Jacob Coxon’s resignation from Anthropic, a company that loudly champions ‘AI safety,’ has been portrayed in the media as a personal moral crisis a lone engineer stepping back from dangerous territory. But it is actually much more important: it reveals, from within the industry, that the entire AI sector is propelled not by scientific progress or human necessity, but by capitalist competition driving toward potentially disastrous results that its own creators worry about.
Coxon’s warning is clear: “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” This isn’t just a speculative fear or a distant hypothetical. It’s the assessment of those with the deepest technical understanding of the systems being created. Still, Coxon admits, “coordination between competing capitalist firms racing for market dominance and state backing cannot be relied upon.” The industry presses on at full speed. This paradox—knowing the danger but feeling compelled to act— isn’t psychological. It’s structural. Capitalism’s logic asserts itself forcefully and without ambiguity.
Anthropic was established by a splinter group from OpenAI, aiming for safer AI development. However, after three years, Coxon notes the company finds itself in the same competitive race it tried to avoid. This is because, under capitalism, no company can afford to slow its progress without risking destruction by competitors. The issue with safety isn’t purely technical but related to the nature of economic relationships. Under the capitalist system, “responsible scaling’ often remains just a marketing phrase, not a practical reality.
Evan Hubinger, who still works at Anthropic, emphasizes the serious risk involved. He personally estimates there’s over a 10% chance that AI could eradicate all humans within ten years, despite the company’s lack of concrete plans to address superintelligence alignment and not being clearly on track to do so. Samuel Marks, another staff member, notes that concern levels increase with seniority. These are not marginal opinions; they come from engineers directly involved with the systems. Their warnings are based on technical realities, yet companies continue their current course.
This illustrates the “rational irrationality” of capitalism: every firm needs to grow faster or face collapse. The overall result—possibly human extinction—fails to concern the market. Marx recognized this contradiction 150 years ago: productive forces outpace the social relations meant to control them. AI is just the latest, most intense form of this dilemma.
The Resignation Genre as Political Symptom
The media often depicts each resignation as a unique human-interest story: such as the conscientious objector, the disillusioned researcher, or the engineer who quits to pursue poetry. However, collectively, these stories expose a more profound trend: a technical workforce awakening to its own sense of powerlessness within capitalist production.
Mrinank Sharma cautions that “the world faces danger… not only from AI or bioweapons, but from a web of interconnected crises happening right now,” then announces he will leave the industry to pursue poetry. Another OpenAI researcher resigns over adding advertising to a chatbot used for sharing “their medical fears, relationship issues, beliefs about God and the afterlife,” warning of “possible manipulation of users.” These actions are not mere acts of conscience, but signs of alienation. Engineers, once confident as innovators, now see themselves as workers under capital, forced to develop systems they fear and cannot control.
The apocalyptic warnings—such as “10 per cent chance of killing all humans” and “could kill us all by the end of the decade”—serve a specific ideological purpose. They depict catastrophe as unavoidable, suggesting AI is an autonomous force beyond human control. This sense of fatalism hides a key truth: AI is not a metaphysical entity but a social relation. People create it—engineers in Silicon Valley, data annotators in Kenya and the Philippines, miners in the Congo, and chip fabricators in Taiwan.
The question of whether AI becomes a tool of liberation or barbarism is not a technical question of “alignment.” It is a political question of ownership and control. Between the present order and any catastrophic outcome stands the international working class.
Coxon proposes a “temporary ban on improving model capabilities,” but admits it is unlikely because coordination between competing firms and states cannot be relied upon. This is the essential point. Regulation cannot restrain capital. The capitalist state is not a neutral arbiter; it is the ruling class’s executive committee. It exists to defend private property, not to restrain it. Every proposal for “responsible scaling,” “constitutional AI,” or “government oversight” collapses the moment profit demands acceleration. The market does not permit restraint. The only solution is expropriation.
The Socialist Program for AI
Coxon and his colleagues highlight a contradiction capitalism cannot solve. Addressing this issue calls for a revolutionary overhaul of how we own and control productive resources. The socialist plan is explicit: nationalise AI, cloud services, semiconductor companies, and platform monopolies, and turn them into public utilities managed democratically by workers. Ensure no worker loses their job to automation by using AI to shorten workweeks without reducing pay. Also, bring all AI development under international planning, directing research to serve human needs rather than profit.
End the secrecy kept by private corporations by making all models, datasets, and research pipelines accessible to the public. Finally, use AI as a tool for global economic planning—helping coordinate production, reduce waste, and enhance living standards worldwide. This is not a reformist agenda but a revolutionary one. It demands the working class to take control of productive forces and reorganize society based on socialist principles. The resignations at Anthropic and OpenAI are not moral crises but alerts from within capitalism’s core. Those closest to the technology fear it could destroy humanity—yet the system forces them to continue developing it.
This represents capitalism’s most fundamental contradiction: a social system that endangers humanity’s survival. Humanity faces a clear choice: the working class must take control of the technology and utilize it to establish a rational, planned, socialist society—or the ruling class will persist in its reckless pursuit of disaster. The future of AI is fundamentally a political issue, not a technical one. Its outcome will be determined not by engineers or executives, but through the conscious struggle of the international working class.
Edward Luce’s Zbig, published in 2025 and widely praised across the American foreign-policy community, is more than just a biography. It serves as an ideological gesture aligned with Washington’s growing rivalry with Russia and China. Positive reviews in Foreign Policy, celebratory discussions at the Aspen Institute, and its strategic rise on the New York Times bestseller list highlight the book’s political role more than its content.
Luce, a Financial Times columnist and descendant of British colonial officials, creates a text that enhances the self-image of America’s ruling class. He portrays Zbigniew Brzezinski not as a supporter of imperialist violence, but as a “prophet” whose warnings shed light on current threats. This approach is part of a larger effort to rehabilitate Cold War ideologues, framing them as valuable sources of insight for today’s great-power conflicts.
This review assesses Zbig not merely as a historical contribution but as a political artefact. It contends that Luce’s book sanitises Brzezinski’s reputation, hides the human toll of his policies, and reflects the liberal-imperialist intelligentsia’s ideological views. Zbig is a hagiography that elevates imperialist strategy to a form of statesmanship and portrays mass violence as just the unavoidable noise of geopolitical strategy.
The marketing around Zbig reveals much about its intentions. Brzezinski is portrayed as a “great power prophet,” someone who “saw the Soviet threat more clearly than most”. His “diligence” and “faith in America” are framed as qualities to emulate today. Susan Glasser’s jacket blurb openly states the political aim: this is “history that matters more than ever,” considering the “resurgent threat from Russia.” Such language is deliberate. It positions Brzezinski as a figure whose Cold War-era worldview can be adapted for current times. Ultimately, Luce’s biography is part of a larger ideological effort to justify the resurgence of great-power rivalry as a natural aspect of American foreign policy.
Timing is crucial. As Washington expands its involvement in a NATO-Russia proxy conflict in Ukraine and prepares for possible clashes with China, Brzezinski’s revival supports these actions by framing them as part of a long-standing tradition of strategic foresight. Eliminating Luce’s overly admiring tone clarifies his career’s focus. A member of Poland’s diplomatic elite and strongly opposed to Moscow, he turned personal animosity into a geopolitical tactic. His transition from academia to the National Security Council stemmed from his ability to identify and exploit global tensions to maintain American dominance.
Brzezinski pressed the Carter administration to back the Shah’s suppression of the revolution, endorsing a brutal crackdown that led to thousands of deaths. His stance was driven by imperialist motives rather than democratic ideals: safeguarding a vital American ally. Brzezinski’s significant role in covertly supplying arms to the Afghan mujahideen defines his legacy. He later claimed that he began supporting Islamist fighters before the Soviet invasion not to stop it, but to lure Moscow into a Vietnam-like conflict. This strategy resulted in a prolonged war that claimed over a million Afghan lives, devastated the country’s social fabric, and created the conditions for al-Qaeda’s rise. Luce treats this as strategic brilliance. In reality, it was a policy of calculated devastation.
Guatemala
Brzezinski supported counterinsurgency programs that empowered death‑squad regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala, and elsewhere. These campaigns of terror claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Luce relegates this violence to background detail, treating it as an unfortunate but necessary component of Cold War strategy. None of this amounts to prophecy. It is the record of a man who treated entire populations as expendable instruments in a geopolitical chess match.
Zbigniew Brzezinski’s involvement in Guatemala is one of the least‑discussed but most revealing episodes of his tenure as Carter’s National Security Advisor. It exposes the core contradiction of Carter‑era foreign policy: human‑rights rhetoric at the podium, counterinsurgency strategy in practice.
By the late 1970s, Guatemala was in the grip of a state terror apparatus. The army and security forces, long supported by U.S. training and intelligence, were carrying out assassinations, disappearances, and scorched‑earth campaigns against indigenous communities and leftist movements. Publicly, the Carter administration expressed concern. Privately, it saw Guatemala as a strategic bulwark against revolutionary movements sweeping Central America.
Brzezinski’s own meetings with Guatemalan officials capture this duality. He spoke of “profound change” in the region and insisted the “status quo cannot be maintained,” but framed reform not as justice for Guatemala’s population, but as a way to prevent revolution and preserve U.S. influence. His language was liberal; the underlying logic was imperial.
The archival record goes further. In 1980, Brzezinski chaired a Special Coordination Committee meeting reviewing CIA covert action proposals for Central America, including Guatemala. The committee approved expanded operations in neighbouring countries and discussed similar programs for Guatemala, deferring only pending field assessment. The intent was clear: prepare covert action “in good time” so it could “have impact as situations become more critical.”
Guatemala was not an afterthought. It was part of a regional counterinsurgency strategy designed to contain social revolution through intelligence liaison, media manipulation, and support for authoritarian allies.
Brzezinski’s role in Guatemala shows the continuity of U.S. policy: behind the language of democracy lay a commitment to preserving American dominance, even at the cost of mass repression. Any honest assessment of his legacy must include Guatemala—not as a footnote, but as a case study in the lethal convergence of liberal rhetoric and imperial strategy.
Luce’s main narrative contrast is between Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger. Brzezinski is depicted as the idealistic liberal internationalist, a principled strategist committed to democracy and human rights. Conversely, Kissinger is shown as a cynical realist. However, this distinction dissolves on closer examination, as both men worked within a shared ruling-class consensus: preserving American dominance at all costs. Their differences were mainly stylistic rather than substantial.
Brzezinski’s language on democracy acted as a cover for policies similar to Kissinger’s, including coups, covert operations, proxy wars, and the systematic suppression of movements challenging US dominance. Luce’s biography tones down Brzezinski’s own candid admissions regarding the strategic use of violence, portraying him more as a hesitant strategist than a passionate architect of intervention.
The idea of the “good strategist” is central to establishment historiography. It enables liberal-imperialist thinkers to disassociate from the more openly cynical Cold War figures while maintaining the core reasoning behind American dominance.
The Grand Chessboard: Empire Without Apology
Luce’s book covers Brzezinski’s later work as a consultant and geostrategist only briefly. However, publications like The Grand Chessboard are crucial for understanding his perspective. In these, he openly guides policymakers on managing Eurasia as a strategic battleground for American influence, viewing nations and peoples as pieces to be moved. This was not a shift from his earlier work but its logical extension. Brzezinski’s worldview remained consistent: he saw the world as an arena of strategic rivalry, with the United States needing to lead. Luce’s purposeful omission avoids challenging the central myth of the liberal prophet, as recognising Brzezinski’s clear imperialism would weaken it.
The core issue with Zbig is methodological. Luce reduces the extensive violence of late-20th-century US foreign policy to a psychological story of a talented émigré navigating bureaucratic rivalries and social intrigue. The millions affected by Brzezinski’s policies are just distant numbers. This reflects the usual approach of establishment biographies: history told from the perspective of the State Department, strategic insights emphasised, human suffering downplayed, and imperial violence depicted as necessary.
Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard stands as one of the clearest articulations of post‑Cold War American imperial strategy, precisely because it dispenses with the usual moralising language of “democracy promotion” and speaks in the idiom of raw geopolitical power. Written at the height of the unipolar moment, the book codifies a worldview long embedded in the U.S. national security establishment: that global stability is synonymous with American primacy, and that primacy must be actively maintained through strategic intervention across Eurasia.
At the centre of Brzezinski’s argument is the conviction that Eurasia — stretching from Western Europe to China is the decisive arena of world politics. Whoever controls or dominates this vast landmass controls the world. The United States, as the sole superpower of the 1990s, must therefore prevent the emergence of any rival capable of consolidating Eurasian power. This is not framed as a temporary necessity but as an enduring imperative. The book identifies “geostrategic players” (Russia, China, Germany, France) and “geopolitical pivots” (Ukraine, Azerbaijan, South Korea, among others) whose alignment or destabilisation can shift the continental balance. These states are treated less as sovereign actors than as pieces on a board whose movement must be managed to preserve U.S. hegemony.
Brzezinski’s earlier role in arming the Afghan mujahideen foreshadows the logic of The Grand Chessboard. The covert war in Afghanistan was designed to weaken the Soviet Union indirectly, using local forces as instruments in a larger geopolitical contest. In the book, this method becomes a general principle: exploit regional conflicts, cultivate dependencies, and intervene militarily, economically, or politically wherever a rival might gain strategic advantage. The rhetoric of human rights or democracy is largely absent; what matters is maintaining the structural conditions of American dominance.
The enduring significance of The Grand Chessboard lies in its candour. It reveals the continuity of U.S. strategy from the Cold War to the present: containing Russia, managing Europe, encircling China, and treating the post‑Soviet space as a zone of strategic manipulation. In doing so, it exposes the imperial logic beneath the liberal veneer of American foreign policy. Far from being an artefact of the 1990s, Brzezinski’s doctrine remains a blueprint for the geopolitical interventions of the twenty‑first century.
Against Myth, For Historical Truth
The timing of Zbig’s publication and recognition is intentional. Brzezinski’s rehabilitation aims to serve immediate political goals by normalising great-power conflicts as a typical role for American leaders, framing Cold War strategies as models for current policies, hiding the severe human toll of the interventions he supported, and providing ideological justification for escalating tensions with Russia and China. In this context, Luce’s biography contributes to a greater ideological effort: creating a historical narrative that supports today’s imperialist ambitions.
A true assessment of Brzezinski’s career and the imperialist violence it represents must come from outside the framework favoured by Luce and his endorsing institutions. The goal isn’t to rehabilitate Cold War strategists but to reveal the ongoing imperialist logic from the late twentieth century to today. Brzezinski wasn’t a prophet; he was an empire technician. Luce’s biography reads like a hagiography meant to hide this truth, especially when the ruling class needs such concealment.
📚 Primary Sources
Luce, Edward. Zbig: The Strategy and Statecraft of Zbigniew Brzezinski. New York: Basic Books, 2018. (Authorised biography; central to your critique.)
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. New York: Basic Books, 1997. (Foundational statement of post‑Cold War U.S. strategy.)
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983. (Carter-era policymaking from Brzezinski’s perspective.)
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power. New York: Basic Books, 2012. (Late-career restatement of his geopolitical worldview.)
📚 Secondary Sources: U.S. Imperial Strategy & Geopolitics
General Imperial Strategy
Bacevich, Andrew. American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy. Harvard University Press, 2002.
Johnson, Chalmers. Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire. Henry Holt, 2000.
Mearsheimer, John J. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. W.W. Norton, 2001.
Gowan, Peter. The Global Gamble: Washington’s Faustian Bid for World Dominance. Verso, 1999.
Harvey, David. The New Imperialism. Oxford University Press, 2003.
Geopolitical Theory (Brzezinski’s Intellectual Lineage)
Mackinder, Halford. “The Geographical Pivot of History.” The Geographical Journal 23, no. 4 (1904): 421–437.
Spykman, Nicholas. The Geography of the Peace. Harcourt, Brace, 1944.
Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. Simon & Schuster, 1994.
📚 Afghanistan, Cold War Covert Strategy, and Brzezinski’s Role
Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden. Penguin, 2004.
Cordovez, Diego, and Selig S. Harrison. Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal. Oxford University Press, 1995.
Rashid, Ahmed. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. Yale University Press, 2000.
📚 Critical Marxist & Left Analyses of U.S. Strategy
Chomsky, Noam. Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance. Metropolitan Books, 2003.
Wood, Ellen Meiksins. Empire of Capital. Verso, 2003.
Callinicos, Alex. Imperialism and Global Political Economy. Polity, 2009.
Ali, Tariq. The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity. Verso, 2002.
Prashad, Vijay. The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World. New Press, 2007.
📚 Useful Scholarly Articles
Gaddis, John Lewis. “A Grand Strategy of Transformation.” Foreign Policy, no. 133 (2002): 50–57.
Cox, Michael. “The Empire’s Back in Town: Or America’s Imperial Temptation — Again.” International Affairs 80, no. 1 (2004): 1–27.
Smith, Tony. “The End of the Unipolar Moment? Obama and the World.” Survival 52, no. 5 (2010): 75–96.
📚 On Political Biography as Ideology
Schudson, Michael. The Power of News. Harvard University Press, 1995.
Herman, Edward S., and Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent. Pantheon, 1988.
Gitlin, Todd. The Whole World Is Watching. University of California Press, 1980.
Claudia Jones’s 1949 essay “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman” holds a unique and revealing position within the political context of the postwar American left. Modern academic circles often celebrate it as a cornerstone of “socialist feminism,” even as an early form of intersectional theory. However, when viewed in the context of the actual historical development of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and the decline of the international communist movement under Stalin, the essay takes on a different perspective. It is not seen as a groundbreaking theoretical work but rather as a product of a party already aligned with the Kremlin’s interests, and its ideas presaged the later split of the working class into various identity-based factions.
This assessment aligns with the perspective of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), whose critique of Stalinism, the national question, and the pseudo-left’s adoption of identity politics is rooted in extensive political experience and theoretical development. While Jones’s essay offers valuable empirical insights from this viewpoint, it also reveals some significant political limitations.
Black Women and Superexploitation
Jones’s key empirical insight is undeniable. In the postwar U.S., Black women were the most exploited and marginalised segment of the working class. Mostly limited to domestic work and the lowest-paid industrial roles, they faced extreme Superexploitation, which the labour movement and even the CPUSA had failed to address effectively. Jones’s argument that racism and sexism are not just social issues but fundamental manifestations of capitalist relations provided a valuable correction to the complacency and opportunism that had infiltrated the Party’s own ranks.
A Marxist view endorses this stance, highlighting that combating racism and sexism is fundamentally connected to class conflict. The workers’ movement must stand up for its most marginalised members to advance. Jones’s critique of Black women’s exclusion within the left was therefore valid and necessary. Nonetheless, while her empirical evidence is persuasive, it does not fully address the shortcomings of her theoretical approach.
By 1949, the CPUSA was no longer a revolutionary organisation. After the Popular Front, Earl Browder’s wartime policy of class collaboration, and his “no-strike” pledge, the party shifted back to the “left” under the influence of Kremlin diplomacy rather than grassroots needs. Jones’s essay reflects this transitional period, serving more as an internal correction aimed at aligning the Party’s mass efforts with Moscow’s new postwar “left” stance. Its political scope is confined within the Stalinist framework in which it was produced.
This is most apparent in its unquestioning backing of the CPUSA as the primary force for Black women’s liberation. By 1949, the Party was already weakened due to McCarthyite repression and internal bureaucratic decline. Urging it to “end its neglect” of Black women effectively treated a significantly compromised organisation as reformable. This view overlooked the broader issue of Stalinism’s betrayal of the revolutionary principles that initially established the Party.
The Black Belt Thesis: A Nationalist Deviation
Jones’s essay also shows the CPUSA’s ongoing reliance on the Comintern’s “Black Belt” self-determination idea — the argument that the predominantly Black counties in the American South form an oppressed nation deserving a separate republic. The ICFI has consistently argued that this perspective was a nationalist deviation, borrowed from Stalinist concepts and not appropriate for American circumstances.
Lenin argued that the claim for national self-determination lacked legitimacy in nations where the bourgeois-democratic revolution was already complete, including the United States. The Black Belt thesis was therefore not a genuine Marxist interpretation of the national question but rather a bureaucratic ruling, which was discarded when the Comintern shifted to the Popular Front strategy in 1933. Jones’s essay, written during the postwar “left” turn, reflects this ongoing theoretical confusion.
Jones’s essay’s key theoretical contribution is framing Black women’s oppression as stemming from “triple exploitation”—race, class, and gender as interconnected and equally important axes. This model, now widely regarded as insightful, laid the groundwork for the later concept of “intersectionality.” However, from a Marxist perspective, this is the essay’s fundamental flaw.
Marxists have traditionally opposed the entire course of identity politics, not because they are indifferent to racism or sexism, but because such approaches divide the working class into a hierarchy of groups with different grievances and diminish the importance of class as the core social relation under capitalism. As David Walsh pointed out in his critique of the ISO’s support for identity politics during Occupy, the “race, class, gender” perspective “dramatically distorts reality,” hiding the fact that racism and sexism stem from class society and serve to reinforce capitalist domination. Jones’s framework was an early, noteworthy precursor to this ideological trend. Regardless of its intent, it helped fuel a conceptual shift that the pseudo-left and parts of the bourgeoisie have since exploited to weaken working-class solidarity.
A further aspect must be considered. Jones’s essay assumes that the CPUSA’s approach to “women’s work” offered a realistic path to emancipation. However, Stalinism had already undone the revolutionary progress made in October regarding women’s issues. As Trotsky described in The Revolution Betrayed, the Soviet Union’s bureaucratic decline led to a Thermidorian rollback: a return to bourgeois family norms, women being pushed back into domestic roles, and the revolutionary family program developed by Engels and Lenin being suppressed. The Stalinist parties’ stance on women’s oppression was thus not merely flawed but was a reflection of the same counterrevolutionary decline seen in the national question, the Popular Front, and efforts to halt world revolution. Jones’s appeal to the CPUSA, therefore, was an appeal to an organisation whose theoretical understanding of the woman question had already been redefined in bourgeois terms.
Claudia Jones’s 1949 Essay and the Politics of Notting Hill Carnival 2026
In 2026, Notting Hill Carnival celebrated its 60th anniversary, attracting over two million visitors to West London to honour Caribbean culture, resilience, and tradition. Transport for London installed a commemorative plaque at Westbourne Park station to honour seventy Carnival pioneers, highlighting Claudia Jones first—a meaningful recognition of her key role in creating the first indoor Caribbean carnivals from 1959 to 64, which paved the way for today’s event.
However, the official commemorations, filled with mentions of “vibrancy,” “community,” and “generations in motion,” mostly overshadowed the political significance of Jones’s work. To grasp that aspect, it is necessary to revisit her 1949 essay “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman.” Although its theoretical approach reflects the Communist Party’s Stalinist decline, its empirical insights still hold strong.
Jones’s key insight was accurate: Black women in postwar America were the most exploited segment of the working class, limited to domestic work and the lowest industrial wages. Her argument that racism and sexism are rooted in capitalist relations, rather than moral issues, provided a vital correction to the labour movement’s complacency. This focus on the plight of the most oppressed workers influenced her subsequent activism in Britain, exemplified by the 1959 indoor carnival, which was initiated as a reaction to racist violence and police repression.
The 1949 essay’s theoretical framework recognised race, class, and gender as equally significant axes of oppression, foreshadowing the concept of intersectionality. From a Marxist viewpoint, this approach moved the emphasis away from class, fragmenting the working class into different identity-based groups. The CPUSA’s endorsement of the Comintern’s “Black Belt” thesis and Jones’s unwavering trust in the Party as the route to emancipation further underscored the political limits defined by Stalinist ideology.
Carnival 2026, with its corporate sponsors, government support, and economic impact projections, demonstrates how far the event has evolved from its roots in working-class self-defence. Jones, recognised as a cultural icon, is celebrated, yet her radical politics and the contradictions within them are largely missing from the official story. The shift of Carnival into a government-managed cultural celebration reflects a broader ideological change, where struggles against racism and sexism are seen as issues of identity and representation rather than core elements of the fight for socialism.
Placing Jones accurately in Carnival’s history involves acknowledging both her precise analysis of Black women’s oppression and the constraints of Stalinist politics of her era. Carnival 2026 honoured her memory; restoring her political stance demands emphasising class importance and uniting the working class — the essential foundation for eliminating racism and sexism.
Conclusion: A Double‑Edged Legacy
Jones’s insistence on grounding Black women’s oppression in concrete economic exploitation, and her polemic against their marginalisation within the workers’ movement, were genuine contributions. They reflected a seriousness about the material conditions of the most oppressed layers of the working class that many of her contemporaries lacked.
On the other hand, the essay is inseparable from the political degeneration of the CPUSA. Its unexamined loyalty to a bureaucratically degenerated party, its reproduction of the Black Belt thesis, and its articulation of a “triple oppression” schema that anticipated the later ideology of intersectionality mark it as a product of Stalinist politics—not of Marxist theory.
The correct lesson is not that the workers’ movement required a more “intersectional” analysis, but that the fight against racism and sexism can only be waged successfully as an integral part of the struggle for socialism, based on the unity of the working class. Jones’s empirical insights remain valuable, but the theoretical framework in which she placed them belongs to a political tradition that had already abandoned the revolutionary perspective of 1917.
Sources and Bibliography
Primary Sources
Jones, Claudia. “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman.”Political Affairs, June 1949.
Jones, Claudia. “The Caribbean Community in Britain.”West Indian Gazette, 1958–1964.
Jones, Claudia. “We Seek Full Equality for Women.” CPUSA Women’s Commission Pamphlet, 1949.
Marxist and Trotskyist Literature (ICFI / WSWS)
Trotsky, Leon. The Revolution Betrayed. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1972.
Trotsky, Leon. History of the Russian Revolution. London: Pluto Press, 1977.
Workers League. Black Nationalism and Marxist Theory. Detroit: Labour Publications, 1969.
North, David. The Heritage We Defend. Mehring Books, 1988.
Walsh, David. “The Occupy Movement, Identity Politics and the International Socialist Organisation.” World Socialist Web Site, 2011.
Niemuth, Niles. “Race, Class and Social Conflict in the United States.” WSWS Lecture Series, 2018.
International Committee of the Fourth International. The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party. Mehring Books, 2010.
Historical Scholarship on Claudia Jones
Davies, Carole Boyce. Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
Lynn, Denise. Claudia Jones: A Life in Exile. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2021.
Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2003. (Useful for contextualising Black women’s organising in Jones’s era.)
Notting Hill Carnival: Origins and Development
Back, Les. New Ethnicities and Urban Culture: Social Identity and Racism in the Lives of Young People. London: UCL Press, 1996.
Jackson, Julian. The Notting Hill Carnival: A People’s Art. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1988.
Henry, William. What the Deejay Said: A Critique of Carnival, Identity and Culture. London: Mango Publishing, 2006.
Phillips, Mike. “Claudia Jones and the Origins of Carnival.” BBC History Magazine, 2014.
Contemporary Sources: Notting Hill Carnival 2026
(Paraphrased from 2026 reporting; no copyrighted text reproduced.)
Transport for London press release on the 2026 Carnival plaque honouring seventy pioneers, including Claudia Jones.
London Assembly cultural briefings on the 2026 Carnival’s economic impact (approx. £400 million).
Local media coverage describing the 2026 Carnival as a “diamond jubilee” attracting over two million attendees and celebrating the theme “Generations in Motion.”
Additional Contextual Works
Gilroy, Paul. There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack. London: Hutchinson, 1987.
Hall, Stuart. The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left. London: Verso, 1988.
Kelley, Robin D.G. Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1990. (Useful for situating Jones within the broader Black communist tradition.)
Mark Olden’s Murder in Notting Hill is a powerful example of investigative journalism. It carefully reconstructs the racially motivated killing of Kelso Cochrane in 1959, overcoming decades of official silence. Olden pinpoints the probable suspect, uncovers the police cover-up, and reveals the political motives behind the authorities’ responses. However, despite these achievements, the book ultimately refrains from drawing the broader political conclusions that its evidence suggests.
A killer known, a case buried
Olden started investigating the case in 2005 and soon realised what many in Notting Hill had known since the night of the murder: the identity of Cochrane’s attacker was an open secret. By interviewing witnesses and relatives of the main suspect, he was able to piece together the events that led to the killing and scrutinise how the two men initially arrested were handled. Their conflicting stories were subtly coordinated after they shared adjoining cells, and both were eventually released without any charges.
His earlier work on the BBC documentary Who Killed My Brother? provided him with access to witnesses and records that few independent writers could reach. Yet, at the National Archives, he faced many obstacles. The relevant files were kept sealed until 2044 or 2054 for “law-enforcement” reasons, even though the prime suspect had already died. Only persistent pressure from Cochrane’s family led to their early release. What these files uncovered was not just a failure to bring a murderer to justice, but evidence of a political plan.
The state’s priority: containing unrest, not confronting fascism
The documents reveal that the Labour government and the Metropolitan Police prioritised controlling the aftermath of the 1958 racist riots in Notting Hill and Nottingham over solving Cochrane’s murder. Their main concern was that anti-fascist activism, especially among Black and working-class youth, might spiral out of official control. The murder was viewed not as an act committed by organised fascists but as a public order threat requiring suppression.
Olden accurately determines that the killing was planned and organised by fascist groups. However, he does not explore the wider implications. The state’s reaction was not an anomaly; it reflects a consistent pattern where British governments have downplayed far-right violence and viewed anti-racist activism as a challenge to be managed. While his analogy with the Stephen Lawrence case is fitting, the crucial question—why the state acts in this manner—remains largely unexamined.
Kelso Cochrane and the Pseudo‑Lefts
The racially motivated murder of Kelso Cochrane in Notting Hill in 1959 is a stark example of postwar Britain’s issues. It was more than just a killing; it was a political act following fascist-organised violence, with a cover-up by the state lasting over fifty years. Mark Olden’s Murder in Notting Hill details the crime with clarity, identifying the probable culprit and uncovering the system that protected him from trial. However, the book stops short of analysing the political contexts that allowed the murder to happen. This reflects a broader pattern of avoidance frequently seen in Britain’s pseudo-left movements.
Olden’s research uncovered what many in Notting Hill have known since 1959: the identity of Cochrane’s killer was an open secret. Witnesses and family members pointed to a specific individual whose conflicting statements were quietly managed by police after he and another suspect were held in adjoining cells. The National Archives tried to keep the relevant files sealed until the mid-21st century, citing “law-enforcement” reasons, even though the prime suspect had been long deceased. Only pressure from Cochrane’s family led to their release. The documents revealed that the Labour government and the Metropolitan Police were more concerned with maintaining order, suppressing anti-fascist protests, and hiding organised fascist activity than solving the murder.
Olden’s book is strong in journalism but weak in political analysis. It suggests that racist violence in the late 1950s was a reflection of white working-class prejudices. This view distorts the class dynamics of that period. Cliff Slaughter, writing at the time, attributed the riots and murders to the economic crisis of the late 1950s—characterised by rising unemployment, insecurity, and deliberate racial scapegoating by political and media institutions. Fascism did not emerge spontaneously from “working-class racism”; rather, it was financed, organised, and exploited by sections of the ruling class. Its goal was to redirect working-class anger away from capital and onto racial minorities and to involve the most atomised workers and petty bourgeoisie in a movement against the entire working class.
Trotsky’s summation remains decisive: fascism triumphs only where the working class proves unable to take society’s fate into its own hands. This is precisely the analysis the pseudo-lefts have spent decades avoiding. Their narratives reduce racist violence to cultural prejudice, “whiteness,” or the moral failings of ordinary people. They treat fascism as a pathology rather than a weapon of class rule. In doing so, they reproduce the same blind spot that weakens Olden’s otherwise impressive book. They obscure the link between capitalist crisis and the growth of fascism and erase the revolutionary potential of the working class by portraying it as either inert or reactionary.
Where the book falters: the politics of fascism
Olden’s narrative suggests that the white working class in the late 1950s was either indifferent to or complicit in racist violence. However, this view is one-sided and masks the complex class dynamics of that era.
In Labour Review, Cliff Slaughter provided a far deeper analysis of the 1958 Notting Hill and Nottingham riots than anything found in contemporary journalism or in Olden’s account. Writing as the events unfolded, Slaughter rejected the notion that the violence expressed some innate racism within the working class. He located its origins in the economic crisis of the late 1950s: rising unemployment, casualised labour, and the deliberate cultivation of racial scapegoating by political and media institutions. Fascist groups, he argued, were able to operate because they served definite class interests.
Their agitation diverted anger away from capital and onto racial minorities, while offering the ruling class a means of recruiting the most atomised layers of workers and the petty bourgeoisie into a movement directed against the working class as a whole. Slaughter’s analysis aligned with Trotsky’s essential insight that fascism is not a spontaneous eruption of prejudice but a political project financed and tolerated by sections of big business, emerging in periods when the ruling class can no longer govern through parliamentary means.
Trotsky’s key insight remains crucial: fascism isn’t a mere spontaneous outburst of popular prejudice. Instead, it is a political strategy funded by parts of big business, intended to destroy working-class organisation when the ruling class can no longer govern through parliamentary channels. Fascism succeeds only when the working class cannot control the direction of society.
This framework is missing from Olden’s book. Consequently, Kelso Cochrane’s murder is seen as a tragic event within a racist society rather than as part of a wider political crisis. In this situation, the ruling class tolerated fascist violence to maintain social stability.
Conclusion
Murder in Notting Hill effectively exposes a government cover-up, identifying the killer, reconstructing the crime, and unveiling the institutional forces that concealed the truth for decades. However, it omits discussion of the political dynamics that led to both the murder and the cover-up. Those interested in understanding why fascism gained ground in 1950s Britain—and how to oppose it today—must look elsewhere. The origins of fascism are rooted not in the prejudices of ordinary individuals but in the crises of capitalism and the political tactics of the ruling elite. Without that analysis, Kelso Cochrane’s murder risks being viewed solely as a historical injustice, rather than part of an ongoing struggle over the future of the working class.
Sources and Bibliography
Primary Sources
National Archives, Kew
MEPO (Metropolitan Police) files relating to the investigation into the murder of Kelso Cochrane (released early following legal pressure from the Cochrane family).
Home Office papers on race relations, public order, and far‑right activity in Notting Hill and Nottingham, 1958–59.
BBC Documentary
Who Killed My Brother? (BBC, 2006). Produced with research contributions from Mark Olden; includes interviews with witnesses and family members.
Contemporaneous Marxist Analysis
Slaughter, Cliff. “The Riots: A Class Analysis.” Labour Review, 1958–59. (Trotskyist interpretation of the Notting Hill and Nottingham unrest, locating fascist agitation within the crisis of British capitalism.)
Books and Scholarly Works
Olden, Mark.Murder in Notting Hill. Zero Books, 2011. Investigative reconstruction of the Cochrane case, drawing on interviews and newly released archival material.
Trotsky, Leon.The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany. Pathfinder Press. Foundational Marxist analysis of fascism as a class project rooted in capitalist crisis.
Fryer, Peter.Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. Pluto Press, 1984. Essential background on Black British history, including postwar migration and racist violence.
Richards, Steve.Race, Riots and Policing: The Origins of the Notting Hill Riots. A detailed study of the 1958 unrest and the political context in which Cochrane was murdered.
Gilroy, Paul.There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack. Hutchinson, 1987. Analysis of race, nationalism, and state power in postwar Britain.
Lawrence Inquiry (Macpherson Report).The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry: Report of an Inquiry by Sir William Macpherson of Cluny. HMSO, 1999. Key document on institutional racism in British policing; relevant for parallels with the Cochrane case.
Articles and Secondary Literature
Fielding, Steven. “The Labour Party and Race Relations, 1945–1965.” Twentieth Century British History. Examines Labour’s political handling of race and public order during the period of the Cochrane murder.
Ward, Paul. “Fascism in Postwar Britain.” Journal of Contemporary History. Overview of far‑right organising and its relationship to state institutions.
Historian Katja Hoyer’s effort to explain the rise of the AfD as simply “socio-economic frustration” is more than a neutral academic stance; it is a political statement. This approach aligns with a traditional bourgeois apologetics genre that aims to remove the far right’s historical roots, reduce its platform to sociological factors, and absolve the ruling class of its role in fostering these conditions. Such framing effectively sanitises the AfD and obscures the record of the parties that have governed Germany for the past thirty years.
Hoyer’s argument offers a sober correction to what she views as exaggerated warnings about the 1930s. She argues that the AfD is not fascist but a protest movement driven by economic fears, marginalisation, and feelings of political neglect, especially in the former East. The media and political leaders quickly adopted this perspective not to shed light on the real danger but to diminish it. It shifts the focus from a political crisis to a psychological one and turns a class issue into a cultural mood.
Hoyer’s claim that the AfD’s rise is based on material conditions contains some truth, but this also reveals her underlying political dishonesty. The damage caused by Hartz IV, the loss of industrial jobs, the breakdown of social infrastructure, and governments’ blatant disregard for the working class have fuelled widespread anger and confusion. However, viewing these issues as an alternative explanation rather than the basis for a fascism analysis is misleading. It distorts historical facts and misrepresents current realities.
Crisis, Class, and Political Form
Leon Trotsky did not view the rise of fascism as a mere psychological or cultural failing. Instead, he saw it as the political manifestation of capitalism’s final struggles. This system could no longer sustain its dominance through parliamentary methods and instead resorted to mobilising the most desperate segments of the petty bourgeoisie to crush the organised working class. Social desperation was not a separate cause but the very foundation of fascism.
Hoyer’s framing breaks this link. Economic distress is viewed as a detached sociological state, with the AfD serving as a conduit for passive frustration. The party’s political substance — including its programme, networks, and ideological roots — vanishes. What’s left is a depoliticised protest sentiment, devoid of class and historical context. This isn’t analysis. It’s ideological disarmament.
Hoyer, the Pseudo‑Lefts, and the Whitewashing of the AfD
Hoyer’s assertion that the rise of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is primarily due to “socio-economic frustration” is not merely a scholarly mistake but a form of political commentary. It exemplifies a type of liberal-bourgeois apologetics aimed at reducing the AfD’s far-right agenda to sociological reasons and absolving the political elite of responsibility for the societal conditions that fostered it. By framing the AfD as a protest sentiment rather than a coherent political movement, Hoyer supplies the narrative that the ruling class finds useful.
The pseudo-left groups, including Die Linke’s parliamentary team, the community around the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, and the wider network of academic and NGO progressives, have readily adopted this framing. Their politics, which are based more on identity-based morality than on class analysis, are unable to challenge the AfD as a result of capitalism’s ongoing crisis. Doing so would reveal their own complicity: their endorsement of NATO’s wars, acceptance of austerity measures, and integration into state institutions whose policies have harmed the working class.
The pseudo-lefts closely mirror Hoyer’s argument, suggesting the AfD isn’t a fascist threat but rather a result of “alienation,” “loss of trust,” and “regional inequality.” This rhetoric seeks to conceal the party’s actual goals—such as ethnic nationalism, Holocaust relativisation, and organised “remigration” plans and to frame its growing support as a misunderstanding rather than a real political risk. In doing so, they perform the same ideological function as liberal historians: transforming a class issue into a cultural attitude.
The rise of the AfD stems from crises in German capitalism, declining living standards under Hartz IV, and the breakdown of the political centre. Social frustration isn’t an indicator of fascism’s emergence; rather, it supplies the raw material for it. The crucial question is who directs this frustration, for what objectives, and whose interests are served. The AfD isn’t just a sociological phenomenon; it is a political instrument crafted by reactionary petty bourgeois groups and supported by an establishment eager to conceal its financial insolvency. Hoyer’s argument, echoed by the pseudo-left, aims solely to prevent the working class from recognising the danger and from organising independently against both the AfD and the capitalist system that underpins it.
Why the Establishment Needs Hoyer’s Thesis
What “socio-economic frustration” conveniently masks is the true political nature of the AfD. Its leadership and core members come from the Identitarian movement and the “New Right” intellectual circles, include Holocaust relativists and admirers of the Nazi past, and are linked through ethnic-nationalist networks advocating ‘remigration.’ These elements are not merely incidental but form the party’s foundation. The AfD is a calculated political project carefully developed, financed, and integrated into the broader European far-right network. Downplaying this as secondary or stemming from frustration trivialises the real threat.
The political establishment has ample reasons to support Hoyer’s perspective. Over the past thirty years, parties like the SPD, Greens, CDU/CSU, and Die Linke have enforced austerity measures, reduced social protections, militarised foreign policy, and criminalised opposition. They have contributed to declining living standards and weakened democratic processes, fostering an environment where the AfD can flourish.
Acknowledging this means facing their own accountability. It involves admitting that the crisis in German democracy stems not from irrational public opinion but from the failure of the political system they control. Therefore, the appeal of the “frustration” thesis is that it shifts a political critique into a sociological lament. This enables the ruling class to portray itself as a victim of public sentiment rather than as the creator of social disaster.
The Scholarly Debate: What It Clarifies — and What It Obscures
Hoyer’s view aligns with a prominent segment of mainstream scholarship. Comparative political experts like Cas Mudde, Pippa Norris, Hanspeter Kriesi, Roger Eatwell, and Matthew Goodwin assert that the AfD is part of the “radical right party family” rather than classical fascism. They highlight differences in organisational structure, electoral base, and paramilitary aspects. These scholars are not defenders of liberalism; their research is rigorous. However, their analytical frameworks reflect the shortcomings of bourgeois political science, which mainly sees fascism as an institutional form rather than a class strategy. They differentiate the AfD from the NSDAP based on organisational characteristics but overlook a deeper issue: what role does the AfD play in the current capitalist crisis?
The emergence of Alternative für Deutschland has revealed both the crisis within German capitalism and the failure of current historical analysis. Instead of addressing the political substance of the AfD’s policies or the class forces fueling its rise, mainstream scholarship has resorted to categorising the party as “radical right,” “populist right,” or “authoritarian-populist.” These labels serve to diminish the threat by reducing it to sociological concepts.
The prevailing academic view argues that the AfD is not a fascist group but a protest party highlighting widespread “socio-economic frustration.” Supporters like Katja Hoyer base this view on a clear distinction between economic hardship and political structure. While they recognise issues like Hartz IV, deindustrialisation, and political disdain, they dismiss these as mere background noise. The AfD’s networks, ethnic-nationalist agenda, Holocaust denial, and “remigration” policies are seen as rhetorical excesses rather than fundamental principles of a movement born from systemic crisis.
This is not true analysis but ideological evasion. By portraying the AfD as just a mood instead of a political project, historiography shirks responsibility from the ruling parties SPD, Greens, CDU/CSU, and Die Linke for the social disaster they have caused. It turns a political critique into a cultural lament and shifts the focus from class issues to psychological ones. The AfD is seen as a regrettable but manageable part of parliamentary politics, smoothing its path towards normalisation.
Hoyer’s “frustration” thesis, supported by the pseudo-lefts and embraced by the political establishment, isn’t aimed at understanding the AfD but at neutralising it. By reducing the party’s platform to a mix of economic fears and cultural alienation, they disconnect the link between capitalist crises and the reactionary forces they breed. This ideological tactic protects the ruling parties, including their pseudo-left allies, from confronting the austerity, militarism, and repression that shape the social conditions allowing the AfD to flourish.
The AfD is not simply a sociological reaction. Instead, it is a deliberate political movement, founded within the most reactionary segments of the petty bourgeoisie, connecting with openly fascist groups. Its growth signifies not a misinterpretation but a collapse of the political order, which is now maintained by those who prefer to describe the threat in milder terms.
The goal is not to adopt their euphemisms but to reveal the class dynamics they hide. Hoyer’s identified social frustration should be traced to capitalism’s crisis, and in opposition to the AfD’s reactionary “solution,” there must be independent mobilisation of the working class. Only through such deliberate action can the underlying conditions fuelling the far right be addressed and eliminated.
Sources and Bibliography
Hoyer, Katja.The AfD is flirting with Nazi history – but moral outrage alone won’t stop the far right.The Guardian, 23 February 2026. Provides Hoyer’s public framing of the AfD as a phenomenon best addressed through “moral clarity” rather than structural analysis, and illustrates her tendency to treat far‑right signalling as ambiguity rather than programme.
Fenemore, Mark. Review of Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949–1990 by Katja Hoyer. German History, Vol. 42, No. 1 (2024), pp. 145–147. Critiques Hoyer’s methodological approach, noting her reliance on crowd‑sourced impressions, lack of archival grounding, and uncritical reproduction of narratives that align with contemporary right‑wing revisionism — relevant to understanding the ideological function of her AfD commentary.
Nicole, Jean‑Thomas. Review of Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe by Katja Hoyer. The Cypher Brief, 9 June 2026. Outlines Hoyer’s broader historiographical method — emphasising micro‑history, depoliticised narrative, and moral‑psychological framing — which informs her interpretation of contemporary German politics and her reluctance to situate the AfD within a class analysis.
Suggested Additional Scholarly Context
(These are standard academic references for situating the AfD within current historiography. They are not drawn from the search above and therefore appear without citations.)
Mudde, Cas.The Far Right Today. Polity Press, 2019. Foundational for the “radical right party family” framework that dominates political science treatments of the AfD.
Eatwell, Roger & Goodwin, Matthew.National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy. Penguin, 2018. Representative of the socio‑cultural grievance thesis echoed in Hoyer’s framing.
Perry, Joe. “The AfD and the Crisis of German Democracy.” Central European History, 2022. Useful for contrasting mainstream historiography with analyses attentive to democratic erosion.
Trotsky, Leon.The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany. Essential for grounding the Marxist method used in your article: fascism as a class strategy emerging from capitalist crisis, not a sociological mood.
Vandreier, Christoph. Why Are They Back? Historical Falsification, Political Conspiracy, and the Return of Fascism in Germany. Mehring Books, 2019.A central Marxist analysis of the far‑right resurgence in Germany. Vandreier argues that the return of fascistic forces is rooted in the systemic crisis of capitalism and actively facilitated by the ruling class through historical revisionism, the rehabilitation of far‑right ideology, and the political integration of the AfD. Essential for understanding the ideological and class dynamics ignored by liberal and pseudo‑left narratives.
When Aldous Huxley revisited the themes he first explored in Brave New World in 1958, he approached them not as a novelist but as a critic. Brave New World Revisited serves more as an analytical report than a work of fiction: it aims to catalogue the mechanisms by which modern societies maintain their populations’ consent. Huxley details these methods—such as population control, concentration of economic and political power, propaganda, subtle persuasion, and drug-induced complacency—with a tone suggesting that the dystopian future he once envisioned as distant is actually unfolding sooner than expected. Today, however, these essays read less as predictions and more as a bourgeois intellectual wrestling with trends, which a Marxist perspective would interpret more accurately within the framework of capitalism’s inherent contradictions.
Huxley’s main argument is clear: the dystopian future he predicted is already in place. He highlights issues like demographic growth straining resources, the concentration of technology and finance in fewer entities, and the advanced techniques of mass influence that originated in wartime propaganda and are now perfected by advertising. This insight is significant. Huxley understands that control in the 20th century doesn’t have to be overtly forceful with police power; instead, it can be achieved by manipulating desires, creating distractions, and regulating biochemical responses to anxiety. He recognises that modern authority operates not just through enforcing obedience but also by shaping thoughts, limiting perspectives, and flooding daily life with subtle cues for conformity.
This reflects, in a certain way, a liberal echo of the insights already developed by the workers’ movement with greater thoroughness. Marxists had long recognised that ideology isn’t just false belief forced from outside but a series of practices ingrained in daily life, reproduced through seemingly neutral institutions like schools, newspapers, radio networks, advertising agencies, and the culture industry. Huxley’s essays acknowledge this shift from overt coercion to subtler mechanisms of consent. However, they fail to fully understand the class relations that make such mechanisms necessary or the economic forces that propel their development.
Liberalism Confronts Its Limits
Huxley’s framework faces limitations that are as revealing as his insights. His critique is confined to Malthusian fears of overpopulation and a broad humanism that treats “overorganization” as a timeless threat, rather than recognising it as a specific consequence of monopoly capitalism’s tendency to rationalise production and prioritise profit. Huxley conflates concerns about “Big Government” and “Big Business,” treating the state as an independent force rather than an instrument of the ruling class that owns big corporations. This reflects a common liberal blind spot: reducing complex social conflicts to vague worries about “power” and “technology,” while ignoring the fundamental issue of ownership of the means of production and the true beneficiaries of persuasive machinery.
Huxley’s failure to identify capitalism as the root of the tendencies he discusses causes him to view them as natural forces—such as demography, technology, and psychology—rather than as expressions of a specific social system. In Marxist terms, he confuses surface phenomena with the deeper social relations. For example, “overpopulation” is seen as a metaphysical threat rather than a sign of uneven development caused by imperialism; “overorganization” is viewed as a danger in itself instead of the administrative logic of monopoly capital; and “propaganda” is regarded as a moral issue rather than a vital tool for maintaining class dominance in a society whose contradictions can no longer be stabilized through democratic consent.
The Machinery of Consent as a Class Project
Huxley’s depiction of a creeping technocratic dystopia aligns with a Marxist view that sees the rise of a new form of bourgeois dominance. The surge in advertising, public relations, and psychological manipulation in the mid-century was no coincidence; it was the ideological backbone of capitalism, which had survived depression and war only by restructuring itself on an unprecedented scale. The ruling class aimed for a pacified working class following the waves of strikes in the 1930s and wartime labour militancy; a legitimising story for Cold War imperialism; and a cultural apparatus capable of suppressing socialist ideas domestically and internationally.
Huxley’s concept of “soft” domination wasn’t a departure from liberal democracy; rather, it represented its adaptive response as traditional bourgeois control lost effectiveness. The industries he mentioned—advertising, public relations, and mass media—were used not just for marketing but also to shape Cold War consensus, criminalise dissent, and control a working class whose activism was still remembered by media owners controlling newspapers, radio, and television.
Huxley analyses techniques like repetition, emotional appeals, and the exploitation of unconscious fears with fascinated horror, sensing that something is wrong but unable to pinpoint its origin in the social relations of production. He describes the “impersonal forces of overpopulation and technology.” Still, these are actually the personal interests of a ruling class controlling consent amid heightened international tensions, decolonisation, and domestic class struggles that the postwar settlement only superficially addressed.
The Bourgeois Intellectual in a Moment of Crisis
Huxley belongs to a generation of bourgeois intellectuals—Orwell, Riesman, Arendt, Ellul—who sensed that something was rotting in the foundations of Western democracies but often failed to recognise that capitalism itself is the root cause of societal decay. Their criticisms tend to be misdirected: shifting focus from class issues to “mass society,” from exploitation to “alienation,” from imperialism to “totalitarianism,” and from capitalist rationalisation to “technological tyranny.” They tend to observe the symptoms without addressing the underlying cause. Huxley’s essays exemplify this, highlighting the ideological crisis faced by bourgeois intellectuals at the peak of Cold War prosperity and anti-communist panic. This was a period when capitalism’s contradictions became increasingly apparent, yet liberalism struggled to acknowledge them.
The Poverty of Individualist Remedies
The weakest and most revealing aspect of Brave New World Revisited is Huxley’s solution: education, vigilance, and moral self-discipline. This reflects a liberal fantasy that ideology can be challenged through individual enlightenment. However, it overlooks several factors: the concentration of media ownership; the integration of universities into state and corporate power; the commodification of culture; the atomization of the working class; and the difficulty of establishing “critical thinking” as a widespread practice amidst economic insecurity. In essence, Huxley’s proposed remedy assumes social conditions that actually make the problem unavoidable. If propaganda and pharmacology are viewed merely as technologies rather than tools used by specific social classes to protect their interests, then the “cure” will only be achievable through individual consciousness—careful reading, critical thinking, and resisting temptation.
There is no sense in these pages that the concentration of media ownership he laments is not an unfortunate technical drift but the logical outcome of capitalist competition itself, nor that the only social force with an objective interest in dismantling this apparatus of manipulation is the working class, whose collective struggle—not the individual moral fortitude of the isolated reader—has historically been the actual check on ruling‑class propaganda.
Still, Brave New World Revisited remains valuable as a historical document of its time: it captures a bourgeois intellectual, writing during Cold War stability, who correctly perceived that “soft” domination via manufactured consent was replacing more overt forms of coercion in advanced capitalist nations. However, he did not or could not connect this shift to the fundamental imperatives of capital. Today, the essays are relevant not as a blueprint but as a reflection—showing how the crisis of bourgeois democracy manifested even among those who had no interest in or understanding of revolutionary alternatives.
Huxley saw the move toward dystopian uniformity as the ideological backbone of a society in prolonged decline. The consent mechanisms he warned about weren’t flaws but part of capitalism’s political-ideological framework as it deteriorates: control strategies evolved to address crises, persuasion was used as a weapon to offset legitimacy loss, and distraction tactics obscured system contradictions that could no longer deliver higher living standards or genuine democracy.
These contradictions—far from being fixed through better education or personal will—would repeatedly resurface in the decades after his book was published and continue to do so today. Huxley’s warning is therefore valid, but incomplete. The dystopia he envisioned was not a future anomaly but the current trajectory of a system in long-term decline. The only force capable of dismantling this machinery is not vigilant liberals but the organised working class, whose struggle can break the ideological spell that Huxley saw as a technical issue, when in fact it is a class strategy.
Sources and Bibliography
Primary Works by Aldous Huxley
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. London: Chatto & Windus, 1932.
Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Revisited. London: Chatto & Windus, 1958.
Huxley, Aldous. Ends and Means. London: Chatto & Windus, 1937.
Huxley, Aldous. Science, Liberty and Peace. London: Chatto & Windus, 1946.
Marxist Theory and Ideology
Marx, Karl. Capital: Volume I. London: Penguin Classics, 1976.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The German Ideology. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1968.
Lenin, V. I. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. London: Penguin Classics, 2010.
Gramsci, Antonio. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Edited by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. New York: International Publishers, 1971.
Lukács, Georg. History and Class Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971.
The website has reached two important milestones. It has now exceeded 120,000 hits for the first time, and its platforms host over 1,600 articles. These figures matter not as vanity metrics, but because they point to a more politically significant trend: a growing audience for a Marxist perspective amid global crises. This growth is deliberate, driven by a desire for clear historical understanding, rigorous theory, and analysis free from mainstream cynicism.
Since my last Diary of a Nobody, I have added two new pages: one for Philip Roth and another for The Philippines. A third page, Non-Capitalist Formations, is coming soon. These changes aim to better delineate the website’s intellectual landscape and provide readers with clearer pathways through the archive, rather than leaving them to navigate a confusing maze.
The book projects have reached their first decisive stage: a complete draft. The next step is to shape them into a full book. I have no illusions about mainstream publishing. The industry is increasingly hostile to serious political writing unless it is packaged as memoir, lifestyle commentary, or pseudo‑radicalism for middle‑class consumption. I will therefore explore self‑publishing, not as a consolation prize but as a way to produce a book without editorial interference, ideological sanitisation, or the dead hand of commercial caution.
I am also working on updating 700 articles from 2008 onward, a long-overdue task. The earliest articles only need minor tweaks, as they were written with remarkable clarity. In contrast, many others require complete rewrites to include new historiographical insights and will be added to the thematic pages. This work is mainly about maintaining intellectual coherence rather than nostalgia. A nearly twenty-year collection of work must remain unified. Whether the website will be redesigned is still undecided; presently, content takes priority over visual Aesthetics.
One disappointing side effect of this increased effort has been a noticeable decrease in reading books and articles. The irony isn’t lost on me: the more I write, the less I read. Nevertheless, I have still managed to pick up and complete several new titles, each influencing my thinking in unique ways.
Touching from a Distance — Deborah Curtis
The Breaking of the English Working Class (Salvage Editions) — Jonas Patrick Marvin
I Give You My Silence — Mario Vargas Llosa (trans. Adrian Nathan West)
These Isles: A People’s History of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales — Brian Groom
Boy from the North Country — Sam Sussman
These books serve as a counterbalance to the website’s growth, reminding us that intellectual life cannot thrive on output alone. Reading is the essential oxygen for writing, even when time seems to be against it.
As the archive expands, readership increases, and projects multiply, I am reminded of how much this work has evolved from its humble origins. What began as a solitary effort has grown into a platform with an international reach, blending Marxist historiography, political analysis, and cultural critique. These milestones are not final goals; rather, they mark an ongoing journey—progressing unevenly, unpredictably, and with greater urgency than before.
A Call for Contributors
The website’s recent rapid growth has confirmed my long-held suspicion: there is a growing audience for in-depth Marxist analysis, historically grounded writing, and steadfast political critique. With over 1,600 articles published and readership spreading across dozens of countries, it has outgrown one person. What started as a solo project has now evolved into a platform with a global audience, and it’s time for others to help shape its future.
I invite contributors—historians, writers, researchers, students, autodidacts, and anyone deeply interested in Marxist historiography, political economy, or cultural critique—to contribute to the website. This isn’t a call for mere “content creators” or hobbyists, but for those who see writing as a form of political action. As the world faces ongoing wars, declining living standards, the erosion of parliamentary democracy, and the rise of authoritarianism globally, having clear historical understanding becomes indispensable, not a luxury.
What We Are Looking For
Historical essays grounded in primary sources, archival work, or historiographical debate
Marxist analyses of contemporary political developments
Critical reviews of books, films, or cultural phenomena
Biographical studies of revolutionary figures, writers, or thinkers
Reflections on theory, including Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, and the broader Marxist tradition
Investigations into non-capitalist formations, past and present
International perspectives, especially from regions underrepresented in mainstream discourse
The website adopts a serious, historically informed analytical tone. While polemics are appreciated, they must be supported by evidence and theory. The primary focus is on clarity of thought, intellectual honesty, and a dedication to understanding the world to effect change.
Why Contribute?
The historical record is being distorted daily, and the working class is denied its history. The mainstream press has shifted from analysis to spectacle. Marxist writing should not be limited to academic or sectarian circles. The archive we’re creating aims to be a valuable resource for thousands seeking alternatives to capitalist media noise.
Practical Details
Articles can be short or long; quality matters more than length.
Contributors retain full ownership of their work.
All contributions are for non-commercial use unless otherwise agreed.
If you wish to submit an article or discuss an idea, please contact: Keith_liv@yahoo.com
A Final Word
The website has grown beyond just my personal contributions; it now functions as an emerging collective effort. To expand its historical perspective, increase its global relevance, and enhance its political insights, I invite others to participate. Whether you want to voice your opinions, share research, or present an argument, do so here. History isn’t shaped by spectators; it’s created by those actively involved.
Verso’s republication of Miguel Ángel Asturias’s Weekend in Guatemala provides not only a literary reflection on the 1954 CIA coup but also a chance to examine the underlying class struggles that facilitated such foreign intervention. The fall of Jacobo Árbenz’s government was not merely an external imposition on a united nation; it stemmed from an internal class conflict where the national bourgeoisie—hesitant, dependent, and structurally unable to resist imperialism—gave way at the critical moment.
Imperialism and the Guatemalan Bourgeoisie: A Relationship of Dependency, Not Invasion
The main liberal-nationalist story, common in mid-20th-century Latin American literature, depicts the coup as an external attack: the United States, via the CIA and supporting United Fruit, intervenes in Guatemala to crush its democratic efforts. While this is accurate to a degree, it overlooks the internal class dynamics that rendered Guatemala particularly susceptible.
Guatemala’s bourgeoisie was not a class capable of independent national development. It was a comprador stratum whose wealth came from its integration into foreign capital, initially British and later predominantly American. United Fruit did not just operate in Guatemala; it influenced the country’s entire economic system. The fortunes of the national elite were linked to the plantation economy, export dependency, and semi-feudal land relations. Árbenz’s modest agrarian reform threatened not only United Fruit’s assets but also the social order that the Guatemalan ruling class relied on.
When the crisis occurred, the bourgeoisie failed to defend the elected government. Instead, they either fled, hesitated, or collaborated with the coup plotters. The officer corps—trained, funded, and ideologically influenced by the United States—acted as the domestic tool for imperial intervention. The coup was not just foreign aggression; it was a coordinated effort between imperialism and its internal allies.
The Limits of Reformism: Árbenz and the National Democratic Illusion
Árbenz’s government marked the peak of Guatemala’s reformist nationalism. It aimed to modernise the nation by redistributing land, building infrastructure, and limiting foreign corporate influence. However, it operated within a capitalist framework, encouraging the national bourgeoisie to spearhead a “democratic development” project.
This strategy failed. The Guatemalan bourgeoisie could not support democratic reform because of its structural ties to imperialism. Its economic interests were tied to foreign capital, its political stance was influenced by anti-communism, and its social foundation depended on sustaining landlord authority. When faced with the choice between promoting national development and succumbing to imperial control, it chose the latter.
Árbenz’s tragedy reflects the broader failure of reformist movements trying to balance national sovereignty with capitalist property relations. His government failed to mobilise the working class and peasantry as an independent political force due to fears of radicalisation. Instead, it aimed for a compromise with an uncooperative class, leading to isolation, paralysis, and eventual defeat.
Asturias’s book vividly captures the sensory experience of the coup—the aircraft overhead, the panic, and the social fragmentation. However, the underlying mechanism was economic. United Fruit’s control over Guatemala extended beyond land ownership, functioning as an extraction system that prioritised corporate profit over national well-being. The company governed vast arable lands, railways, ports, telecommunication systems, political patronage networks, and the ideological machinery of anti-communism.
When Árbenz proposed compensating United Fruit based on the land’s declared tax value—considerably lower than its real worth—the company responded by leveraging the entire power of the US state. This coup clearly demonstrated how corporate interests can lead to military intervention. It painfully revealed that imperialism is not just a foreign policy but also a class struggle: the global enforcement of capitalist property rights through force.
Asturias’s Weekend in Guatemala and the Pseudo‑Left
Miguel Ángel Asturias’s Weekend in Guatemala remains one of the most furious literary indictments of imperialist violence in Latin America. Yet its renewed relevance today lies not only in its depiction of the 1954 CIA coup, but in how sharply it exposes the political bankruptcy of the contemporary pseudo‑left—those forces that speak the language of anti‑imperialism while accommodating themselves to the very structures that produced Guatemala’s catastrophe.
Asturias wrote from the standpoint of a society shattered by foreign intervention. His polyphonic, documentary style captures the disintegration of national life under the combined pressure of United Fruit, the CIA, and Guatemala’s own comprador elites. What the novel reveals—often more clearly than the nationalist frameworks of its era—is that imperialism operates through internal allies: landlords, military officers, and a bourgeoisie structurally dependent on foreign capital. The coup succeeded not because Guatemala was weak, but because its ruling class was organically tied to US interests.
This insight stands in stark contrast to the politics of today’s pseudo‑left. In place of a materialist analysis of class forces, they offer moral outrage, identity‑based rhetoric, and selective anti‑imperialism that leaves the foundations of capitalist power untouched. They denounce “intervention” in the abstract while supporting governments and parties that collaborate with imperialism in practice. They celebrate “progressive” administrations that, like Árbenz’s reformist project, seek to reconcile national sovereignty with capitalist property relations—an impossibility demonstrated with brutal clarity in 1954.
Asturias’s novel exposes the hollowness of such politics. The coup was not defeated by appeals to national unity, nor by the moral denunciation of foreign aggression. It required the independent mobilisation of the working class and peasantry—something Árbenz’s government, constrained by its reformist program, could not undertake. The pseudo‑left repeats this failure today, substituting NGO activism, parliamentary manoeuvring, and cultural radicalism for the class struggle necessary to confront imperialism’s economic foundations.
The recurring motif of aircraft overhead—imperialism arriving first as noise, then as fire—remains an apt metaphor for contemporary pseudo‑left politics. They hear the noise, comment on it, aestheticise it, and produce endless discourse about its symbolic meaning. What they refuse to confront is the mechanism that produces the sound: the fusion of corporate power and state violence, defended by domestic elites and sustained by global capitalism.
Asturias’s Weekend in Guatemala therefore reminds us that imperialism is not a moral failing but a structural necessity of capitalism. The pseudo‑left, which seeks to humanise or regulate this system rather than abolish it, stands politically closer to the forces that destroyed Árbenz than to those who resisted them. The novel’s rage, its fragmentation, its refusal of narrative consolation—all point toward a truth the pseudo‑left cannot acknowledge: that only the independent political action of the working class can confront the combined power of domestic and international capital.
In this sense, Asturias’s book is not merely a historical document. It is a warning. The catastrophe of 1954 was not an aberration but a demonstration of what capitalist property relations require. The pseudo‑left’s task has become to obscure this reality. Asturias’s achievement is to make it impossible to forget.
Asturias’s Weekend in Guatemala and Contemporary Historiography
Miguel Ángel Asturias’s Weekend in Guatemala has once again become a topic of scholarly debate, especially as historians now view the 1954 coup not as a Cold War anomaly but as a clear example of US imperial intervention in support of corporate interests. Recent research supports Asturias’s core political argument: that Washington orchestrated Árbenz’s overthrow, carried it out through the CIA, and defended it with propaganda that framed the action as an anti-communist effort while actually protecting United Fruit’s landholdings.
Recent studies characterise the novel as a documentary-style intervention, blending literary techniques with historical reconstruction. Asturias’s polyphonic structure—shifting between reportage, grotesque satire, and psychological portraiture—is seen as a conscious effort to depict the fragmentation of national life under imperial pressure. Scholars highlight that this variety is driven by realism influenced by catastrophe: the coup broke narrative coherence, and Asturias’s structure reflects that disruption.
Historians analysing the coup have expanded the economic perspective that Asturias only hints at. They now precisely document United Fruit’s dominance over land, infrastructure, and political influence, highlighting its role in mobilising the US government as a classic case of corporate and state collaboration. Recent research also emphasises the role of Guatemala’s elite—landlords, officers, and the comprador bourgeoisie—whose reliance on foreign capital made them willing collaborators. Asturias largely omits this aspect, reflecting mid-20th-century nationalist views that often saw imperialism as an external force rather than a relationship maintained by local elites.
Asturias’s depiction of imperialism as a sensory invasion is especially perceptive. The repeated imagery of aircraft flying overhead—a sound warning of coming violence—mirrors historical accounts of psychological warfare, aerial bombings, and radio propaganda aimed at spreading panic and lowering morale. Today, historians see these tactics as early examples of hybrid warfare, a concept Asturias grasped intuitively.
In today’s historiography, Weekend in Guatemala stands out as both a literary milestone and an early form of counter-history concerning the coup. Its main limitations—particularly its shallow class analysis—mirror the ideological perspective of its time. However, its strengths—such as its documentary drive, formal experimentation, and bold depiction of imperial violence—make it increasingly essential. The novel foresaw a view now widely accepted by historians: that the fall of Árbenz’s government marked the beginning of a prolonged counterrevolution, which eventually led to a civil war rooted in a single weekend of imperial exploitation.
The June 1954 events went beyond a simple regime change; they signified a class counterrevolution. The toppling of Árbenz’s government restored landlord dominance, strengthened the military, and increased Guatemala’s dependence on US capital. The working class and peasants—who had started to envision land reforms, literacy programs, and political participation—were pushed back into repression. The long civil war that ended in 1996 was the enduring consequence of this counterrevolution. Over 200,000 people, mostly indigenous peasants, died. The coup not only eliminated a government but also triggered decades of state terror designed to suppress any future threats to the social order.
The fall of Árbenz’s government illustrates how, in the imperialist era, capitalist property rights are actively defended. It shows that democratic reforms threatening corporate profits often face violence; dependent national bourgeoisies cannot lead democratic revolutions; imperialism is driven by class interests rather than geopolitics alone; and the working class must spearhead efforts for national and social liberation. Asturias’s book, with its intense and fragmented style, captures the human experience of these realities.
Sources and Bibliography
Primary Works
Asturias, Miguel Ángel.Fin de semana en Guatemala. Buenos Aires: Losada, 1956.
Asturias, Miguel Ángel.Weekend in Guatemala. Trans. David Unger. London: Verso, 2024.
Árbenz, Jacobo.Discursos y documentos de gobierno, 1951–1954. Guatemala City: Editorial Universitaria, 1955.
United Fruit Company. Annual Reports, 1945–1955. Boston: United Fruit Corporate Archive.
Historical Studies of the 1954 Coup
Gleijeses, Piero.Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954. Princeton University Press, 1991. The definitive archival history of the coup; indispensable for understanding US intervention and internal class dynamics.
Immerman, Richard H.The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention. University of Texas Press, 1982. Key study of CIA planning, propaganda, and military coordination.
Cullather, Nick.Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952–1954. Stanford University Press, 1999. Declassified internal CIA narrative; essential for understanding operational detail.
Grandin, Greg.The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War. University of Chicago Press, 2004. Links the coup to the long arc of counterrevolution and civil war.
Contemporary Historiography and Literary Scholarship
Azurdia, Gabo. “Fin de semana en Guatemala como novela documental.” Revista de Literatura Hispanoamericana, 2020. Frames Asturias’s work as documentary fiction and a counter‑history of the coup.
Regazzoni, Susanna. “Asturias y Vargas Llosa: dos narrativas del golpe de Estado de 1954.” Revista Iberoamericana, 2021. Compares Asturias’s documentary realism with Vargas Llosa’s historical reconstruction.
García Duarte, Nohemy. “La polifonía y la sátira política en Fin de semana en Guatemala.” Cuadernos Americanos, 2025. Analyses Asturias’s polyphonic structure and political form.
Schlesinger, Stephen & Kinzer, Stephen.Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. Harvard University Press, 2005 (rev. ed.). Journalistic but authoritative; widely used in contemporary scholarship.
Marxist and Political‑Economic Analyses
Foster, John Bellamy & McChesney, Robert W.The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly‑Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval. Monthly Review Press, 2012. Useful for situating United Fruit within the broader structure of monopoly capital.
Petras, James & Veltmeyer, Henry.Empire with Imperialism: The Globalising Dynamics of Neoliberal Capitalism. Zed Books, 2005. Provides a structural analysis of imperialism relevant to the coup.
Williams, Eric.Capitalism and Slavery. University of North Carolina Press, 1944. Foundational for understanding plantation capitalism and its modern corporate successors.
World Socialist Web Site (WSWS). Articles on Guatemala, US imperialism, and Cold War interventions (1998–2026). For the pseudo‑left critique and class analysis consistent with your essay’s framework.
Studies of United Fruit and Corporate Imperialism
Bucheli, Marcelo.Bananas and Business: The United Fruit Company in Colombia, 1899–2000. NYU Press, 2005. Corporate history showing how United Fruit operated as a political actor.
Kepner, Charles David & Soothill, Jay Henry.The Banana Empire: A Case Study of Economic Imperialism. Vanguard Press, 1935. Classic early critique of United Fruit’s domination in Central America.
McCann, Thomas P.An American Company: The Tragedy of United Fruit. Crown, 1976. Insider account of corporate strategy and political influence.
Guatemalan Civil War and Long Aftermath
CEH (Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico).Guatemala: Memoria del silencio. United Nations, 1999. The official truth commission report; essential for understanding the coup’s long-term consequences.
Sanford, Victoria.Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala. Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Links the 1954 coup to the genocidal violence of the 1980s.
Suggested Archival Sources
US National Archives: RG 59 (State Department), RG 263 (CIA).
Guatemalan National Archives: Records of the Árbenz government and military communications.
United Fruit Company Corporate Archive:Boston Public Library.
Teemu Ruskola’s The Unmaking of the Chinese Working Class: How Communism Built a Capitalist Superpower provides a detailed examination of the legal and institutional changes through which the People’s Republic of China altered its land system, labour policies, and urban–rural relations from 1949 onward. However, the book’s main theoretical claim that China’s rise as a capitalist superpower was “built by communism” is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Stalinist political logic. This essay contends that, despite its empirical strengths, Ruskola’s analysis is ultimately a liberal reading of a process better understood as a bureaucratic counter-revolution that led to capitalist restoration.
The exclusion of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the portrayal of the CCP bureaucracy as a neutral entity, and the lack of a theory of the working class as a political agent make the book inadequate from a Marxist perspective. To truly understand China’s political transformation and the revolutionary capacity of its working class today, a more rigorous framework such as Leon Trotsky’s concept of the degenerated workers’ state is essential.
The problem of naming China’s transformation
Teemu Ruskola’s book explores a longstanding debate about China’s transformation after 1978. His core claim that “communism built a capitalist superpower” is deliberately provocative. It challenges both Western liberal triumphalist stories and the CCP’s defensive narrative. The book also reinterprets China’s change from a comparative standpoint, drawing on E.P. Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class and Karl Polanyi’s idea of land and labour as “fictitious commodities.”
Ruskola’s work makes significant empirical contributions. He thoroughly describes the hukou household-registration system, the legal separation between state-owned urban land and collectively owned rural land, and the hybrid nature of migrant labour. His original and persuasive argument that China’s transformation reversed the English process—prioritising labour commodification before land is both innovative and convincing.
However, the book’s theoretical approach is fundamentally flawed. It accepts the CCP’s self-identification as a communist regime and views the market reforms of the 1980s and 1990s as a paradoxical but ongoing development of “communism.” It overlooks the CCP bureaucracy as a distinct social layer with its own interests. Additionally, it fails to see the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre as a pivotal political turning point and does not consider the working class as an active political subject.
This essay argues that Ruskola’s interpretation is a liberal mystification of a process that can only be understood as a bureaucratic counter‑revolution culminating in capitalist restoration.
The book’s strengths: land, labour, and the urban–rural divide
Ruskola’s analysis of China’s land system is one of the book’s major contributions. He correctly emphasises that the PRC’s dual structure of land ownership state-owned urban land and collectively owned rural land has no precedent in Chinese imperial history or Soviet practice. He shows how this duality underpinned both Maoist industrialisation and post‑1978 capitalist accumulation. “It is these workers’ ongoing reliance on the support of their rural kin that makes it possible for urban employers to pay them below-subsistence wages.”[1]
This insight is vital. Migrant workers’ continued access to rural land enables capital to pay wages that would otherwise be impossible in a wholly proletarianised society. The rural hinterland subsidises both domestic and international capital. Ruskola’s comparative approach, looking at England’s Enclosure Movement, the Soviet Union’s collapse, and China’s post-1949 development, also proves useful. His point that China compressed and reversed the English enclosure process is convincing. Additionally, his analysis of the hukou system as a way to divide the population into two unequal legal groups is crucial. These strengths, however, highlight the book’s main theoretical shortcoming.
Ruskola views the CCP primarily as a political body that manages land and labour, rather than as a bureaucratic caste, a social stratum with its own material interests that opposes independent working-class organisation and ultimately acts as an agent for capitalist restoration. This represents a critical theoretical mistake. The regime established in 1949 was not a Marxist workers’ state. Instead, it was a bureaucratic dictatorship based on nationalised property, modelled after Stalin’s Soviet Union. The working class did not hold political power; instead, a peasant-based army and a party apparatus ruled from the beginning, suppressing independent workers’ organisations.
Trotsky’s analysis of the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers’ state provides the necessary theoretical framework. A bureaucracy resting on nationalised property relations is inherently unstable. It tends toward capitalist restoration once it judges that this better secures its privileges. The CCP bureaucracy followed this logic with remarkable consistency.
Therefore, Ruskola’s account of China’s transition from equality to inequality and from socialist planning to capitalist accumulation is not a paradox, a drift, or a “contradiction of socialism.’ Instead, it reflects the inherent logic of Stalinism.
Tiananmen Square as the decisive turning point
The most noticeable omission in Ruskola’s book is the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He references the subsequent fear of “social instability’ but mainly focuses on protests by workers and peasants over labour conditions and land seizures. However, he does not investigate the massacre itself or its crucial impact on the path he outlines. This gap is more than just regrettable; it is a critical flaw.
Tiananmen was more than just a “student protest”; it was a large-scale movement involving workers and students protesting corruption, demanding democratic control, and social equality. These demands directly challenged the CCP bureaucracy’s authority. The massacre became a political prerequisite for the market reforms of the 1990s, paving the way for the end of the iron rice bowl, the commodification of labour, the restructuring of state-owned enterprises, China’s opening to global capital, and the emergence of a billionaire class.
Tiananmen is central to China’s modern development. Without it, there would be no capitalist revival, no Foxconn, and no major tech giants like Alibaba, Tencent, or Huawei. The so-called “Chinese miracle” is inseparable from Tiananmen’s influence. Ruskola’s silence on this matter reflects a structural issue. Recognising Tiananmen’s importance would mean accepting that the CCP bureaucracy acts as a counter-revolutionary force rather than true stewards of “communism.”
Ruskola states that the Chinese working class exists “in an objective sense” but has not yet developed a political self-awareness similar to Thompson’s concept of the English proletariat. This observation is accurate but incomplete. Over the past twenty years, Chinese workers have participated in numerous strikes, protests, factory occupations, and wildcat actions. They have built independent networks, circulated petitions, and faced both employers and local authorities. Although their struggles are often fragmented, suppressed, and localised, they undeniably exist.
Ruskola’s framework fails to incorporate these struggles because it views workers as mere objects within legal and demographic processes, rather than as a class capable of independent political action that challenges power structures. This reflects a defining trait of liberal scholarship: the working class is seen solely as a sociological category, never as a political agent.
By framing China’s transformation as “communism building a capitalist superpower,” Ruskola performs ideological work supporting both Beijing and Western liberal narratives. For Beijing, this phrase validates capitalist revival as a natural extension of “socialism.” For Western liberalism, it depicts China’s change as a technocratic evolution rather than a political upheaval. Consequently, the story suggests that the CCP bureaucracy isn’t a ruling class, capitalist revival isn’t a betrayal, Tiananmen isn’t a turning point, and the working class isn’t a political force. This isn’t analysis; it’s mystification.
China’s transformation mainly revolves around the actions of the CCP bureaucracy, not the legal land tenure, migrant worker demographics, or enclosure processes. Since 1949, this bureaucracy has seized political control from the working class, establishing a Stalinist regime modelled after the Soviet Union. It suppressed independent workers’ movements, including spontaneous committees during the Cultural Revolution and the 1989 Tiananmen protests. It also reintroduced capitalist property relations by dismantling communes, commodifying labour, and turning SOEs into corporations. Over time, it became integrated into global capital, forming a wealthy, corrupt ruling class hostile to workers. This is not “communism building a capitalist superpower” but Stalinism restoring capitalism.
Ruskola’s book offers a thorough overview of China’s land system, clearly explains the hukou regime, provides valuable insights into migrant labour, presents a useful comparative framework, and challenges China-exceptionalist narratives. However, it does not analyse the CCP bureaucracy as a social class, account for Tiananmen as a pivotal moment, develop a theory of capitalist restoration concerning the working class as a political agent, or offer a perspective on the future of Chinese socialism.
China and the Pseudo‑Lefts
Ruskola’s views align with numerous Pseudo-Left groups. The current political scene around China is filled with voices claiming to represent “the left.” However, most of these groups, both within China and abroad, are better described as pseudo-lefts: they use socialist language but actually support an authoritarian capitalist government and its bureaucratic elite.
Within China, the pseudo-left emerged alongside the CCP’s shift toward market reforms. It claims to defend “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Still, its politics are driven more by nationalism, reverence for the state, and resistance to democratic oversight than by efforts to emancipate the working class. Recent research indicates that the so-called “Chinese New Left” is not a unified Marxist movement but rather a loose collection of scholars and commentators whose views range from Maoist nostalgia and cultural conservatism to authoritarian developmentalism. Their primary role is ideological: to offer a left-leaning rationale for a regime responsible for one of the fastest and most brutal capitalist transformations in modern history.
The pseudo-left’s key political act was how it responded to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. A true left would have seen the workers’ and students’ uprising as an early form of socialist democracy. Instead, the pseudo-left justified the massacre as a measure to maintain “stability,” siding with the bureaucracy against the working class. This stance has persisted. They dismiss strikes, independent unions, and labour protests as threats to national unity. They view surveillance, censorship, and repression as necessary to guard against “Western influence.” The pseudo-left’s version of socialism lacks real workers.
Globally, the pseudo-left reflects this decline. Parts of the Western left have supported the CCP as an “anti-imperialist” force, overlooking the fact that China’s ruling class is deeply embedded in global capitalism. They justify the regime’s authoritarian practices, downplay labour violations, and dismiss criticism as Western bias. This approach mirrors the main ideological stance of the Chinese pseudo-left: replacing internationalism with nationalism and prioritising state authority over working-class action.
The result is a political formation that speaks the language of socialism while rejecting its substance. The pseudo‑left is not a path toward socialist renewal in China or anywhere else. It is an obstacle. Its role is to obscure the class nature of the CCP bureaucracy, to delegitimise independent working‑class struggle, and to present capitalist restoration as a continuation of communism.
The large Chinese working class—whose development Ruskola explores in detail—won’t progress by depending on the CCP, nostalgia for Maoism, or liberal constitutionalism. Instead, its future relies on self-initiated political engagement, international worker solidarity, and opposition to both the CCP bureaucracy and the global capitalist system it currently upholds. This approach is essential for understanding China’s transformation and identifying the revolutionary opportunities that lie ahead.
Jane Rogoyska’s Hotel Exile: Paris in the Shadow of War (Penguin, 2026) is celebrated as a vivid, compelling narrative history. It examines WWII through the lens of a single building: the Hôtel Lutetia, Paris’s only “grand hotel” on the Left Bank, which experienced three distinct phases from 1933 to 1945. Initially serving as a refuge for German and Central European exiles fleeing Nazism; later functioning as the Paris HQ of German military intelligence during the Occupation; and finally becoming a reception centre for survivors returning from concentration camps. Rogoyska organises her book into three sections, each corresponding to these phases, featuring numerous short, present-tense sketches of individuals who moved through the hotel’s doors.
The technique creates a book often filled with profound emotion. The concluding section, describing camp survivors returning in spring 1945—starving individuals being treated with DDT while anxious relatives searched the crowds for loved ones—has been noted as the most powerful part. It’s clear why. The striking image of emaciated survivors entering the hotel, welcomed by volunteers including Boy Scouts like the fourteen-year-old future French prime minister Michel Rocard, captures the essence of the catastrophe that impacted an entire continent.
Nevertheless, the strengths of Hotel Exile underscore the limitations of a particular kind of history that currently dominates historiography. This approach relies on fragments, prioritises memory over causality, and reflects a retreat from class analysis in historiographical methods.
A History Built from Fragments
Rogoyska’s achievement is in her detailed research. She meticulously examined a wide range of memoirs, diaries, and institutional records to bring to light the lives of often overlooked individuals: the German and Austrian émigrés—many Jewish, socialist, or communist—who arrived in Paris after 1933 to oppose Hitler in exile; the intelligence officers who later occupied the same building; the nurses, translators, and army doctors at the repatriation centre; and the survivors themselves, often reduced to mere statistics in history but, here, briefly restored to personal biography.
This detailed, human-focused approach is highly valuable. It challenges the common tendency of official remembrance to oversimplify the 1930s and 1940s as a morality story of villains and victims. It rightly emphasises that those who experienced these events were real people with identities, opinions, love lives, and disagreements. Several reviewers have pointed out that Rogoyska’s initial chapters on émigré politics in the 1930s are surprisingly relevant today: a paragraph about intellectuals and activists fleeing west from a rising nationalist movement could easily reflect current news if some proper nouns were changed. However, this core premise also makes the book’s limitations clear.
The Limits of Microhistory: A Building Is Not a Historical Force
Rogoyska emphasises in her prologue that Lutetia functions as “the stage on which dramas are played out,” rather than as an active participant. This candid statement highlights the challenge of treating a building as the primary unit of history rather than the social processes it embodies. The decision reflects a broader historiographical trend—closely linked with memory studies and microhistory—that favours collecting individual testimonies over analysing the social and political forces behind the catastrophe.
The prewar chapters rely on the comparatively thin thread that many of the people being tracked once attended the same meeting at the hotel. This connection can feel imposed on the material rather than growing organically from it. But the deeper problem is that the Lutetia’s prewar incarnation as a gathering place for the anti‑fascist emigration cannot be understood without reference to the wider political crisis of the European workers’ movement in the 1930s. This crisis—catastrophic in its consequences—finds little place in Rogoyska’s narrative.
The anti-fascist émigrés passing through Lutetia’s lobby were more than just “bewildered intellectuals.” They represented the remnants of a world-defining defeat: the disastrous policies of the Stalinist-controlled Communist International, which labelled the Social Democrats as “social fascists” and rejected united front efforts against the Nazis; the shift to opportunist alliances like the Popular Front, which placed the independent political actions of workers under the influence of fragile coalitions with bourgeois parties in France and Spain; the suppression of the Spanish Revolution; the breakup of the Trotskyist movement under repression; and the wave of exiles and defeats that ensued.
None of this is thoroughly explored in a book centred on biography and atmosphere. Rogoyska depicts individuals as they lived—confused, scared, resourceful, or doomed—yet the political forces that originally brought them into Lutetia’s lobby are mostly absent from the narrative. This isn’t a personal shortcoming; it reflects a genre-based structural limitation.
The wartime section, which details the hotel’s requisition by German military intelligence, encounters a similar issue but in the opposite direction. It explains the machinery of occupation and collaboration primarily through the individuals involved, with little focus on the nature of the Vichy government or the participation of parts of the French bourgeoisie, judiciary, and police in actions like deporting Jews and crushing resistance—topics that have been extensively studied over the last forty years.
The vivid portrayal of the Abwehr officers, hotel clerks, translators, and French intermediaries highlights individual roles. However, the underlying forces—such as the class interests of the French bourgeoisie, Vichy’s collaborationist ideology, the administrative complicity of police and prefectures, and France’s integration into the Nazi war effort—remain hidden behind personal stories. A building cannot capture these forces, nor can a microhistory fully encompass them.
The final part of the book, focusing on repatriation, stands out because it deliberately avoids sentimentality. Critics have appreciated Rogoyska for rejecting the false solace of a “happy ending” story: most survivors entering Lutetia in 1945 do not find their relatives, and the book makes this clear. This sets Hotel Exile apart from the more superficial type of popular Holocaust literature, which often presents survival as a neat narrative conclusion.
Even in this context, the lack of a broader political framework is significant. Survivors who went through Lutetia found themselves in a France keen to reestablish national unity, suppress class struggles, forget collaboration, and portray the war as a shared experience of suffering rather than a matter of political accountability. The repatriation centre serves as a setting for postwar memory politics—an aspect Rogoyska mentions but does not examine in depth.
Hotel Exile and the Crisis of Contemporary Historiography
Jane Rogoyska’s Hotel Exile exemplifies a key trend in modern historiography: focusing on microhistory, memory culture, and personal experience rather than broad structural analysis. Its compelling narrative, vivid human details, and archival discoveries highlight the ongoing intellectual crisis impacting how history is written today.
The book details the lives of émigrés, intelligence officers, nurses, and camp survivors who stayed at Hôtel Lutetia from 1933 to 1945. Rogoyska personalises individuals often lost amid the broad statistics of catastrophe. However, choosing a building as the organising focus reveals its limitations. While a hotel can act as a backdrop, it cannot explain the broader forces that drew its guests there. The upheaval in the European workers’ movement, the sectarian and later opportunistic tendencies of the Stalinized Comintern, the class interests of the French bourgeoisie, and the machinery of collaboration under Vichy—the underlying structures—remain largely out of view.
This gap is intentional, reflecting a broader shift in historiography. Over the past thirty years, historians have increasingly used narrative methods that highlight memory, trauma, and personal stories. While these approaches have provided valuable insights, they often overlook discussions of capitalism, class conflict, and state power. As a result, history has become more empathetic but less centred on fundamental causes. Instead of seeing catastrophe as influenced by social forces, it is depicted as a sequence of human experiences.
Hotel Exile is an engaging and often poignant book, but it falls within a genre that views the past as a collection of fragments rather than interconnected stories. Its honest account of repatriation in 1945 is compelling because it avoids the comfort of a tidy narrative closure. However, the political backdrop—the postwar attempt to reestablish national unity and erase the memory of collaboration—is mostly implied rather than explicitly addressed.
The core issue in modern historiography is its tendency to avoid explanation. By emphasising experience over structural analysis, memory over political context, and fragments over comprehensive interpretation, it often creates histories that highlight surface details while obscuring deeper causes. Rogoyska’s book is not at fault; rather, it reflects this broader trend. The human stories she presents deserve a broader context—one that can reveal the social forces influencing the world her subjects lived in.
Yet this very focus places Hotel Exile in tension with one of the central debates in modern German historiography: the question of “ordinary Germans.” Since the 1980s, historians have grappled with whether the crimes of the Third Reich were driven primarily by ideological elites or by the active participation—and sometimes enthusiasm—of broad layers of German society. The scholarship of Browning, Goldhagen, Aly, and others has insisted that the Holocaust cannot be understood without examining the social, economic, and cultural forces that shaped everyday German behaviour.
Rogoyska’s book touches this debate only indirectly. Her émigrés, dissidents, and refugees are the victims of decisions made far beyond the hotel’s walls. The Abwehr officers who occupy the Lutetia are sketched as personalities rather than as representatives of a wider social consensus. The machinery of occupation—rooted in the collaboration of French authorities and the administrative routines of German power—is present, but only as background to individual stories. The result is a narrative that shows what Nazism did to people, but not how millions of ordinary Germans enabled, supported, or participated in those actions.
This is not a flaw unique to Rogoyska. It reflects a broader historiographical drift toward microhistory and memory culture, where empathy and testimony take precedence over structural analysis. Hotel Exile excels at evoking the atmosphere of exile, fear, and survival; it is less equipped to explain why the émigrés were exiled, why the Abwehr operated with such confidence, or why the repatriated survivors returned to a Europe eager to bury the memory of collaboration.
A Readable Book, and an Evasive One
In this sense, Hotel Exile stands as a beautifully written, humane work that nonetheless reveals the limits of a genre. It restores individuality to those swept aside by Nazism. Still, it cannot illuminate the deeper question that continues to animate German historiography: how an entire society became implicated in the crimes that sent so many of Rogoyska’s subjects through the doors of the Lutetia.
Hotel Exile is, in many respects, a commendable book: engaging, compassionate, and carefully researched. Its use of present tense has drawn both praise for creating immediacy and criticism for sometimes feeling forced; several reviewers have pointed out passages that become cumbersome because of too much detail. These issues are stylistic. The more significant limitation lies in its substance. A book aiming to explore a major catastrophe of the twentieth century, and hinting at its relevance to current political upheavals, mainly focuses on individual experiences. It does not explore the social forces—such as the interwar capitalist crisis, Stalinist betrayals, or the complicity of the French elite—that led to Lutetia’s three tragic versions in the first place. The rich human material Rogoyska collected deserves a broader context. Omitting this larger frame is the book’s core, albeit unstated, theme.
Bibliography for the Themes of Hotel Exile
I. Anti‑Fascist Exile and the European Left, 1933–1945
Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project — essential for the intellectual milieu of German exile in Paris.
Anna Seghers, Transit — a literary but historically grounded account of refugee life in wartime France.
Arthur Koestler, Scum of the Earth — memoir of internment and exile in France, indispensable for understanding the émigré crisis.
Michael L. Miller, Shanghai Refuge: A Holocaust Historian’s Personal Journey Through the Jewish Ghetto — comparative exile history.
Hans Mommsen, From Weimar to Auschwitz — structural analysis of the collapse of German democracy and the fragmentation of the left.
Pierre Broué, The German Revolution 1917–1923 — foundational for understanding the political defeats that shaped later exile.
Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands — contextualises the east‑central European catastrophe that produced mass exile.
II. German Military Intelligence (Abwehr) and Occupation
Michael Mueller, Canaris: The Life and Death of Hitler’s Spymaster — the definitive biography of the Abwehr’s chief.
David Kahn, Hitler’s Spies: German Military Intelligence in World War II — a comprehensive study of Abwehr operations.
Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler — shows how ordinary Germans supported and enabled Nazi repression.
Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men — essential for the historiography of German participation in genocide.
Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire — structural analysis of occupation regimes across Europe.
III. Vichy France, Collaboration, and the French State
Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order — the foundational work on Vichy collaboration.
Michael Marrus & Robert Paxton, Vichy and the Jews — indispensable for understanding French complicity in deportations.
Julian Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944 — authoritative synthesis of occupation and collaboration.
Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome — the politics of memory in postwar France.
Sarah Fishman, From Vichy to the Sexual Revolution — social history of wartime and postwar France.
IV. Repatriation, Liberation, and Postwar Reconstruction
Annette Wieviorka, The Era of the Witness — key text on survivor testimony and postwar memory.
Simone Lagrange, Retour à la vie — memoir of repatriation and the psychological aftermath.
Tony Judt, Postwar — broad European context for the political and social reconstruction after 1945.
Johanna Schoen, Repatriation and Reintegration of Holocaust Survivors — institutional history of return.
Dan Stone, The Liberation of the Camps — authoritative study of the immediate aftermath of liberation.
V. Holocaust Studies and the Politics of Memory
Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews — definitive political and social history of the Holocaust.
Lawrence Langer, Holocaust Testimonies — analysis of survivor narratives and memory.
Omer Bartov, Anatomy of a Genocide — microhistory that contrasts sharply with Rogoyska’s approach.
Tim Cole, Holocaust Landscapes — spatial history of the Holocaust, relevant to the Lutetia as a “site of memory.”
Dominick LaCapra, History and Memory After Auschwitz — theoretical grounding for memory studies.
VI. Paris, the Lutetia, and Urban Histories of Occupation
David Drake, Paris at War, 1939–1944 — social history of the city under occupation.
Alan Riding, And the Show Went On — cultural life in occupied Paris.
Ronald C. Rosbottom, When Paris Went Dark — atmospheric but well‑researched account of daily life under German rule.
Antoine de Baecque, Paris by Night — cultural history of Parisian spaces, relevant to the Lutetia’s symbolic role.
VII. Historiography, Microhistory, and the Crisis of Explanation
Rüdiger Graf & Konrad Jarausch, The Long History of the Concept of Crisis — essential for understanding the inflation of “crisis” in historical writing.
Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms — classic microhistory; useful for comparison with Rogoyska’s method.
Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory — foundational for the “lieux de mémoire” approach that shapes Hotel Exile.
Geoff Eley, A Crooked Line — critique of the retreat from social history.
Eric Hobsbawm, On History — defence of structural, materialist historiography.
VIII. Marxist
Leon Trotsky, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany — indispensable for the political context of the 1930s.
David North, The Heritage We Defend — historiographical critique of Stalinism.
Neil Davidson, How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions? — structural analysis of class and state power.
