Podcast Episode: The Death of Jason Arday: A Manufactured Scandal and the Class Politics Behind I

August 15, 2026 ~ freerein61 ~ Leave a comment

Pip: A Cambridge professor is celebrated, then destroyed, then dead — and the British press is already turning his death into content. Welcome to A Trumpet of Sedition.

Mara: This episode covers one story, and freerein61 makes the case that it isn't really about one man — it's about how media, class power, and institutional symbolism interact to produce a foreseeable tragedy.

Pip: Let's start with the manufactured scandal itself, and what the post argues was actually driving it.

The Death of Jason Arday: Media, Class, and the Machinery of Destruction

Mara: The post opens with a straightforward claim: Arday's downfall wasn't personal failure. It was structural. The question the piece is asking is whether what happened to him was journalism at all, or something else entirely.

Pip: The post is direct about what that something else was. The setup is the tabloid press recycling the same limited allegations across dozens of outlets, and the conclusion drawn is this: "This was not journalism; it was a political tactic."

Mara: And the stakes follow immediately from that framing. If it's a political tactic, then the resignation that preceded any formal inquiry wasn't a consequence of wrongdoing being proven — it was the tactic working.

Pip: The post is careful to say the plagiarism allegations were serious enough to warrant formal academic investigation. Those processes exist precisely because they're slow and careful. The media didn't wait.

Mara: Cambridge didn't wait either, and the post holds the university directly responsible. It describes a pattern: institutions adopt the symbolism of diversity, then withdraw protection the moment that symbol becomes inconvenient. The phrase used is that the human toll is "paid by the person whose identity is exploited for institutional advantage."

Pip: Which is a fairly precise description of how symbolic politics functions as a shield for the institution rather than a support for the individual.

Mara: The post extends this to the so-called quality press. Broadsheets and public broadcasters aren't let off the hook — their coverage "differed mainly in tone, not substance," repeating the same allegations and the same framing of Arday's downfall as inevitable.

Pip: One unified ideological system with better grammar.

Mara: The psychological dimension gets its own section. Arday's family described years of public abuse, and the post treats that seriously — arguing that prolonged media exposure creates conditions of isolation and collective condemnation that carry direct psychological consequences. The media, it says, is responsible for fostering those conditions.

Pip: And then, after his death, the same outlets ran live updates. The acceleration of the news cycle consuming the person before any process could conclude, and then consuming the death itself.

Mara: The post ties all of this to class structure — a press controlled by a small number of billionaires, serving ruling-class interests by making visibility feel dangerous and dissent feel perilous. The Arday case, in that reading, is less a scandal and more a demonstration.

Pip: The closing argument is that identity politics, as practiced by elite institutions, doesn't address inequality — it rebrands it. And when the symbolic figure stops being useful, the same machinery turns.

Mara: The post ends by arguing that only working-class political action, guided by a socialist program, can challenge the conditions that made this outcome foreseeable. That's where it lands.

Pip: A story about one person that the post insists is about a system — and the argument is hard to dismiss when the system's behavior is this consistent.

Mara: The next episode will tell us whether that argument extends further. The conditions it describes aren't unique to this case.

The Death of Jason Arday: A Manufactured Scandal and the Class Politics Behind It

August 15, 2026 ~ freerein61 ~ Leave a comment

The death of Jason Arday, announced on 14 August 2026, marks a deeply troubling moment in British society. Celebrated as Cambridge University’s youngest Black professor in 2023, Arday was last week removed from his role amid intense media attention over allegations of plagiarism and false claims about his athletic and fundraising history. He was found dead in South London on Friday afternoon. His family links this tragedy to years of public abuse. Regardless of what the coroner concludes, one thing is clear: Arday’s downfall was not due to personal failings, but resulted from a coordinated political and media campaign driven by the class interests of Britain’s ruling elite.

A Manufactured Scandal

The allegations against Arday involved parts of his doctoral thesis—serious enough to trigger formal academic investigations. Such processes tend to be slow, careful, and largely unseen by the public. They lack spectacle, headlines, or opportunities for political manipulation. Instead, the British media orchestrated a public trial over several weeks, recycling the same few claims across many outlets, all vying for clicks and ad revenue. The tabloid press, along with supposedly reputable outlets, turned Arday into a daily target of mockery. Even before any official inquiry started, he was forced to resign. This was not journalism; it was a political tactic.

Cambridge University’s Role

Cambridge University directly bears responsibility for the circumstances that resulted in Arday’s death. For many years, the university showcased his appointment as a sign of its “progressive” change—a symbolic act intended to hide its core role as a training ground for Britain’s ruling class. However, when the media turned hostile, Cambridge failed to defend him, demand due process, or contest the tabloids’ hysteria. Instead, the university let the spectacle unfold, distancing itself from the person it had once promoted. This pattern is all too familiar: elite institutions gladly adopt the symbolism of “diversity” but disregard individuals when their visibility becomes inconvenient, leaving the human toll to be paid by the person whose identity is exploited for institutional advantage.

The Media Pile‑On as a Social Phenomenon

The intense media campaign surrounding Jason Arday in the weeks before his death is a key part of the case, not just an incidental detail. It functions as the main force driving the tragedy. To grasp what happened, we must see the media not merely as individual outlets or journalists but as a social institution deeply linked to the class system of capitalist society. Arday’s destruction was not due to “press excess” or editorial mistakes alone. It was a foreseeable result of a system in which media commercial interests, ruling-class political goals, and the ideological needs of elite institutions interact to create cycles of symbolic glorification and public destruction.

The Tabloid Mode of Production

The British media follows a logic Marxists have long critiqued: turning human beings into commodities. In tabloids — now largely merging with mainstream outlets — the core content is personal scandal, humiliation, and reputation destruction. Their circulation and online ad revenue rely on a steady stream of such stories. The Arday case exemplified this formula by featuring a prominent academic from an elite university, allegations of misconduct, a “fall from grace” narrative, and racialised framing that British tabloids have exploited for decades.

Once the story emerged, the machinery kicked in automatically. All outlets echoed the same limited claims, each presented with a new headline. The content was interchangeable; the goal was not to inform but to attract engagement. This media behaviour was not unusual; it was the standard operation of a profit-oriented system.

The Political Function of Scandal

These scandals serve a political function by providing a spectacle that distracts from Britain’s social crisis, which includes collapsing public services, growing inequality, militarism, and the erosion of democratic rights. The destruction of an individual acts as a surrogate drama, allowing a society in decline to project its anxieties and frustrations. The media’s focus on Arday’s alleged plagiarism — a matter ideally addressed through academic processes — was not driven by concern for scholarly integrity. Instead, it aimed to craft a narrative of moral failure, creating a personal drama for millions to consume. Its political importance lies in shifting attention away from the systemic failures of British capitalism.

The Role of “Respectable” Media

It would be a mistake to blame only the tabloid press for the pile-on. The so-called “quality” outlets—such as broadsheets, public broadcasters, and liberal publications—also participated fully. Their coverage differed mainly in tone, not substance, as they repeated the same allegations, insinuations, and framing of Arday as a figure whose downfall was both inevitable and deserved. This shared approach is notable because it reveals how the media functions as a unified ideological system, despite internal differences. The line between tabloid sensationalism and liberal respectability disappears when attacking someone whose symbolic value has shifted from an asset to a liability. The media’s role is not to investigate but to uphold the ideological limits of acceptable public discussion.

The Psychology of the Pile‑On

The media pile-on is more than just a structural issue; it is deeply psychological. It isolates the target, removes their institutional support, and subjects them to constant public scrutiny. The individual becomes the focus of a collective condemnation ritual, leading to intense psychological strain. Arday’s family stated there were “years of public abuse,” which is not an exaggeration. The media’s coverage was not limited to the weeks before his death; it was part of a longer pattern in which his initial fame turned into vulnerability. Such prolonged exposure has a significant psychological impact, and the media is directly responsible for fostering the conditions that lead individuals to despair.

The Acceleration of the News Cycle

The rapid progression of the Arday story highlights a broader crisis in modern media. The 24-hour news cycle thrives on constant updates, with scandals serving as endless sources. Once Arday resigned, the story swiftly shifted from “investigation” to “collapse.” When he passed away, media outlets that had pursued him relentlessly turned his death into breaking news, featuring live updates and sensational headlines. This acceleration of news is not neutral; it hinders thoughtful reflection, bypasses due process, and consumes individuals before any legal or institutional action can occur. The media’s response after Arday’s death—recycling existing facts, speculating on causes, and exploiting the tragedy as content—was a natural extension of the same logic that ended his career.

The media’s involvement in the Arday case can only be understood within the framework of class dominance. The British press, controlled by a small group of billionaires and corporate giants, serves the ruling elite’s interests. Its role is to influence public perception in ways that uphold the current social hierarchy. Targeting symbolic figures—whether celebrities, academics, or political critics—bolsters the idea that individuals are powerless against the machinery of publicity. This fosters cynicism, resignation, and fear among the public. It sends the message that visibility is dangerous, dissent is perilous, and institutions will not defend those who lose favour. Thus, the Arday case is more than a media scandal; it reflects broader authoritarian trends in modern capitalism.

Identity Politics and the Class Function of Symbolic Elevation

Arday’s academic work is shaped by critical race theory, which has gained prominence in elite universities over the last decade. This ideology, rooted in postmodernism and racial essentialism, aims to incorporate privileged upper-middle-class individuals into the state and corporate sectors based on identity rather than class. Cambridge did not promote Arday because he represented working-class interests; instead, they supported him because his scholarship aligned with the university’s ideological goals—providing a racialized viewpoint that allowed the institution to appear progressive while preserving its class hierarchy. Identity politics does not address inequality; it rebrands it. When the symbolic figure becomes politically inconvenient, the same system that champions him is used to undermine him.Predictably, pseudo-left groups—such as NGOs, academic diversity bureaus, and Labour Party affiliates—have reacted to Arday’s death by calling for more of the same politics that contributed to this tragedy. They claim the lesson is to increase “representation,” expand diversity programs, and adopt more racialised analytical frameworks.

The Arday case exposes a significant contradiction in modern liberal politics. While elite institutions leverage identity to legitimize themselves, they neither genuinely protect nor support those they elevate. Their view on identity is driven by necessity rather than solidarity. The working class must develop its own understanding. Racial oppression exists but is fundamentally linked to capitalism, which generates it. Tackling racism can’t rely on critical race theory’s racial essentialism or mere political symbolism. Instead, it requires a concerted effort by the working class to dismantle the social system that maintains inequality, exploitation, and the destructive media.

Jason Arday’s death is tragic but understandable. It stems from a society that devalues human beings, distorts identities, and sees elite institutions as self-serving. Meanwhile, the media acts as an unchecked source of humiliation and harm. The issue isn’t that universities should treat symbolic figures with more care; rather, the politics surrounding symbolism itself is a trap. It obscures the class realities of capitalist society and exposes individuals to media and institutional abuse. Only the independent actions of the working class, guided by a socialist program, can challenge these conditions and prevent future tragedies.

Scotland, Class and the Crisis of Marxism: The SWP, Neil Davidson, and the National Question, 1999–2014

August 14, 2026 ~ freerein61 ~ Leave a comment

In October 1999, Bookmarks published Scotland: Class and Nation, marking a moment of intellectual assertion within the Scottish section of the Socialist Workers Party. Edited by Chris Bambery, the SWP’s longtime national secretary and a founding member of the International Socialist Group, the collection aimed to influence the debate sparked by devolution and the revival of the Scottish Parliament. It examined whether England had historically oppressed Scotland, whether Scottish society was more progressive than the rest of Britain, and what position socialists should take on the national question as independence moved back onto the political stage.

The book’s key feature is Neil Davidson’s comprehensive essay “Scotland’s Bourgeois Revolution,” which spans pages 37 to 133 and effectively captures the volume’s central argument. Davidson argued that Scotland experienced a true bourgeois revolution, leading to the formation of a nation through capitalist growth rather than innate ethnicity. His thesis, further elaborated in Discovering the Scottish Revolution and Origins of Scottish Nationhood, made a significant impact on Marxist historiography. Davidson would later become a leading Marxist historian of Scottish nationalism.

The book’s political framework — along with the SWP’s evolution — uncovers a deeper issue: the crisis of Marxism in Britain around 2000 and the Cliffite tradition’s failure to uphold a clear stance on the national question. The SWP’s shift from cautious unionism in 1999 to strong support for independence in 2014 reflects centrism: a middle-class organisation’s attempt to adapt to changing political dynamics. This essay examines that trajectory, contrasts it with the Trotskyist position of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), and argues that the debate inaugurated by Scotland: Class and Nation ultimately exposes the gulf between Marxist internationalism and the nationalist drift of the British pseudo‑left.

The SWP in 1999: Cautious Unionism in Marxist Dress

The SWP’s stance on class and nation in Scotland rests on three key assumptions. Firstly, they contend that Scotland is not an oppressed nation. Referencing Lenin’s distinction between oppressor and oppressed nations, the authors argue that Scotland does not fall into the oppressed category. Scotland has played a subordinate yet collaborative role in British imperialism, rather than being a colony. Its working class has not been systematically deprived of national rights, and its bourgeoisie has been absorbed into the British ruling elite. This perspective counters the romantic nationalism promoted by Tom Nairn and parts of the Scottish left, which depict Scotland as a diminished or incomplete nation.

Secondly, the book contends that nationalism is not automatically progressive. It claims Scottish nationalism, even in its civic form, serves as a bourgeois ideology. Although it can unite popular discontent, it fails to resolve capitalism’s inherent contradictions. The SNP is characterised as a party representing the Scottish bourgeoisie, aligned with neoliberal policies, and opposed to working-class interests. Thirdly, maintaining class unity across Britain is essential. The SWP argued that the working class in Scotland, England, and Wales share common interests. The book warns that independence could divide this unity, weaken the labour movement, and bolster nationalism on both sides. While socialists should support the right to self-determination, they should not promote independence. The book’s strategic conclusion is clear: independence is not a socialist goal.

Davidson’s essay laid out the historical framework for his political stance. By showing that Scotland experienced a bourgeois revolution, he challenged ideas that Scotland was a “failed nation” or merely under English rule. His approach was thorough, yet in 1999, he did not advocate for independence. Instead, it strengthened the SWP’s scepticism. However, by the 2014 independence referendum, the SWP changed its stance, releasing pamphlets that supported a “Yes” vote. They argued that independence would weaken the British state, damage the US–UK “special relationship,” and create opportunities for radical politics. This change was significant and driven more by political reasons than by theoretical considerations.

The SNP’s civic-nationalist campaign gained broad support from the middle class and some sections of the working class. Meanwhile, the SWP, already dealing with internal issues, changed its position to support this movement instead of maintaining its prior scepticism. The downfall of the SSP and the British left’s crisis removed an important unifying issue for left-leaning workers. To stay relevant, the SWP joined the independence movement.

The SWP’s own degeneration

The 2013 rape allegations scandal severely damaged the organisation’s credibility. Its move towards independence was part of a wider effort to rebrand itself within Scottish politics. Keir McKechnie, the SWP’s Scottish organiser, acknowledged that Scotland is not an oppressed nation, Scottish workers are not more radical than English workers, and independence would establish a capitalist state similar to others. Despite this, he supported independence. This stance was not rooted in Marxism; it was opportunism.

The ICFI and SEP oppose both unionist and Scottish nationalism by advocating a clear Marxist perspective. They argued that the working class has no reason to form new capitalist states, as independence would create two rival bourgeois governments—Scottish and British—both supporting austerity, NATO, and capitalist interests. They consider dividing workers by nationality to be reactionary, stressing that the main goal should be uniting workers throughout Britain and Europe in a collective struggle against capitalism. Their objective isn’t a “socialist Scotland” but the creation of the United Socialist States of Europe, which involves overthrowing capitalism across the continent. In 2014, the SEP called for a “No” vote, not because they supported the British state, but because they opposed nationalism and the formation of a new capitalist state. This stance was the only Trotskyist viewpoint in the debate.

Neil Davidson’s Trajectory: From Marxist Historian to Nationalist Sympathiser

Neil Davidson (1957–2020) holds a unique position in contemporary Scottish Marxist historiography. A rare blend of meticulous archival research, ambitious theory, and active political involvement characterises his contributions. However, his intellectual journey—moving from strict historical materialism to a form of leftist nationalism—reflects the wider confusion experienced by the British Marxist left during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. To understand Davidson is also to grasp the crisis Marxism faced in Scotland.

Davidson gained prominence in the 1980s and 1990s, when Scotland’s industrial sector was collapsing, and the Labour Party was distancing itself from its traditional working-class base. The decline of miners, shipbuilders, and engineers created a void that brought issues of national identity and constitutional reform to the forefront. His early political views were shaped within the International Socialists/SWP framework. This mattered because the SWP offered a platform for Marxist discussion. Still, its core theories—especially its rejection of Trotsky’s critique of Stalinism and its “state capitalist” theory—limited the development of a fully revolutionary outlook.

Despite joining an organisation that valued rigour, Davidson’s intellectual instincts went beyond its standards. He supported historical materialism, comparative analysis, and the classical Marxist concept of uneven development. His early essays demonstrated themes that would define his later work, including resistance to nationalist myths, focus on class formation, and an examination of Scotland’s role within larger British and global capitalism. His significant breakthrough occurred with the publication of *Discovering the Scottish Revolution, 1692–1746* (2003) and *The Origins of Scottish Nationhood* (2000). These books cemented his reputation as one of the most dedicated Marxist historians of Scotland in his generation.

Davidson’s thesis on the bourgeois revolution contended, countering both nationalist romanticism and certain Marxist orthodoxy, that Scotland experienced a genuine bourgeois revolution. It was neither a direct replication of the English model nor a mere integration into a pre-existing British bourgeoisie. Instead, it was a unique process where capitalist social relations transformed Scottish society, leading to the creation of a modern nation. This stance challenged the prominent view associated with Tom Nairn and parts of the SWP, which argued that Scotland never fully completed a bourgeois revolution, resulting in a “stunted” national consciousness. Davidson’s approach was rooted in historical analysis, theoretically ambitious, and politically provocative. It discredited claims that Scotland was an oppressed nation and offered a materialist perspective on the development of Scottish national identity.

Davidson opposed ethnic and cultural essentialism, arguing that nations are not eternal but shaped by capitalist development. He saw Scotland’s nationhood as emerging from the transformation of feudal relations, the rise of commercial agriculture, and integration into imperial trade networks. This perspective aligns with the classical Marxist tradition, yet it also foreshadowed later conflicts between his historical approach and his political beliefs.

The SWP Years: The Limits of Cliffism

Davidson’s most significant period occurred during his time in the SWP. The party provided a platform, audience, and space for debate, but also imposed certain theoretical boundaries. In his 1999 essay in Scotland: Class and Nation, Davidson outlined his core argument: Scotland was not an oppressed nation, Scottish nationalism was not inherently progressive, and independence was not an essential goal for socialists. Instead, he stressed the importance of working-class unity across Britain. While this position was clearly Marxist, the SWP’s theoretical foundation was somewhat fragile.

Davidson’s historical work was meticulous, yet the SWP’s politics grew more opportunistic over time. The party vacillated between revolutionary language and aligning with middle-class movements. Davidson’s political journey eventually mirrored this contradiction. A key turning point in his political development happened in the decade before the 2014 independence referendum. The SWP’s decline, especially after the 2013 rape allegations scandal, fragmented the organisation. Davidson distanced himself from the party, and the intellectual hub in Scotland shifted towards the nationalist-left circles around the Radical Independence Campaign, Bella Caledonia, and parts of the academic left. The 2014 referendum sparked a wave of civic nationalism, engaging many middle-class and some working-class groups. Davidson increasingly believed that independence could weaken the British state, challenge imperial alliances, and create opportunities for radical politics.

This marked a departure from his 1999 stance. Davidson’s later work aimed to reconcile Marxist internationalism with support for independence. He claimed that dismantling the British state could be a step toward socialist change. However, this argument contains a contradiction: if Scotland is not an oppressed nation, and independence leads to a capitalist state, then the main reason for independence shifts from Marxist ideals to geopolitical concerns. This approach diverges from traditional Marxist views on the national question.

The 2015 debate with Sandy McBurney

Davidson’s discussion with Sandy McBurney in Critique (2015) clarified his evolving stance. He argued for independence as a strategic challenge to the British state, while McBurney held a more conventional Marxist scepticism. The exchange highlighted Davidson’s transition from historical materialism to a type of left-wing nationalism—a change influenced by the referendum politics and the ideological environment of the Scottish left.

Conclusion: Davidson’s Legacy and the Crisis of Marxism

Neil Davidson’s intellectual journey reflects the broader crisis facing Marxism in Britain. His early work remains crucial: rigorous, grounded in materialism, and challenging nationalist myths. His thesis on the bourgeois revolution transformed Scottish history. Yet, his later political shift—supporting independence—mirrors the confusion among the British left caused by neoliberalism, deindustrialisation, and the decline of traditional working-class communities. Consequently, Davidson’s legacy is twofold: he is a significant Marxist historian of Scotland whose work will endure, and a political figure whose later views show the pressures facing contemporary leftist thought.

Scotland: Class and Nation serves as a significant historical record. It documents the SWP during a period when it still aimed to present a Marxist perspective on the national question. Davidson’s essay remains an important contribution to Scottish historiography. However, the book also highlights the weaknesses in the SWP’s political stance. Its 1999 stance was not Trotskyist, and its 2014 shift was not Marxist. Both shifts reflect centrist tendencies—wavering between revolutionary rhetoric and accommodating bourgeois nationalism. The core divide in the debate is not merely between the SWP’s two positions, but between various forms of nationalism and the Fourth International’s internationalist approach.

The Scottish working class will not find liberation through independence or through the defence of the British state. Its emancipation lies in the unity of workers across Britain and Europe, in the struggle for socialism on an international scale. The task remains what it has always been: to build a revolutionary leadership rooted in Marxist internationalism, capable of opposing nationalism in all its forms and advancing the perspective of world socialist revolution.

Sources and Bibliography

I. Neil Davidson: Primary Works

Davidson, Neil. The Origins of Scottish Nationhood. London: Pluto Press, 2000.
Davidson, Neil. Discovering the Scottish Revolution, 1692–1746. London: Pluto Press, 2003.
Davidson, Neil. How Revolutionary Were the Bourgeois Revolutions? Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2012.
Davidson, Neil. “Scotland’s Bourgeois Revolution.” In Scotland: Class and Nation, edited by Chris Bambery. London: Bookmarks, 1999.
Davidson, Neil. “The Necessity of Multiple Responses: A Reply to McBurney.” Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory 43, no. 3 (2015): 345–372.
Davidson, Neil. Nation-States: Consciousness and Competition. London: Pluto Press, 2016.
Davidson, Neil. “Neoliberalism, Nationalism, and the Left.” RS21 (2014).
Davidson, Neil. “The Scottish Independence Referendum: A Marxist Assessment.” International Socialist Journal (2014).

II. Tom Nairn: Primary Works

Nairn, Tom. The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism. London: Verso, 1977; revised edition 1981.
Nairn, Tom. The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy. London: Radius, 1988.
Nairn, Tom. “Scotland and Europe.” New Left Review I/160 (1986): 3–25.
Nairn, Tom. “The Modern Janus.” New Left Review I/94 (1975): 3–29.
Nairn, Tom. “Ukania Revisited.” New Left Review II/1 (2000): 87–104.
Nairn, Tom. Faces of Nationalism: Janus Revisited. London: Verso, 1997.
Nairn, Tom. “The Twilight of the British State.” New Left Review I/101–102 (1976–77).

III. Eric Hobsbawm: Primary Works

Hobsbawm, Eric. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990; revised edition 1992.
Hobsbawm, Eric. The Invention of Tradition. Edited with Terence Ranger. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Hobsbawm, Eric. Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914–1991. London: Michael Joseph, 1994.
Hobsbawm, Eric. “Ethnicity and Nationalism in Europe Today.” Anthropology Today 8, no. 1 (1992): 3–8.
Hobsbawm, Eric. “Identity Politics and the Left.” New Left Review I/217 (1996): 38–47.
Hobsbawm, Eric. Fractured Times: Culture and Society in the Twentieth Century. London: Little, Brown, 2013.

IV. Secondary Literature on Davidson

McBurney, Sandy. “Marxism and the National Question in Scotland: A Critique.” Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory 43, no. 3 (2015): 321–344.
Smith, David. “Neil Davidson and the Scottish Question.” Scottish Labour History 50 (2015): 45–62.
McIlroy, John. “Neil Davidson: Marxist Historian.” Critique 48, no. 1 (2020): 1–12.
McGregor, Alan. “Uneven and Combined Development in Scottish History.” International Socialism 2:100 (2003).

V. Secondary Literature on Nairn

Anderson, Perry. “The Origins of the Present Crisis.” New Left Review I/23 (1964): 26–53.
Anderson, Perry. “The Figures of Descent.” London Review of Books 22, no. 7 (2000): 3–12.
Hearn, Jonathan. Claiming Scotland: National Identity and Liberal Culture. Edinburgh: Polygon, 2000.
Hroch, Miroslav. Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
McCrone, David. Understanding Scotland: The Sociology of a Nation. London: Routledge, 1992.

VI. Secondary Literature on Hobsbawm

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983; revised edition 1991.
Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.
Breuilly, John. Nationalism and the State. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982; revised edition 1993.
Hall, Stuart. “The Question of Cultural Identity.” In Modernity and Its Futures, edited by Hall, Held, and McGrew. Cambridge: Polity, 1992.
Hroch, Miroslav. “From National Movement to the Fully-Formed Nation.” New Left Review I/198 (1993): 3–20.

VII. Works on Marxism and the National Question

Lenin, V. I. The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914).
Lenin, V. I. Critical Remarks on the National Question (1913).
Trotsky, Leon. The History of the Russian Revolution. London: Pluto Press, 1977.
Trotsky, Leon. “The National Question and the Class Struggle.” The Militant (1931).
Luxemburg, Rosa. The National Question and Autonomy (1908–09).
Harman, Chris. The Fire Last Time: 1968 and After. London: Bookmarks, 1988.
Callinicos, Alex. The Revolutionary Road to Socialism. London: Bookmarks, 1983.

VIII. Works on Scotland, Nationalism, and State Formation

Devine, T. M. The Scottish Nation: 1700–2000. London: Penguin, 1999.
Devine, T. M. Independence or Union: Scotland’s Past and Scotland’s Future. London: Penguin, 2016.
Morton, Graeme. Unionist Nationalism: Governing Urban Scotland, 1830–1860. East Linton: Tuckwell Press, 1999.
Pittock, Murray. Scottish Nationality. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001.
Kidd, Colin. Union and Unionisms: Political Thought in Scotland, 1500–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

IX. Works on the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum

Hassan, Gerry, and James Mitchell, eds. The Scottish Independence Referendum: Politics and the Media. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.
Paterson, Lindsay. “The Referendum and the Future of Scottish Politics.” Scottish Affairs 23, no. 4 (2014): 421–431.
Keating, Michael. The Independence of Scotland: Self-Government and the Shifting Politics of Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
McEwen, Nicola. “Scotland’s Choice: The Referendum and Its Aftermath.” Political Quarterly 85, no. 1 (2014): 50–56.

X. Works on the SWP, British Left, and Pseudo-Left Politics

Birchall, Ian. The British Trotskyist Movement: A History. London: Haymarket, 2011.
Callinicos, Alex. Trotskyism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990.
Cliff, Tony. State Capitalism in Russia. London: Pluto Press, 1974.
German, Lindsey. A Question of Class. London: Bookmarks, 1996.
Sewell, Rob. In the Cause of Labour: A History of British Trade Unionism. London: Wellred, 2010.
World Socialist Web Site (WSWS). Various articles on the SWP and Scottish independence (2013–2014).

Tom Nairn, Nationalism, and the So-Called Crisis of Marxism

August 14, 2026 ~ freerein61 ~ Leave a comment

Tom Nairn’s The Break-up of Britain is among the most intellectually ambitious works produced by the New Left Review milieu. It also clearly illustrates the political and theoretical deadlock the British left faced after the war. The book remains compelling not because its predictions were accurate—which they repeatedly were not—but because it captures a deep sense of disorientation: the decline of revolutionary Marxism as a practical force, the move of intellectuals into academia, and the search for new political avenues through nationalism.

This critique does not aim to dismiss Nairn’s work but instead seeks to place it within its historical and political context. It also aims to reveal the theoretical reversals that turned nationalism from a bourgeois ideology into a stand-in for class politics. Nairn’s well-known assertion that nationalism is “Janus-faced — simultaneously progressive… and regressive” is not a groundbreaking insight but a way to avoid deeper engagement. It functions as a conceptual cover for a political setback.

The Nairn–Anderson Thesis and the Myth of the “Incomplete Bourgeois Revolution”

The Nairn–Anderson thesis starts with a straightforward idea: Britain’s bourgeois revolution was “premature and incomplete,” leading to an outdated state setup — monarchy, Lords, and the established Church — that persisted into modern times and hindered capitalist growth. Nairn’s later term, Ukania, illustrated this idea of a refined yet backward state “cloaked in antique attire.” However, satire is not analysis. The British state was not a relic; it was the most powerful agent of capitalist expansion in history. “The monarchy, the House of Lords, and the established Church were not feudal relics holding back capitalist development — they were the specific institutional forms through which British capitalism achieved global dominance.”

The English Revolution of the 1640s and the settlement of 1688 were not merely ‘incomplete” bourgeois revolutions. Instead, they represented the political mechanisms through which a rising bourgeoisie reinforced its authority in partnership with a landowning class already realigned around capitalist farming. Britain’s rise in industry, empire, and global dominance was achieved not despite these institutions but because of them. Nairn’s argument, therefore, misunderstands the nature of the British state. The crisis it faced in the 1960s–70s was not a delayed consequence of 1688, but a result of Britain’s declining global position — a crisis of capitalism, not merely of outdated constitutional traditions.

Nationalism and the New Left’s Theoretical Vacuum

Nairn’s second major assertion — that classical Marxism lacked a comprehensive theory of nationalism — is equally unsubstantiated. Marxism has always viewed nationalism as a historically shaped bourgeois ideology. Lenin’s discussions on the national question, Trotsky’s insights on the Balkans and colonial regions, and even Stalin’s early work under Lenin’s guidance form an extensive theoretical foundation. The Marxist stance is straightforward: nationalism can only be progressive under specific, historically determined circumstances (such as unifying national markets against feudal division or rallying colonial peoples against imperialism). Its natural tendency is to place the working class under the control of “its own” bourgeoisie. Marxists’ role is to reveal nationalism’s class nature and promote workers’ international solidarity. Nairn’s assertion that nationalism is “Janus-faced” — both progressive and regressive — elevates a historically contingent phenomenon to a fundamental characteristic of capitalism.

This isn’t a deepening of Marxism but a step back from it. It permits nationalism to be seen as a valid political tool rather than an obstacle to working-class unity. For the New Left Review circle, nationalism’s appeal was more existential than theoretical. With no revolutionary party in sight, nationalism provided a movement where the working class seemed passive, a sense of identity amid fragmented class consciousness, and drama in a politics that had become overly technical. In this way, nationalism served as a romantic alternative to revolutionary politics.

Nairn’s most significant theoretical contribution is his adoption of bourgeois sociology—such as Gellner and Hechter’s concept of “internal colonialism”—to show that nationalism emerges in response to uneven development. In this framework, peripheral regions rally “the people” through nationalism, which serves as their only form of resistance. Consequently, nationalism becomes the primary political expression of developmental inequality, while class struggle is relegated to a secondary role. This approach reverses the traditional Marxist view of the relationship between base and superstructure: for Marxists, uneven development leads to class contradictions, with nationalism as an ideological response. For Nairn, uneven development creates national contradictions, and national mobilisation replaces class struggle.

This inversion underpins Nairn’s backing of Scottish nationalism. When nationalism is viewed as inherently progressive, its class implications are overlooked. The bourgeois nature of the SNP, its support for NATO, and its austerity policies all fade into the background as part of the broader idea of “national development.”

The Break‑Up Thesis and the Real Nature of Scottish Nationalism

Nairn’s prediction of Britain’s breakup during the 1970s crisis proved premature. The 1979 devolution referendums failed to cause fragmentation, and when devolution eventually happened in 1997–99, it was a top-down, managed reform, contrary to Nairn’s thesis that such change was impossible. The core issue, however, is political: the SNP is not a movement of popular resistance but a bourgeois party advocating austerity, NATO militarism, corporate tax competition, and the transformation of Scotland into a competitive platform for global capitalism.

During the 2014 referendum, the SEP argued that “The SNP’s real aim was to transform Scotland into a low-tax, cheap-labour hub for the benefit of banks and transnational corporations.” Scotland is not an oppressed nation and was not colonised. The Scottish bourgeoisie fully engaged in British imperialism. Scottish workers face oppression as workers, not as Scots. The 1707 Act of Union set the stage for “the first industrial working class in the world,” and since then, workers throughout Britain have fought together in major struggles. Nairn’s “internal colonialism” theory falls apart upon scrutiny. It’s a political fiction meant to make nationalism appear progressive.

The Pseudo‑Left and English Nationalism

English nationalism is the most dangerous culmination of the pseudo-left’s political decline. For years, they idealised Scottish and Welsh nationalism as “progressive,” “anti-imperial,” or “Janus-faced.” However, the logic of nationalism extends beyond Hadrian’s Wall. When class politics give way to territorial grievances, England itself transforms into a “nation” waiting to be rediscovered, reimagined, and ultimately exploited. The pseudo-left didn’t create English nationalism but fostered its development. They started by claiming Britain was an “incomplete nation,” a constitutional relic with outdated institutions blocking progress. They adopted Tom Nairn’s view that nationalism is a structural response to uneven development. They promoted the myth that Scotland and Wales were “internal colonies,” oppressed by an English-dominated state. They encouraged workers to see themselves as Scots, Welsh, or Irish first, rather than as workers. But nationalism isn’t a scalpel; it’s a virus that spreads uncontrollably once unleashed.

The pseudo-lefts now face the monster they contributed to creating: English nationalism as a political force. They cannot counter it because they share its core assumption—that the nation, rather than the working class, is the key political unit. English nationalism is not a revolt of the oppressed but the ideological stance of a bourgeoisie aiming to reshape the state for its own benefit. It claims to offer “sovereignty” while enforcing austerity, “control” while increasing exploitation. It talks about “the people” but serves capital, exemplifying nationalism as a tool to bind workers to their ruling class. The pseudo-lefts are unable to oppose this because they helped develop it — replacing internationalism with localism, class politics with cultural grievances, Marxism with academic radicalism. They embraced regionalism, community politics, and “progressive patriotism,” even flirting with English identity as a form of resistance. In doing so, they legitimised the very categories that English nationalism now exploits.

The disintegration of Britain goes beyond just a constitutional crisis; it reflects the ideological collapse of the left. The pseudo-lefts have split workers along national lines at a time when capitalism calls for their solidarity. They have made nationalism the default mode of dissent, ceding political ground to the bourgeoisie. English nationalism isn’t the solution; it’s a symptom of Britain’s deeper crisis. The pseudo-lefts, having forsaken the working class for nationalist causes, are partly responsible for this rise. The working class has no nation; its future depends on fighting for socialism both across Britain and globally. While pseudo-lefts promote nationalism, Marxism stands for liberation.

The New Left Review Project in Historical Perspective

Nairn’s work is deeply connected to the wider history of the New Left Review (NLR). The NLR represented a form of academic Marxism that emphasised theoretical innovation rather than revolutionary action. Its emphasis on nationalism, Western Marxism, and structuralist sociology indicated a political shift away from the aim of a global socialist revolution. In the postwar era, the working class’s crisis largely stemmed from leadership failures—driven by betrayals from Stalinism, social democracy, and trade union bureaucracy—rather than a collapse of Marxist theory itself. Consequently, the NLR distanced itself from revolutionary parties and focused on developing new theoretical frameworks. Nairn’s emphasis on nationalism illustrates this strategic retreat.

History demonstrates that seeking national self-determination as an ultimate goal has led to conflicts such as the Balkan wars of the 1990s, instances of ethnic cleansing, NATO military interventions, and the rise of impoverished micro-states. Pseudo-left organisations that supported Scottish independence in 2014 later endorsed NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine, aligning with fascist groups under the pretext of “self-determination.” When international working-class solidarity breaks down, nationalism often becomes a stepping stone to imperialism.

Conclusion: Marxism Against Nationalism

Tom Nairn’s The Break-up of Britain remains a significant account of an intellectual crisis. It is sincere, insightful, and highly indicative of underlying issues. However, its theoretical framework fails at a crucial point: nationalism cannot support the working class. It functions as a bourgeois ideology with a dual nature that consistently favours capital. The working class does not belong to any nation. Its liberation depends on defeating capitalism worldwide, not on expanding borders. The crisis of the British state—and any nation-state—can only be addressed through efforts to establish a workers’ government and a united Socialist Europe. Nairn’s book is important and worth reading. Nevertheless, it must be approached critically, as a snapshot of how parts of the left turned away from Marxism toward nationalism. This ideology has historically divided and weakened the working class.

Sources and Bibliography

Primary Works by Tom Nairn

Nairn, Tom. The Break‑up of Britain: Crisis and Neo‑Nationalism. London: Verso, 1977.
Nairn, Tom. After Britain: New Labour and the Return of Scotland. London: Granta, 2000.
Nairn, Tom. “The Modern Janus.” New Left Review 94 (1975).
Nairn, Tom. “Scotland and Europe.” New Left Review 160 (1986).

The Nairn–Anderson Thesis

Anderson, Perry. “Origins of the Present Crisis.” New Left Review 23 (1964).
Anderson, Perry. Arguments Within English Marxism. London: Verso, 1980.
Anderson, Perry. English Questions. London: Verso, 1992.

Marxist Theory of the National Question

Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich. The Communist Manifesto.
Lenin, V. I. The Right of Nations to Self‑Determination. 1914.
Lenin, V. I. Critical Remarks on the National Question. 1913.
Lenin, V. I. The Socialist Revolution and the Right of Nations to Self‑Determination. 1916.
Trotsky, Leon. The Balkan Wars 1912–13.
Trotsky, Leon. History of the Russian Revolution. (Sections on nationalities).
Stalin, J. V. Marxism and the National Question. 1913 (written under Lenin’s supervision).

Marxist Critiques of Nationalism and the Pseudo‑Left

International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party.
North, David. The Crisis of Capitalist Culture and the Tasks of the Socialist Movement.
North, David. The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo‑Left.
Socialist Equality Party (UK). “The Scottish Independence Referendum: A Warning to the Working Class.” World Socialist Web Site, 2014.
Socialist Equality Party (UK). “The SNP’s Program and the Interests of the Working Class.” WSWS, 2014.

Nationalism, Sociology, and Uneven Development

Gellner, Ernest. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1983.
Hechter, Michael. Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development. London: Routledge, 1975.
Hobsbawm, Eric. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780. Cambridge: CUP, 1990.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1983.

British State Formation and Historiography

Hill, Christopher. The English Revolution 1640.
Hill, Christopher. The Century of Revolution.
Kearney, Hugh. The British Isles: A History of Four Nations.
Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837.
Kidd, Colin. Union and Unionisms: Political Thought in Scotland 1500–2000.

Contemporary Analyses of British Politics and Nationalism

Kenny, Michael. The Politics of English Nationhood. Oxford: OUP, 2014.
Aughey, Arthur. The Politics of Englishness. Manchester: MUP, 2007.
Hassan, Gerry. The Strange Death of Scottish Labour. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.
Hassan, Gerry & Ilett, Simon (eds.). The Story of the Scottish Parliament. Edinburgh: EUP, 2019.

General Works on the Pseudo‑Left and Identity Politics

Callinicos, Alex. The Revenge of History.
Eagleton, Terry. The Illusions of Postmodernism.
Žižek, Slavoj. Against the Double Blackmail. (Critical of nationalism and liberal identity politics).
Löwy, Michael. The Politics of Combined and Uneven Development. (Useful for contextualising Nairn’s misuse of uneven development).

Archival and Online Sources

World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org) — analyses of nationalism, pseudo‑left politics, and the British state.
New Left Review — original essays by Nairn, Anderson, and the New Left circle.
Scottish Government archives — devolution documents and referendum materials.
UK Parliament archives — constitutional debates, devolution legislation, and historical records.

A Security‑State Lens on Social Breakdown: The EU’s Femcel Study and the Long History of Pathologising Capitalist Crisis

August 13, 2026 ~ freerein61 ~ Leave a comment

A recent study conducted under the EU’s CounteR program—titled “Femcels’ Speeches Between Extreme Solitude and Radical Break with the ‘Alpha World’”—illustrates how contemporary academic research can serve ideological purposes aligned with security interests. Its authors, Séraphin Alava and Rasha Nagem, frame their work as a neutral analysis of online discussions among young women who feel isolated and romantically excluded. However, the study is actually a politically motivated document, part of a state-funded initiative to pathologise the social effects of capitalist failures. Two critical sentences highlight its core message: “Loneliness is treated as a discursive and psychological phenomenon to be typologized, not as a social product of a specific economic order.” “The Femcel, like the incel before her, is thereby transformed from a symptom of social crisis into a potential security risk to be monitored.”

These lines emphasise the main ideological stance: turning social distress into a security concern. The research is carried out within an institution dedicated to “Violent Terrorism and Crime Prediction,” which interprets the analysis exclusively through risk management ideas. Consequently, important questions — such as why now? Why specifically this form? and what socio-economic conditions contribute to this isolation? — are initially overlooked.

The Security Apparatus as Arbiter of Academic Inquiry

The CounteR project is part of a broad EU security research network that has expanded significantly over the past decade. Its primary aim is not to study social phenomena but to classify and predict them. Funding for this research cannot address the social roots of issues like alienation, declining living standards, or the commercialisation of intimate life. Instead, it concentrates on monitoring, categorising, and intercepting online expressions of distress. This restriction is political rather than academic. The EU, along with Britain and the US, has established a surveillance system that treats political dissent, psychological distress, and social isolation as interchangeable indicators of “radicalisation.” The Femcel is merely viewed as a data point within a risk-scoring framework.

The study’s categories — “Alpha world rejection,” “feminist consciousness,” “radicalisation trajectory” — are not neutral labels. They are part of a security framework aimed at classifying populations by risk level. In essence, the typology created by the authors acts as a taxonomy for a database.

A Long Lineage: Cold War Social‑Pathology Research

The main idea behind the Femcel study’s ideology is not new. It carries on a Cold War-era social science tradition that regarded the societal effects of capitalist crises as primarily psychological problems. Oscar Lewis’s “culture of poverty” concept redefined structural difficulties as a self-perpetuating psychological condition. Poverty was interpreted not as a result of exploitation but as stemming from “maladaptive behaviours.” This view aligned with Cold War liberalism by distancing inequality from political causes and instead blaming it on the mindset of those in poverty.

The Frankfurt School’s concept of the Authoritarian Personality, adapted by US Cold War agencies, framed political tendencies as psychological disorders. This shift diverted attention from social causes of fascism, instead emphasising individual personality traits. As a result, political threats were seen as personal psychological issues rather than linked to class struggles. Postwar research on “juvenile delinquency” often interpreted the decline of urban working-class areas as behavioural problems needing supervision, rather than recognising it as a result of deindustrialisation and racial segregation. The Alava–Nagem paper reflects this Cold War perspective: social crises are simplified into psychological types; alienation is regarded as a risk factor; resentment is viewed as a pathology, and structural conditions are not considered. The EU’s counter-radicalisation initiatives are significantly shaped by the UK’s Prevent program, which is among Europe’s most extensive surveillance systems.

Prevent has identified tens of thousands of individuals for deradicalisation efforts, including children as young as four. According to the WSWS, Prevent combines political dissent, mental health issues, and social isolation into a single category called “extremism.’ Its primary strategy is pre-emptive intervention—acting before political consciousness develops. This includes monitoring online speech, conducting risk assessments, and viewing social alienation as a security threat. Furthermore, women’s online spaces are increasingly targeted, under the assumption that “vulnerable individuals” could be more susceptible to extremism.

The Femcel study follows this trend, using Prevent’s risk-tiering approach. It views online discussion as a threat and frames feminist awareness as a potential pathway to radicalisation, ignoring material conditions. To fully understand it, one must consider the incel discourse that sparked it, which itself arose from the broader crisis of social reproduction. After the 2018 Toronto van attack, incels were quickly labelled as terrorists. Media and academic discussions concentrated on misogynistic beliefs, online radicalisation, and psychological issues, while overlooking material factors such as declining living standards, social atomisation, commodified intimacy, and algorithm-driven dating markets.

Both incel and Femcel discussions originate from the decline of community institutions, the commercialisation of romance, the hierarchy of desirability, and the collapse of stable social paths to partnership. However, incels are viewed as a violent danger, whereas Femcels are considered psychologically fragile. Despite this difference, the core issue is identical. The Alava–Nagem study observes that Femcel discourse “diverges from the misogynistic violence associated with segments of the incel milieu,” but still regards Femcels as potential security risks. The fundamental reasoning is consistent: social crises trigger risk assessments.

Dating Apps and the Commodification of Intimacy

The increase in dating app usage over the last decade is often seen as a cultural or technological development. However, it also exposes a deeper social crisis. These platforms, which impact the private lives of hundreds of millions, are not just neutral tools but commercial systems that transform human relationships via market forces. Their growth is also linked to worsening material conditions that once supported stable relationships.

The political economy behind dating apps is straightforward. These platforms prioritise profit, which depends on maintaining user dissatisfaction. Their business model involves encouraging frequent user turnover, artificially restricting attention, ranking desirability with algorithms, and segmenting users into paid tiers. In this setup, intimacy and visibility are treated as commodities. Loneliness is also commodified—controlled through subscriptions, profile boosts, and algorithm adjustments. Rather than solving loneliness, these platforms exploit it for financial gain.

This commodification of intimate life is not an accidental result of technology but a direct outcome of decades of neoliberal reforms. The decline of stable jobs, rising housing prices, the breakdown of public spaces, and the fragmentation of social life have weakened the communal and workplace institutions where relationships traditionally developed. Dating apps serve to fill the void left by capitalist disintegration, yet they also intensify it.

Platforms tend to replicate and amplify existing social inequalities. Their algorithms prioritise users based on aesthetic, cultural, and class indicators that closely align with income, education, and consumption habits. This creates a stratified marketplace where a small minority garners most attention, while others struggle for visibility amid harsher competition. The concept of the “Alpha world,” often discussed in Femcel and incel communities, is not just a cultural fantasy; it reflects the ideological foundation of this market-driven mindset.

The mental health issues linked to using dating apps — including anxiety, loneliness, and resentment — are not personal flaws. They are the expected results of structuring intimate relationships around competition, self-promotion, and algorithm-driven choices. Despite this, academic and media narratives often view these problems as personal ailments instead of signs of a society in upheaval. The EU’s counter-radicalisation efforts take this further by framing the negative effects of commodified intimacy as possible security risks.

The truth is simpler and more politically explosive. The crisis of intimacy is a crisis of capitalism. The commodification of romantic life is inseparable from the commodification of everything else. A society that cannot provide stable employment, affordable housing, or meaningful community cannot provide the conditions for stable relationships. Dating apps do not repair this devastation; they monetise it.

The Gendered Crisis of Social Reproduction

To grasp the rise of Femcel discourse, it’s essential to look beyond platform speech and focus on the social reproductive crisis. Since the 1980s, young people in Europe and North America have experienced declining wages, rising housing costs, shrinking public spaces, the breakdown of stable workplaces and communities, and fragmented social and temporal lives. For young women, these issues have led to postponed or unfeasible household formation, increased competition in dating scenes, greater reliance on algorithm-driven platforms, and social isolation from stable networks.

Dating apps have transformed courtship from a personal pursuit into a market-driven activity. Visibility is now a product, algorithms rank desirability, and romantic opportunities are part of a competitive marketplace. The concept of the “Alpha world” in Femcel discussions is not just a cultural myth but a reflection of this market logic’s ideology. Femcel language isn’t a sign of pathology but a rational reaction to being excluded from a commodified form of intimacy. It acts as a social critique—though it may be nascent and contradictory—rooted in actual experiences. However, the counter-radicalisation perspective cannot see this because acknowledging it would mean admitting capitalism’s failure to foster stable social life.

Feminist Consciousness and the Limits of Security‑Compatible Critique

The study hints at a “transition… to feminist consciousness,” but only in a depoliticised, NGO-friendly way. The feminism accepted within a security framework is the safe type: focusing on individual empowerment, platform governance, and representation. The feminism that is excluded highlights women’s isolation in social reproduction crises, critiques the commodification of intimacy, and acknowledges that stable relationships depend on steady material conditions.

A truly materialist feminist outlook would critique the very structure of capitalist society. It would see the dating-app marketplace as a capitalist institution rather than just a cultural artefact. This perspective would acknowledge that the crisis of intimacy is tied to broader issues like work, housing, and community. If fully developed, it could lead to socialist reforms of social life. This is exactly the kind of awareness that counter-radicalisation efforts aim to suppress.

A truly social-rooted study of Femcel discourse would start by examining material conditions such as employment insecurity, housing instability, debt, the decline of public spaces, and the weakening of communal institutions. It would explore how algorithmic sorting worsens inequality, commodifies visibility, and stratifies desirability. The analysis would include how women cope with exclusion, how resentment stems from structural issues, and how online conversations reflect material realities. It would question whether alienation can transform into class consciousness, whether feminist criticism can evolve into anti-capitalism, and whether new solidarities can form. The Alava–Nagem paper cannot undertake this because its institutional role is to prevent such analysis.

Conclusion: The Ideological Function of Counter‑Radicalisation Research

The Femcel phenomenon illustrates a facet of capitalist social disintegration. The counter-radicalisation system reinterprets it as a security threat. This shift isn’t mere academic oversight but a deliberate ideological stance. The ruling elite, unable to confront the social ruin they caused, reframe these issues as individual mental health problems, crimes, or extremism. The Alava–Nagem study thus highlights not just its findings but what it exposes: the clash between a security-focused knowledge system and a social reality it struggles to comprehend. It’s a record of an apparatus compelled to classify and prevent, while avoiding questions about the root causes of the crisis.

The Arday Affair: How Cambridge’s Branding Machine, Marketised Higher Education, and the Pseudo‑Left Produced a Crisis Eight Centuries in the Making

August 12, 2026 ~ freerein61 ~ Leave a comment

The resignation of Professor Jason Arday from the University of Cambridge has sparked widespread comment in British media and politics. However, the issue isn’t just about personal misconduct or admin flaws. It reflects a deeper, systemic crisis in British higher education—shaped by Cambridge and Oxbridge’s long-standing class role, decades of market influences, and protected by the pseudo-left’s focus on identity politics. This analysis explores the historical, political, and economic factors that made the Arday case both unavoidable and inevitable.

Cambridge: Eight Centuries of Class Rule

To understand Cambridge’s behaviour, it’s important to look at its origins. Founded in 1209, Cambridge has long served the ruling class, with its architecture, rituals, and governance acting as tools to perpetuate elite dominance. Historically, Oxford and Cambridge have functioned as training grounds for clergy, civil servants, judges, and political leaders. They also serve as gatekeepers of cultural capital, shaping standards of ‘merit,” and as networks that strengthen aristocratic and bourgeois influence. The colleges were endowed by monarchs, bishops, and wealthy patrons, with governance structures — led by fellows, donors, and senior administrators — designed to maintain privilege rather than democratize knowledge.

The 2019 Sutton Trust report highlighted this continuity: 71% of senior judges, 56% of Permanent Secretaries, 38% of Lords, and 24% of MPs had been educated at Oxford or Cambridge. The elite are twenty-four times more likely to have attended Oxbridge compared to the general population. This pattern is deliberate, as Oxbridge’s prestige functions as a political asset, legitimizing the authority of the ruling class by portraying privilege as merit. It is this prestige—rather than academic quality—that Cambridge aimed to protect in the Arday case.

Marketisation: How Policy Turned Universities into Corporations

The Arday scandal is closely linked to the changes in UK higher education over the last 30 years. Starting with the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act and advancing with the Browne Review in 2010, successive governments reduced public funding and promoted market competition. Between 2011–12 and 2017–18, government funding for universities decreased by 74 per cent in real terms. Currently, 80 per cent of the sector’s income comes from private sources, mainly student fees and commercial activities.

Universities now operate like corporations: they issue bonds worth hundreds of millions of pounds, hold credit ratings from Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s, and have vice-chancellors acting as CEOs earning over £400,000. Marketing departments have grown to rival academic faculties in size and influence. Students are viewed as customers rather than learners. Academic staff often work on insecure, casualised contracts. This market-driven approach has transformed university life: research is prioritised for grant attraction, teaching for attracting fee-paying students, and public relations for drawing donors and international applicants.

In this context, “diversity” branding functions more as a market strategy than a moral stance. Universities vie for lucrative international students, mainly from China, India, and the Gulf, who pay between £25,000 and £40,000 annually. A professor with a biography that attracts positive media coverage becomes a valuable asset. Arday’s rapid ascent—from a PE lecturer to a Cambridge professor in just seven years—was not an isolated case. Instead, it exemplifies a system where personal stories are commercialised to serve institutional interests.

Arday’s background—overcoming adversity, late literacy, racial uplift—aligned well with Cambridge’s marketing goals. His appointment received extensive positive press, boosted social-media engagement, and increased international recognition. Multiple sources report that concerns about his doctoral thesis were dismissed as issues ‘predating his arrival.’ Senior staff prioritised positive media images over detailed academic review. The university’s communications team promoted Arday’s story worldwide. This pattern is not unusual; systemic incentives drive it. In a market-based system: prestige brings in revenue, visibility attracts students, and narratives enhance brand value. Conversely, academic integrity rarely generates revenue and can even threaten financial interests.

The Pseudo‑Left: Identity Politics as an Ideological Shield

The pseudo-left—comprising academics, commentators, and activists advocating for identity politics while neglecting class issues—plays a significant role in maintaining the ideological structure of market-driven higher education. In universities, identity politics acts as a form of institutional cover: it offers a low-cost alternative to increasing access for the working class, helps elite institutions project progressive credentials, boosts individuals whose profiles can be commodified, and shifts focus away from academic labour exploitation. The pseudo-left celebrated Arday’s appointment as a victory for representation, overlooking the fact that Cambridge’s student body remains predominantly privileged and its governance retains an aristocratic character.

Right‑Wing Reaction: Meritocracy as a Myth

The right-wing campaign against Arday, led by individuals who openly promote racist pseudoscience, isn’t driven by a genuine concern for academic standards. Instead, it’s fuelled by hostility toward any hiring practices that challenge traditional class privilege. However, the right and the pseudo-left are not truly opponents; they represent two facets of petty-bourgeois politics. The pseudo-left hides its class privilege through identity branding, while the right criticises that branding to defend their own class interests. Both factions support the marketisation of higher education, uphold the authority of elite institutions, and ignore capitalism’s role in fostering corruption, inequality, and intellectual decline. The working class faces a false dichotomy: embracing DEI branding or subscribing to right-wing meritocracy. Both are illusions.

The Real Issue: The Corruption of Higher Education Under Capitalism

The Arday scandal does not highlight failures in vetting but instead reveals a deeper systemic issue where education has become a commodity, universities are part of global financial markets, academic labour is increasingly casualised and degraded, bureaucracy employs identity politics to conceal class privilege, and both the right and pseudo-left manipulate DEI controversies — the right to reinforce privilege and the pseudo-left to defend branding. Both sides uphold the university as a means of maintaining class dominance.

Workers and students must oppose both the pseudo-left, which defends university branding, and the right-wing, which criticises DEI. The fight for academic integrity is fundamentally connected to the broader struggle for socialism. A truly democratic and academically rigorous university system depends on: public funding as the basis for higher education, democratic control by staff and students, the elimination of managerial bureaucracies, an end to market competition and private investment, and the socialist transformation of society where education is viewed as a social right. Only through such a transformation can universities stop serving as instruments of class privilege and become what they are meant to be: institutions committed to the cultural and scientific progress of humanity.

Letter To Ukraine President Protesting against the 15-year sentence of Bogdan Syrotiuk and demand for his immediate release

August 12, 2026 ~ freerein61 ~ Leave a comment

President Volodymyr Zelensky, Office of the President of Ukraine, 11 Bankova St., Kyiv, 01220, Ukraine

Cc: Ministry of Justice of Ukraine; Pervomaisk City and District Court, Mykolaiv; Ukrainian Embassy, United Kingdom

Subject: Protest against the 15-year sentence of Bogdan Syrotiuk and demand for his immediate release

Dear President Zelensky,

I am writing to protest, in the strongest possible terms, the August 10, 2026 verdict of the Pervomaisk City and District Court sentencing Bogdan Syrotiuk to fifteen years’ imprisonment on charges of “high treason” under martial law.

The prosecution’s case rested entirely on Mr Syrotiuk’s political writings — articles published on the World Socialist Web Site and his correspondence with its editors — as well as his role as a leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists, a small Trotskyist youth organisation. A 65-page linguistic analysis prepared by Yuri Irkhin, one of Ukraine’s leading criminologists, examined these materials and found no language supporting Russian aggression against Ukraine. The court has not addressed or refuted this finding. Indeed, the articles cited in the verdict explicitly oppose both the Russian invasion and the policies of the Putin government.

Whatever one’s view of Mr Syrotiuk’s political positions, the prosecution and conviction of an individual for writing and publishing political commentary is incompatible with fundamental standards of freedom of expression. Ukraine is bound to uphold these standards under its own Constitution and under the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Court of Human Rights has already accepted Mr Syrotiuk’s case for review, underscoring the seriousness of the violations involved.

I am further alarmed by credible reports that Mr Syrotiuk has been denied adequate medical care during his detention, despite repeated assurances from the prison administration. A fifteen-year sentence under the documented conditions of Ukraine’s penitentiary system poses a grave and immediate threat to his health and life.

I therefore call on the Ukrainian authorities to:

Overturn the verdict against Bogdan Syrotiuk and order his immediate release;
Ensure he receives all necessary medical treatment without further delay;
End the prosecution of individuals for the peaceful expression of political views, in accordance with Ukraine’s international human rights obligations.

A Social History of Sickness Before Modern Medicine: On Jennifer Evans and Sara Read’s Maladies and Medicine

August 11, 2026 ~ freerein61 ~ Leave a comment

Jennifer Evans and Sara Read’s Maladies and Medicine: Exploring Health and Healing, 1540–1740 (Pen & Sword, 2017) appears, at first glance, as a concise social history of illness in early modern England. However, when viewed within a wider context of social reproduction and class formation of that era, the book reveals more: it offers insights into how bodies were regulated, how suffering was accepted as natural, and how the rise of capitalism transformed the conditions in which ordinary people lived, worked, and died.

Evans and Read do not aim to write a comprehensive history of class or the shift to capitalism. Instead, they use an empirical, descriptive approach organised around specific ailments rather than overarching arguments. The evidence they compile—such as casebooks, diaries, court records, household remedies, and cheap almanacks—provides valuable insights into how sickness operated within a society experiencing significant change. Their book inadvertently but effectively captures the medical aspect of the gradual decline of feudalism and the emergence of capitalist social relations.

The Humoral Body as a Social Body

The authors focus on the humoral body, viewed as a delicate balance of hot, cold, wet, and dry forces, constantly threatened by diet, weather, labour, and morality. This concept extends beyond medicine into a social worldview, making sense in a setting where most people lived on the brink of subsistence, faced endemic malnutrition, endured physically demanding work, and where environmental factors were linked to social class. Evans and Read interpret humoralism as a belief system, while a materialist perspective considers it a form of ideology.

Humoralism reframed structural suffering as personal imbalance, attributing disease to personal regimen, moral failure, or the mysterious flow of fluids rather than factors like enclosure, dispossession, or wage labour. This served an ideological purpose by naturalising the suffering created by the rise of capitalism.

The Medical Hierarchy and the Restructuring of Social Reproduction

The book’s strength lies in its detailed portrayal of the layered medical economy. It highlights university-trained physicians at the top, whose Latin education and guild privileges attracted wealthy clients. Below them, apothecaries and surgeons handled manual, often bloody treatments. Further down was a large informal sector of unlicensed healers—many women—whose inherited household knowledge served most of the population. Evans and Read describe this hierarchy, but within early modern social reproduction, it indicates a deeper underlying process.

Women were excluded from formal medical authority not just due to prejudice but as part of a broader process of knowledge enclosure. As capitalist relations grew, household and community-based care—largely performed by women—became subordinate to professional monopolies. This shift in the medical field reflected similar changes in reproductive labour, such as midwifery, childcare, food preparation, and sickness management, which became battlegrounds between traditional communal practices and emerging market influences. The ‘informal economy” of healing was not merely an outdated relic; it was the leftover of a pre-capitalist social reproduction system actively being dismantled by the new economic order.

Disease, Poverty, and the Making of a Proletariat

Evans and Read briefly mention that factors like poverty, overwork, and malnutrition influenced who became ill and who received treatment. However, they do not link these issues to the class relations of early modern England, which a materialist analysis would require. Between 1540 and 1740, England experienced significant social and economic changes, including the enclosure of common land, the dispossession of peasants, the rise of wage labour, increasing urban poverty, and the emergence of a landless proletariat.

These processes not only created new economic relationships but also established new physical conditions. “Bad diet” and “corrupt air” were not simply random misfortunes; they reflected the lived reality of class identity. The illnesses listed by Evans and Read—such as plague, smallpox, gout, toothache, and madness—were unevenly distributed based on property ownership and labour roles. The ailing body was inherently a body defined by class. Later, Engels would describe this as “social murder”: the deliberate, systemic creation of disease and early death through societal organisation. Evans and Read’s era can be seen as the groundwork for this concept—the period during which the foundations for social murder were established.

What the Book Offers—and What It Cannot Provide

As a compendium of lived experience, Maladies and Medicine is invaluable. Its prose is clear, its sources rich, and its case studies vivid. It allows the reader to encounter sickness in something close to its own terms.

But as an explanation of why early modern medicine took the form it did, the book is incomplete. It catalogues belief and practice but does not analyse the social relations that produced them. It describes the medical hierarchy but does not explain its connection to the restructuring of social reproduction. It notes poverty but does not treat it as a structural determinant of disease.

Where the book falls short is in its reluctance to press this material toward a fuller social explanation. Poverty, overwork, malnutrition, and environmental degradation appear in the narrative, but only as background conditions rather than as structuring forces. The authors note that “bad diet” and “corrupt air” shaped who fell ill and who could be treated. Still, they do not connect these phenomena to the concrete class relations of early modern England—the dispossession of the peasantry, the growth of wage labour, and the emergence. The text discusses how a landless proletariat lives on the brink of subsistence. It emphasises that the authors’ limitations are more about the academic division of labour than about their failure. The history of medicine is often viewed separately from class struggle, ignoring the interconnectedness of bodies and social structures. Maladies and Medicine offers a solid empirical base for a Marxist perspective on early modern social reproduction, illustrating how the shift to capitalism impacted not just work and courts but also kitchens, sickrooms, and individual bodies. It successfully recovers and documents these aspects but leaves broader explanatory questions about societal forces open for others.

Martyrdom Without Politics: How Remember Me to My Comrades Conceals the Betrayal of the Spanish Revolution

August 11, 2026 ~ freerein61 ~ Leave a comment

Michael Crowley’s “Remember Me to My Comrades: Letters and Diaries of the International Brigade” (Barnthorn, £16.99) honours the approximately 2,500 British volunteers who fought in Spain from 1936 to 1938. It offers valuable insights as a recovery project, gathering letters, diaries, and memoirs from workers whose voices are often overlooked in official histories. However, as an analysis of the political forces influencing their fate—and ultimately betraying the Spanish Revolution—it is somewhat evasive, bordering on distortion.

Crowley observes that both the volunteers and the Comintern organisation that recruited them consistently framed Spain as a conflict against fascism rather than a civil war. It is undisputed that young workers like Kenneth Bradbury—from Oldham, who was already leading a Young Communist League branch at seventeen and died at Teruel in January 1938—saw their fight as part of a broader struggle against fascism internationally. However, Crowley declines to examine how the Stalinist leadership actually manipulated this understanding and systematically distorted it.

The book notes, almost as an aside, that between half and two-thirds of the battalion were members of the Communist Party or the YCL. Crowley views this as a mere sociological fact rather than a basis for in-depth political analysis. In fact, this detail is crucial to understanding Spain’s tragedy. These workers were mobilised not to advance the revolution, but to defend the Popular Front—an anti-revolutionary strategy enforced by Moscow that placed the working class under the control of the liberal bourgeoisie, even as workers had shown their potential to seize power.

In July 1936, workers in Barcelona and much of Catalonia successfully stopped the military uprising, took control of factories, collectivised land, and began building structures for workers’ self-management. Spain created exactly the situation Stalin feared most: an independent socialist revolution happening outside Soviet control. Stalin’s main aim in Spain was not to defeat Franco but to prevent a second October — a workers’ government revealing the conservative, nationalist nature of his own regime. His foreign policy relied on alliances with ‘democratic” bourgeois powers; a socialist revolution in Spain would have destroyed that approach.

Trotsky’s analysis here is crucial. Writing in the moment, he emphasised that Spain was more than just a civil war or a fight against fascism; it was a proletarian revolution. The workers demonstrated extraordinary heroism, yet heroism alone couldn’t replace the need for revolutionary leadership. Trotsky contended that the Popular Front was the main barrier to victory because it compelled the working class to defend a bourgeois system incapable of overcoming fascism. He noted that Franco didn’t defeat the Spanish proletariat, but by its own leadership.

The Popular Front was more than a tactical alliance; it was a strategic constraint aimed at dismantling the revolutionary momentum generated by the working class. Following directives from Moscow, the Communist Party targeted not only Franco but also the POUM and the anarchist militias, whose soldiers’ bravery in July had been crucial. The NKVD set up secret prisons, infiltrated the Republican police, and was involved in the disappearance of Andrés Nin. The May Days of 1937, when Communist-controlled forces attacked the Barcelona workers, marked a turning point. Ultimately, the revolution was halted by the Popular Front government, operating under Stalinist influence, rather than Franco. Crowley does not develop this analysis in detail.

The strongest material in the book — the letters and diaries — exposes the reality Crowley’s narrative avoids. Peter Kerrigan’s account of the retreat toward Gandesa, men going days without water, their shoes cut to pieces on the rocks, “many… literally barefoot as well as being in rags,” and Walter Gregory’s description of finding George Stockdale dying on the Ebro, a machine‑gun bullet having “cut a dreadful groove in his skull leaving his brain exposed,” speak with a clarity no editorial framing can soften. These passages reveal the human cost of the Comintern’s strategy. They indict the leadership more effectively than Crowley ever attempts.

Crowley dedicates a chapter to Harry Pollitt, celebrating his recruitment efforts and visits that boosted morale, while overlooking a crucial fact: this leadership, following Moscow’s directives, played a key role in suppressing the revolutionary alternative to Popular Frontism in Spain, most notably during the May Days of 1937. The chapter also covers George Orwell, whom the original review dismisses as undeserving of attention. This is actually the opposite of the truth. Despite Orwell’s later political changes, Homage to Catalonia is one of the few well-known accounts describing what truly happened to the POUM militias and Barcelona’s workers under the Stalinist-controlled security forces — a stark reality Crowley, like many others commemorating the event, deliberately avoids.

Crowley cannot explain why the Communist Party ostracised Orwell because doing so would mean admitting the Party’s role in suppressing the revolution. The CPGB’s hatred for Orwell was rooted in politics, not literature or personal reasons. Orwell had seen the crime the Party needed to hide: the outlawing of POUM, arrests and disappearances of its members, and the attack on the Barcelona working class by forces claiming to oppose Franco. Homage to Catalonia challenged the Popular Front’s narrative—that Spain’s conflict was merely between democracy and fascism—and exposed the Communist Party as the tool Moscow used to crush revolutionary hopes that arose in July 1936. As a result, Orwell was slandered, censored, and labelled as “objectively fascist.” Crowley’s reluctance to address this hostility reflects the same sanitising tendency that pervades the entire book.

Another crucial omission is decisive: the International Brigades were not purely expressions of independent working-class internationalism. Instead, they served as tools of the Popular Front strategy, aimed at channelling genuine anti-fascist sentiment into defending the bourgeois republic and diverting from the revolutionary potential that emerged in July 1936. While the volunteers’ anti-fascism was sincere, the Brigades’ primary purpose was to prevent revolution. Trotsky understood this well: their heroism was misdirected by leaders who prioritised maintaining bourgeois order over defeating Franco. Crowley fails to acknowledge this contradiction because doing so would force him to confront the political role of Stalinism, which he chooses to avoid.

Crowley notes that men who faced death at the front were unlikely to be intimidated by a foreman upon returning. This highlights the revolutionary potential among these workers — a potential that was wasted in Spain and again during the Second World War, as the fight against fascism and the necessary programme to defeat it was fought globally. The courage shown here is genuine and worth remembering. However, a history that separates this bravery from the bureaucratic betrayal that led to the fall of the Spanish Revolution ultimately results in a moving story of martyrdom rather than an analysis of why the Spanish working class was defeated.

Sources and Bibliography

Primary Sources

George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia. London: Secker & Warburg, 1938. First‑hand account of the POUM militias, the May Days, and Stalinist repression in Barcelona.
Leon Trotsky, The Spanish Revolution (1931–39). New York: Pathfinder Press, 1973. Collection of Trotsky’s writings on Spain, including analyses of the Popular Front, the POUM, and Stalin’s foreign policy.
Andrés Nin, Selected Writings. Various editions. Documents the POUM’s political positions before his disappearance at the hands of the NKVD.
International Brigades Letters and Diaries (various collections). Including materials reproduced in Crowley’s Remember Me to My Comrades.
Peter Kerrigan, The International Brigade: Spain 1936–1939. Memoir of a CPGB cadre and Brigade commissar.
Walter Gregory, The Shallow Grave: A Memoir of the Spanish Civil War. London: Faber & Faber, 1986. Eyewitness testimony from a British volunteer.

Soviet and Comintern Documents

Comintern Archives, RGASPI (Russian State Archive of Social and Political History). Includes directives to the Spanish Communist Party, reports on the POUM, and NKVD operations.
NKVD Reports on Spain (1936–1938), published in various scholarly editions. Documentation of arrests, interrogations, and the disappearance of Andrés Nin.

Trotskyist Analyses

Pierre Broué, The Spanish Revolution, 1936–1939. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006. The most comprehensive Trotskyist history of the revolution and its suppression.
Felix Morrow, Revolution and Counter‑Revolution in Spain. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1974. A contemporary Trotskyist analysis written during the war.
Burnett Bolloten, The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991. A monumental study documenting Stalinist repression and the destruction of the revolution.

Marxist and Critical Histories

Paul Preston, The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution and Revenge. London: HarperCollins, 2006. Standard academic account; useful for chronology, though politically limited.
Helen Graham, The Spanish Republic at War, 1936–1939. Cambridge University Press, 2002. Important for institutional and social history of the Republic.
Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006. Conventional narrative history; valuable for military detail.
Franz Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit. London: Faber & Faber, 1937. Early eyewitness account sympathetic to the revolution.

Anarchist and POUM Sources

Abel Paz, Durruti in the Spanish Revolution. Oakland: AK Press, 2007. Biography of the anarchist leader; essential for understanding CNT‑FAI rank‑and‑file militancy.
Julián Casanova, Anarchism, the Republic and Civil War in Spain. London: Routledge, 2010. Scholarly treatment of anarchist politics and social base.
Wilebaldo Solano, The Spanish Revolution: The POUM and the Struggle for Power. POUM perspective on the revolution and its suppression.

Studies of Stalinism and the Popular Front

E.H. Carr, The Comintern and the Spanish Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1984. Detailed study of Soviet policy and Comintern strategy.
Ronald Radosh, Mary Habeck & Grigory Sevostianov, Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War. Yale University Press, 2001. Uses Soviet archival material to document NKVD operations and Stalinist intervention.
Stanley Payne, The Collapse of the Spanish Republic. Yale University Press, 2006. Conservative but useful for institutional analysis of the Popular Front.

Biographies and Memoirs Relevant to Stalinist Policy

Isaac Deutscher, The Prophet Outcast. Oxford University Press, 1963. Trotsky’s biography; includes analysis of Trotsky’s writings on Spain.
Alexander Orlov, The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes. Memoir of the NKVD officer in Spain; controversial but revealing.

For Contextualising Orwell and the CPGB

John Newsinger, Orwell’s Politics. London: Macmillan, 1999. Explores Orwell’s anti‑Stalinism and the CPGB’s hostility toward him.
Christopher Hill, The CPGB and the Popular Front. Essays on the British Communist Party’s alignment with Moscow’s line.

Archival Collections

Marxists Internet Archive (MIA): Trotsky’s writings on Spain, POUM documents, CNT manifestos, and contemporary analyses.
Tamiment Library (NYU) International Brigades papers, CPUSA materials, and Comintern correspondence.
Modern Records Centre (Warwick University)

William Cheatham and the Meaning of Peterloo-The Return of a Forgotten Protagonist

August 10, 2026 ~ freerein61 ~ Leave a comment

William Cheatham’s story—a Bolton weaver, army veteran, and Peterloo Massacre victim—significantly enhances our understanding of history. It reintroduces a working-class figure whose experience highlights key societal dynamics of that era. Cheatham was not merely a passive victim of government violence; he was a politically aware worker who travelled to Manchester to advocate for parliamentary reform. He survived a sabre attack by a yeomanry cavalryman over a mile from St Peter’s Field and dedicated years to seeking justice via courts and Parliament. His failure was not random but rooted in structural factors.

Cheatham’s story reflects a common pattern among contemporary radicals and modern Marxist historians: rather than remorse or reform following Peterloo, the British ruling class engaged in repression, intimidation, and history rewriting. The significance of Cheatham’s case lies not in its novelty but in its clarity, exemplifying the capitalist state’s response to working-class activism.

The current depiction of Cheatham’s story — linking it to ongoing debates about democracy, protest rights, and challenging entrenched power — illustrates a liberal viewpoint that obscures the class implications of Peterloo. The aim is not merely to restore Cheatham’s biography but to uncover its deeper significance beyond the ideological stories that have historically tried to soften Peterloo.

Peterloo and the Machinery of Bourgeois Repression

The aftermath of Peterloo is a revealing episode in British history. The ruling class responded with a consistent strategy: Medical denial and coercion. Waterloo veteran John Lees died from his injuries three weeks later, while James Lees, wounded by two sabre cuts, was denied treatment unless he disavowed political meetings. Judicial obstruction was evident when Margaret Goodwin’s civil case against neighbour Thomas Shelmerdine was dismissed without thorough review. Weavers injured in the incident, who sued Hugh Hornby Birley and others, were told their attackers acted “justifiably.” The radical Manchester Observer, which exposed the massacre, faced prosecution and harassment, leading to its destruction. Additionally, Manchester’s official plaque labelled Peterloo a “dispersal” for decades, deliberately omitting any mention of the dead.

Cheatham’s case belongs squarely within this pattern. He identified his attacker, Edward Meagher. He pursued him through the courts. He secured a parliamentary hearing. He gathered witnesses. And he lost. The state closed ranks. The yeomanry were protected. The working-class victim was defeated.

This is not a story about the failure of individual courage or the imperfections of early nineteenth-century justice. It is a demonstration of the structural function of the capitalist state: to defend the interests and agents of the ruling class against the political demands of the working class.

Liberal Heritage and the Sanitisation of Class Struggle

Today’s portrayal of Cheatham’s story—via genealogy sites, BBC heritage media, and the rhetoric of “democracy”—is inherently political. It continues a long tradition of liberal co-optation of Peterloo. The founding of the Manchester Guardian in 1821 exemplifies this trend. Created by cotton manufacturer John Edward Taylor after the Manchester Observer was destroyed, the Guardian aimed to divert working-class democratic fervour into bourgeois reform efforts. Its promise to “warmly advocate the cause of Reform” was quickly seen as a tactic to capture and disarm working-class radicalism. George Condy’s 1836 description of the Guardian as the “foul prostitute and dirty parasite of the worst portion of the mill-owners” was not mere hyperbole; it reflected class analysis.

The 2019 bicentenary commemorations continued this tradition. The Guardian positioned itself as Peterloo’s successor. Manchester City Council unveiled Jeremy Deller’s memorial quietly, concerned about the political consequences of an open memorial. Even Labour’s language — referencing Peterloo as a moral foundation for parliamentary reform — echoed the same liberal framing that Engels critiqued in 1846. The liberal approach to history reinterprets Peterloo as a heritage event instead of a clash between classes. It shifts focus from working-class agency to sentimental stories of “ordinary people.” It replaces discussions of rights with themes of class struggle. Additionally, it depicts the capitalist state as misguided rather than inherently violent. Cheatham’s account, viewed through this lens, becomes a sombre reflection on the slow advancement of democracy rather than a lesson about the futility of justice within bourgeois institutions.

Engels and the Historical Logic of Cheatham’s Defeat

Cheatham’s story notably confirms Engels’s analysis of the era. In The Condition of the Working Class in England and his 1846 letters, Engels argued that the core dynamic of early 19th-century politics was that the “essentially democratic movement of the working classes was more or less made subservient to the liberal movement of the bourgeoisie.”

Engels pointed out that the working class had yet to fully understand the crucial difference between liberalism and democracy — specifically, the distinction between the emancipation of the middle classes and that of the working classes. Cheatham’s extensive efforts over a decade to seek justice through courts, magistrates, and Parliament serve as a condensed example of this broader historical process. He believed that the bourgeois state’s institutions could ensure justice, thinking evidence, testimony, and parliamentary appeals could challenge class power. His defeat was not personal but structural, reflecting the unavoidable outcome of a political system meant to safeguard the interests of the ruling class.

Cheatham’s story is therefore not a tragedy of failed reform. It is a lesson in the necessity of working-class independence from bourgeois institutions.

Memory, Class, and the Struggle Over Peterloo

The dispute over Peterloo’s memory is a battleground of class conflict. The ruling class has consistently tried to tame the event—turning it from a massacre into a mere ‘dispersal,” from a clash of classes into a symbol of democracy, and from a call to action into a heritage tour. In contrast, working-class remembrance has always challenged this distortion. John Wrigley, interviewed fifty years after Peterloo, expressed the true significance of the event: “Never forget, lad! Let it sink in your blood. Stand up and fight for human rights — the rights of poor folk!”

This is not the language of liberal reform; it is the language of class struggle. Cheatham’s story belongs to the political tradition of working-class struggle, which his biography underscores. Reclaiming Cheatham’s biography is valuable, but only if its significance is pulled from liberal narratives and restored to the tradition of working-class political activism.

Conclusion: What Cheatham Teaches Us

Cheatham’s story reveals little about the “enduring questions of democracy’ and instead highlights the persistent reality of class power. It vividly illustrates how the capitalist state reacts when working people seek accountability from its armed forces, showing why the working class cannot depend on courts, magistrates, or Parliament for justice. The story supports Engels’s analysis of the era and uncovers the ideological role of liberal historical narratives. Its significance lies not in sentiment but in political clarity, reminding us that Peterloo was not merely a reform tragedy but a clash between the working class and the capitalist state—an ongoing conflict with vital lessons.

Bibliography and Sources

Primary Sources

Engels, Friedrich. The Condition of the Working Class in England. Leipzig, 1845. Foundational Marxist analysis of early industrial capitalism; Engels’ discussion of the political subordination of the working class to bourgeois liberalism is directly relevant to Peterloo.
Engels, Friedrich. The Principles of Communism. 1847. Contains Engels’ reflections on the development of working-class political consciousness.
Hunt, Henry. The Trial of Henry Hunt and Others for the Peterloo Massacre. London, 1820. Contemporary documentation of the legal aftermath and the state’s efforts to justify repression.
Manchester Observer (1819–1821). Radical newspaper that exposed the massacre; its destruction by state repression is central to understanding the political climate.
Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons Debates (Hansard), 1819–1825. Includes petitions, debates, and references to cases brought by Peterloo victims, including Cheatham’s parliamentary appeal.
Wrigley, John. Interview in The Manchester Guardian, 1869. Contains the famous working-class testimony: “Never forget, lad! Let it sink in your blood…”

Contemporary Radical Accounts

Carlile, Richard. Account of the Manchester Massacre. London, 1819. Eyewitness testimony and radical analysis of the event.
Knight, Henry. The Political and Social Condition of Manchester. Manchester, 1820. Radical critique of the magistracy and yeomanry.

Modern Scholarship on Peterloo

Read, Donald. Peterloo: The Massacre and Its Background. Manchester University Press, 1958. Classic scholarly account; still valuable for its archival depth.
Poole, Robert. Peterloo: The English Uprising. Oxford University Press, 2019. The most comprehensive modern study; essential for contextualising Cheatham’s experience.
Poole, Robert. “The Manchester Observer and the Making of Peterloo.” Manchester Region History Review 23 (2012). Detailed analysis of the radical press and state repression.
Bush, M. L. The Casualties of Peterloo. Carnegie Publishing, 2005. Systematic catalogue of victims; provides context for Cheatham’s injuries and legal struggle.
Bush, M. L. “The Aftermath of Peterloo.” Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 103 (2007). Examines the judicial and political consequences of the massacre.
Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class. Victor Gollancz, 1963. Essential Marxist historiography; situates Peterloo within the broader formation of working-class consciousness.
Hammond, J. L. & Hammond, Barbara. The Town Labourer 1760–1832. Longmans, Green & Co., 1917. Classic social history of early industrial workers; includes discussion of political radicalism.

Marxist Analyses and Socialist Scholarship

Bond, Paul. “200 Years Since the Peterloo Massacre.” World Socialist Web Site, 16 August 2019. Detailed Marxist analysis of the massacre, its aftermath, and the liberal appropriation of its memory.
North, David. The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century. Mehring Books, 2014. Provides theoretical context on state violence and bourgeois democracy.
Trotsky, Leon. History of the Russian Revolution. 1930. Not directly about Peterloo, but foundational for understanding the Marxist theory of the state and class repression.
Marx, Karl. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. 1852. Essential for understanding how bourgeois institutions function to suppress working-class political agency.

Historiography of the Liberal Press and the Guardian

Ayerst, David. The Guardian: Biography of a Newspaper. Cornell University Press, 1971. Includes detailed discussion of the paper’s founding in the aftermath of Peterloo.
Williams, Raymond. Keywords. Oxford University Press, 1976. Useful for analysing the ideological language of “reform,” “democracy,” and “rights.”
Jones, Aled. “Press, Politics and Society: The Guardian and Liberalism.” Journal of British Studies 32 (1993). Scholarly analysis of the Guardian’s political role in the nineteenth century.

State Violence, Class Repression, and Political Theory

Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution: 1789–1848. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962. Situates Peterloo within the broader revolutionary and counter-revolutionary dynamics of the period.
Hobsbawm, Eric. Labouring Men. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964. Essays on working-class politics and state repression.
Linebaugh, Peter & Rediker, Marcus. The Many-Headed Hydra. Beacon Press, 2000. Explores the long history of proletarian resistance and state violence.
Stedman Jones, Gareth. Languages of Class. Cambridge University Press, 1983. Important for understanding how political discourse shapes class consciousness.

Genealogy, Heritage Media, and Liberal Memory Culture

Samuel, Raphael. Theatres of Memory. Verso, 1994. Foundational critique of heritage culture and liberal historical memory.
Porter, Bernard. The Absent-Minded Imperialists. Oxford University Press, 2004. Useful for analysing the ideological framing of British history in contemporary media.
Olusoga, David. Black and British: A Forgotten History. Macmillan, 2016. Representative of the contemporary BBC mode of identity-centred historical narrative.

Archival and Local History Resources

Greater Manchester Archives and Local Studies holds extensive Peterloo-related material, including casualty lists, magistrates’ papers, and local press.
National Archives (Kew) HO 42 and HO 44 series contain Home Office correspondence on Peterloo and subsequent prosecutions.
Bolton Archives Potentially relevant for Cheatham’s background, military service, and local radical networks.

Optional: Further Reading for Marxist Context

Lukács, Georg. History and Class Consciousness. 1923. Theoretical grounding for understanding how events like Peterloo shape proletarian consciousness.
Anderson, Perry. Arguments Within English Marxism. Verso, 1980. Useful for situating Thompson, Hobsbawm, and the Marxist historiographical tradition.