Samuel’s approach of “history from below” aimed to democratize history by highlighting the experiences of ordinary people—workers, artisans, women, migrants, and local communities. This methodology expanded historical understanding and questioned the elitist tendencies of academic historiography. However, it did not address the underlying material relations of capitalist society. While it celebrated working-class culture, it stopped short of challenging the political systems that oppress the working class.

From a Marxist view, the problem isn’t just documenting working-class experiences—an important step—but rather the absence of a clear strategic plan. Samuel’s work recorded the lives of workers, celebrated their agency, and critiqued elite narratives. However, it failed to link these histories to revolutionary objectives. It treated the working class as a cultural entity rather than a political force. Although it offered a detailed mosaic of popular memory, it did not connect that memory to capitalist production dynamics, class struggle, or the need for a revolutionary party. Thus, Samuel’s “history from below” was the historiographical equivalent of the ULR’s cultural politics: seemingly radical but ultimately politically conservative.

3. The History Workshop: Institutionalisation and Absorption

The History Workshop movement, established in the late 1960s, aimed to democratise the practice of history by engaging workers, activists, and community organisations in the creation of history. Its core principle—“history from below, for the people, by the people”—embodied a truly democratic spirit. However, the movement’s institutional development highlights the boundaries of cultural radicalism within a capitalist framework.

By the 1980s, the History Workshop had become part of the mainstream academic system. It served as a credential for advancing careers in universities, a space for cultural radicalism within bourgeois institutions, and a training ground for the academic left. Its radical spirit was tamed, and its democratic principles were turned into a participatory teaching approach. Its critique of elite historiography was absorbed into the very institutions it aimed to challenge. This transformation was not unique to the History Workshop but reflected a broader pattern where universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions incorporated the cultural innovations of the New Left.

From a Marxist perspective, this absorption was unavoidable. Without a revolutionary approach, cultural radicalism remains subject to the influence of bourgeois institutions. It essentially becomes a type of institutional dissent, accepted because it doesn’t challenge the core structures of capitalist power.

4. Samuel’s Critique of Classlessness and His Theoretical Limits

Samuel’s essay “Class and Classlessness” is often cited as evidence of his commitment to class analysis. In it, he criticises Stuart Hall’s claim that class was becoming obsolete in post‑war Britain. Yet Samuel’s own conception of class was shaped by the CPGB’s cultural‑nationalist framework. He recognised the historical radicalism of the working class but did not view it as a revolutionary force in the present.

This restriction was not just theoretical but also political. Samuel’s work consistently sidestepped crucial Marxist questions: the working class’s role in overthrowing capitalism, the need for a revolutionary party, the international scope of socialist revolution, and the importance of political economy in historical analysis. Instead, he concentrated on culture, memory, and daily life, creating a detailed historical record but leaving the working class politically passive.

5. The Political Consequences of Samuel’s Historiography

Samuel’s historiographical project had significant long-term effects. While it helped shape British leftist intellectual culture, it also inadvertently supported the shift away from Marxism. It played a role in the emergence of Cultural Studies, the move from class to identity politics, the academic focus of radical politics, and the division of socialist consciousness. Although Samuel wasn’t solely responsible for these trends, his work contributed to the ideological environment that enabled them. His “history from below” offered cultural material for a left that had abandoned core strategies of the working class and instead relied on bourgeois civil society institutions.

VI. The ULR, the New Left, and the Historical Verdict: A Marxist Conclusion

The Universities and Left Review holds a central position in post-war Britain’s intellectual and political history. It served as the birthplace of the first New Left, bringing together ex-Communist intellectuals, radicalized students, and cultural critics as they sought to develop a new socialist politics following the 1956 crisis. However, from a Marxist perspective, the ULR’s importance is less about its innovations and more about its limitations—limitations rooted in its class origins, theoretical approach, and political direction.

1. The ULR as a Petty‑Bourgeois Response to the Crisis of Stalinism

The ULR arose from a petty-bourgeois intelligentsia’s confusion after losing faith in the Communist Party but not adopting Marxism. Its editors denounced Stalinist authoritarianism yet kept their ideological doubts about revolutionary groups and shifted focus from class struggle to cultural analysis. Their break with the CPGB was rooted in emotional and moral reasons rather than in theory or politics.

Failing to interpret Stalinism as a bureaucratic counter-revolution against October 1917 made the ULR’s editors susceptible to the very ideological influences they aimed to avoid. Their antagonism toward Trotskyism—shown in their rejection of the Socialist Labour League and Labour Review—indicates they had not abandoned the theoretical roots of Stalinism. As Brian Pearce pointed out, they continued to be “unconsciously open to influence by false ideas absorbed during their period in the Stalinist camp.”

2. The Cultural Turn and the Retreat from Marxism

The ULR’s shift toward culturalism—guided by the Frankfurt School and a selective use of Gramsci—was not a revival of socialism but a step back from it. It replaced Marxist concepts like class, production, and political economy with an focus on culture, identity, and ideology. It favored moral critique over political tactics, cultural activism over revolutionary organization, and academic radicalism over class struggle.

This cultural turn reflected the ideological stance of a social class whose material basis was rooted in bourgeois civil society institutions such as universities, publishing houses, and cultural organizations. Their political scope was usually limited to reforming these institutions. This approach enabled the ULR’s editors to uphold a radical identity without engaging in the strategic efforts of the working class.

3. The ULR’s Legacy: From Cultural Studies to Identity Politics

The long-term impact of the ULR’s policies was significant. Its emphasis on culturalism established the groundwork for Cultural Studies, identity politics, the academic left, and the managerial politics of New Labour. These trends were not anomalies but was the natural result of the ULR’s ideological and political stance. By discarding the working class as the driving force of socialist change, the ULR contributed to a left that became more removed from workers’ material struggles and more embedded within bourgeois institutional frameworks.

The ULR’s legacy is thus dual-edged: it enhanced cultural analysis yet weakened socialist strategy. It broadened the scope of critique but restricted political possibilities. This resulted in a generation of intellectuals who were radical in rhetoric but reformist in action.

4. Raphael Samuel and the Limits of Cultural Radicalism

Raphael Samuel’s later contributions to the History Workshop movement showcased both the strengths and limitations of the ULR’s political approach. His approach of “history from below” aimed to recover the experiences of working people and challenge the elitist tendencies in academic historiography. However, it did not address strategic issues related to class power, political organization, or revolutionary leadership.

Samuel’s work was democratic, humane, and filled with empirical detail. However, it was also influenced by the cultural-nationalist outlook of the CPGB and the petty-bourgeois radicalism of the ULR. While it celebrated working-class culture, it did not connect it to the mechanisms of capitalist production or the goals of socialist revolution. This resulted in a valuable archive of popular memory but left the working class politically unarmed.

5. The Missed Opportunity of 1956

The 1956 crisis presented a significant chance for Marxism’s renewal. During this period, thousands of workers and intellectuals distanced themselves from the CPGB, looking for a new political direction. Among them, the Socialist Labour League, affiliated with the British section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, was the only group actively aiming to bring this segment into the fold of revolutionary Marxism.

The ULR dismissed this opportunity, shifting its focus from the working class to bourgeois cultural institutions. They rejected Leninist ideas of a vanguard party and adopted a politics of cultural radicalism. This shift contributed to the development of a New Left that was politically inconsistent, theoretically diverse, and ultimately unable to address the issues arising from the capitalist crisis.

6. The Historical Verdict

From a Marxist perspective, the historical judgment on the ULR is definitive: it was a petty-bourgeois reaction to Stalinism’s crisis, replacing class struggle with cultural critique, and favoring moral protest over revolutionary Marxism. This fostered a left that, while radical in rhetoric, was reformist in action, ultimately leading to the ongoing fragmentation of socialist consciousness.

The ULR’s accomplishments—such as its cultural innovations, critique of British conservatism, and revival of popular traditions—were genuine. However, they were overshadowed by its political shortcomings. It did not offer a clear alternative to Stalinism, nor did it focus on mobilizing the working class. Additionally, it failed to see that the 1956 crisis could only be resolved by returning to the Fourth International’s program.

The ULR was not the start of a socialist revival but rather marked a political withdrawal—moving away from Marxism, class struggle, and the revolutionary goals of the working class. Its legacy serves as a warning: lacking a solid theoretical base and a revolutionary strategy, cultural radicalism risks becoming a way to accommodate the very system it aims to critique.