John Harris’s fan letter to Marxism Today (The long read, 29 September) should be read with caution. As one who lived through that period from the inside, the journal in the 1980s expressed one side of a sectarian debate within the Communist party, between “Stalinists” and “Eurocommunists”. Those who, like myself, were trying to find a “third way” were completely marginalised, although there were many inside and outside the CP who recognised that “actually existing socialism” in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was fatally flawed, but who were seeking a form of democracy that was still socialist.
The Marxism Today New Times project produced a sophisticated and well-taken analysis of capitalist atomisation (“unorganised capitalism”), consumerism and individualism and it is understandable that those who grew up in the CP should have thrilled to the glamour of transgression in attacking trade unionism and exploring the glitz of (relatively) progressive Tories and cultural forms previously dismissed as decadent and anti-socialist. However, it proved incapable of developing an alternative progressive strategy for equality and a fairer society. In spite of its support for “new movements”, it never really understood the feminism of the period; nor was there much interest in environmental issues as I remember (though I might be wrong about that). Its leading thinkers were therefore naive in wringing their hands in horror when Blair appeared, for he was the logical conclusion of the analysis: surface innovation and decoration without disturbing the status quo beneath.
It is refreshing that its editor now appears to recognise flaws in the project he supported. Hindsight is, of course, a wonderful thing, but it is always easier to have a change of heart in retrospect than to undo the damage that was done in those years, when its ego ideal was the Face rather than the Communist Manifesto.
Elizabeth Wilson
London
