Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism

'Historical materialism is the theory of the proletarian revolution.' Georg Lukács

Friday, June 16, 2006

Histomat vindicated?

Back in March, in my article Tony Blair: Rock Star, War Criminal and Trotskyist? I argued that Blair was a red mole working inside the Labour Party to destroy it and encourage working class people to join revolutionary socialist organisations. It appears there is new evidence coming out which supports this hypothesis...

In 1982, the young Blair wrote to Michael Foot. Clearly to work his way up the Labour Party Blair has to give some praise to Foot's radical social democractic perspective but he can't help but reveal his Marxism:

"In this I can't help feeling the continual association of Marxism with Socialism is in part to blame. Like many middle-class people I came to Socialism through Marxism (to be more specific through Deutscher's biography of Trotsky). The trouble with Marxism is that it is fine if you make it your political servant but terrible if it becomes your political master. I actually did trouble to read Marx first hand. I found it illuminating in so many ways; in particular, my perception of the relationship between people and the society in which they live was irreversibly altered. But ultimately it was stifling because it sought to embrace in its philosophy every facet of existence. That, of course, is its attraction to many. It gives them a total perspective on life. But that can simply become an excuse to stop searching for the truth. Political thought didn't begin nor should it end with Marx. Yet it is impossible to understand the 20-40 age group in today's Labour Party without understanding the pervasiveness of Marxist teaching. For me at university, left-wing politics was Marx and the liberal tradition was either scorned or analysed only in terms of its influence on Marx. It is so abundantly plain to me when I read D of H that there is a treasure trove of ideas that I never imagined existed. We need to recover the searching radicalism of these people."

See also here

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2 Comments:

At 9:07 pm, Blogger Imposs1904 said...

"I argued that Blair was a red mole working inside the Labour Party to destroy it and encourage working class people to join revolutionary socialist organisations."

He hasn't been that successful then, has he? Perhaps Jospin done a better job in France.

 
At 10:56 am, Blogger Snowball said...

Yes, in a sense, Blair has been a failure all round. That is why he has to go. The sooner the better.

 

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