Contemporary Radical Research Articles

Interview with John Zerzan

Interview with John Zerzan Arthur Versluis John Zerzan (born 1943) is the most prominent living American anarchist and primitivist philosopher. His works criticize modern civilization as inherently oppressive, and encourage modern people to draw on "primitive" ways of life in developing new cultures. His rhetorical attacks on modernity are intense and extend beyond technology to even more basic elements of civilization, like domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics and art), and the concept of time. His books include Elements of Refusal (1988), Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994), Against Civilization: A Reader (1998), and Running on Emptiness (2002). He has published articles in Telos, Green Anarchy, and Fifth Estate, and is widely published on the web. He has been featured in articles in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and he has been influential both in intellectual and in activist circles for several decades. According to a recent article on him in Orion magazine, his thought is the wellspring for much contemporary radical activism. We spoke with him in a café during his visit to Michigan in the spring of 2007. It is perhaps symbolic that our digital voice recorder broke just prior to the interview, and the two substitute recorders also malfunctioned during the interview. Nonetheless, the conversation provides insight into Zerzan's thought and into how he came to his radical ecological critique of contemporary technological society. AV: Maybe we should start by talking about the fact that we are so enmeshed in technological society. Even coming here, we had to go back and forth by email and through cell phones. We're dependent on machinery and on getting the digital voice recorder to function for the interview. There is a comical [End Page 155] element, in some respects, to the degree to which we're immersed in this technology. I wondered what sorts of remarks you might have about that? JZ: That's for sure—there is an ever greater amount of mediations. People have brought up the question of direct experience and what's happening to it with the welter of technological mediations, because you can't do anything now that isn't technologically mediated. How do you get out of this morass? Think about the technoculture and how enveloping it is. That's probably the central question: If you come up with an indictment against it, then, well, what are you going to do about it? I am an editor of Green Anarchy magazine, and we use the computer in every respect, from the layout, and of course the email that you mentioned—all of it. I resent it, having to get email, since a few years ago, but there is no way around it. Of course, then one is subjected to that very criticism. I was in London a few years ago, and a guy jumped up and starting yelling, "How did you get here, how did you get here, did you swim here, did you swim here?" I said, "Oh no, I took a big smelly jet, of course I didn't swim here—no, you got me." We are all part of this: these contradictions are here, like it or not. I could go live in a cave, as some people have suggested, but I am trying to be a part of the dialogue, trying to make some kind of contribution here. So that is just the nature of the reality that we are in. AV: One of the questions that I have concerning that, though, is how one practically moves toward what you see as a more stable way of existing in the world, or a more balanced one, given the pervasiveness of the machinery. You have written recently that Marxism is dead, and that there may be some liberatory potential from the death of the Left as a whole. Ideologically one can understand that, but on a practical level I'm not seeing how one gets from A to B. In other words, what kind of transitional framework or means do you see to achieve the society you envision? JZ: That's just a profound challenge: how to make a break from our contemporary, technological...

Radicalism, Visual Culture, and Spectacle in the 1790s

This essay examines the visual propaganda produced by the popular radical movement in the 1790s, chiefly in London. It examines examples of caricatures, especially those by Richard Newton, the token coinage mainly produced by Thomas Spence, the mock play-bills printed by Richard ‘Citizen’ Lee and others, and the portraiture of contemporary radical leaders and heroes published by or on behalf of the movement. It discusses the effectiveness of these as radical propaganda, but its main concern is to ask why the movement seems to have been so little interested in developing a visual culture commensurate with its varied and voluminous literary culture. It looks for the answer chiefly in what it suggests may have been a strong distrust of the visual among popular radicals, and a concern that to exploit the resources of the comic and the grotesque in visual propaganda would have made the movement appear less high-minded, less polite, and easier to despise and dismiss.

Contemporary Trends in Low Risk Prostate Cancer: Risk Assessment and Treatment

We updated national risk trends in prostate cancer with a focus on low risk tumors, reexamined trends in primary treatment for low risk tumors and substratified patients at low risk based on pretreatment clinical data. Data were abstracted from the CaPSURE registry. A total of 10,385 men were diagnosed between 1990 and 2006 with localized disease. Low risk was defined as prostate specific antigen 10 ng/ml or less, Gleason score 6 or less and clinical T stage 2a or less. Temporal trends were assessed for patient distribution among risk groups and in the low risk group for individual risk factors, Kattan nomogram prediction, Cancer of the Prostate Risk Assessment score and primary treatment. The ability of the Cancer of the Prostate Risk Assessment score to substratify low risk prostatectomy cases was evaluated with survival analysis. The proportion of low risk tumors in CaPSURE almost doubled from 27.5% in 1990 to 1994, to 46.4% in 2000 to 2001 but it has been relatively constant since then. A growing proportion of low risk tumors are cT1c and virtually all are Gleason score 6. Prostate specific antigen and the percent of positive biopsies decreased throughout the study period, as did the mean Cancer of the Prostate Risk Assessment score. The use of active surveillance increased from a nadir of 6.2% in 2000 to 2001, to 10.2% in 2004 to 2006. The use of prostatectomy also increased, whereas the use of androgen deprivation and radiation decreased. The likelihood of recurrence increased significantly with increasing Cancer of the Prostate Risk Assessment scores. Patients at low risk can be further substratified to identify those at very low risk based on clinical variables. The use of surveillance is increasing but overtreatment remains a concern in these patients.

Pathological Features After Radical Prostatectomy in Potential Candidates for Active Monitoring

There are numerous reports on the results of watchful waiting or active monitoring protocols for men with low volume, biopsy Gleason grade 6 or less prostate cancer. When counseling patients with low grade prostate cancer about treatment options, it is useful to know the results of surgical treatment in this population. In a contemporary radical prostatectomy series there were 455 patients with biopsy Gleason grade 3 + 3 prostate cancer and information on the number of positive biopsy cores. Of these men 292 had low volume disease on the basis of 2 or fewer positive cores. Overall 245 of 292 men (84%) with low volume Gleason 3 + 3 prostate cancer on biopsy had organ confined disease. The Gleason score in the prostatectomy specimen was 7 or greater in 78 men (27%), 25 (8%) had extracapsular tumor extension and 29 (10%) had positive surgical margins. In these patients preoperative variables were not reliable predictors of adverse pathological features. More than a third of Gleason 3 + 3 tumors on biopsy were upgraded in the radical prostatectomy specimen or had other adverse pathological features. Our results suggest that low volume Gleason 3 + 3 prostate cancer is frequently under staged, and that immediate therapy with radical prostatectomy is associated with favorable outcomes.

Characteristics of incidental prostatic adenocarcinoma in contemporary radical cystoprostatectomy specimens

To investigate the relationship between prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level and tumour volume for incidental adenocarcinoma of the prostate found in cystoprostatectomy (CP) specimens, and to analyse the incidence of clinically significant prostate cancers in CP specimens and the biochemical recurrence of incidental prostate cancers on short-term follow up. Complete data from 97 of 105 prostates from CP specimens were available. Prostates were thoroughly analysed and sectioned at 2 mm intervals. PSA levels and the findings at digital rectal examination before surgery were obtained prospectively. None of the patients had any evidence of prostate cancer before CP. Incidental prostate cancer was detected in 58 of 97 (60%) of the CP specimens; of these, 31 (53%) were significant according to the definition of Stamey et al. There was a weak correlation between tumour volume and PSA level, weighted solely by the four larger-volume cancers. The median PSA level for patients with and without prostate cancer was not significantly different (3.1 vs 1.1 ng/mL, P = 0.06). The follow-up of the 35 patients alive with prostate cancer showed four PSA recurrences (PSA >0.02 ng/mL) with one distant metastasis after a median follow-up of 3 years. None of the patients with insignificant tumours developed biochemical recurrence. The weak correlation between PSA level and tumour volume in these patients supports the argument that PSA is largely produced by benign prostatic hyperplasia and is therefore a poor screening tool for asymptomatic healthy men. Most incidental prostate cancers in CP specimens are significant, contrary to previous analyses, but have little practical importance in terms of oncological outcome.

Cooperative Strategies of Entry to the International Market between the Greek Enterprises

Contemporary radical changes in the European geographical setting, combined with the consolidation of the globalised international market have resulted in a totally competitive international business environment. Nowadays, as in almost all countries, the Greek enterprises have to operate with a new perspective, based on strategic alliances. These business strategies should be implemented on at least a middle-term basis. This article explains the necessity for adopting these operative techniques in light of the limited presence of the Greek enterprises in the international market. Furthermore, it analyses a sufficient model of cooperative operation, which gives to the enterprises - mainly the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - the ability of adapting to the international market.

Marginal Movements and Minority Struggles? The Case of the Japanese Minority Social and Labour Movements

In Japan, some of the socially, economically and politically marginalised have developed robust social and labour movements that engage with mainstream society. These movements have developed strategies challenging the conditions of the excluded, while also highlighting pathways to establish, or enhance, individual and collective participation in the labour market and the wider society. Two distinct though related, social and organisational forms of these movements are elaborated – firm-centred and community centred respectively. The former especially has a combative past in the labour struggles of the 1950s in what are known as sa'ha shωsū-ha kumiai (left wing Minority union, or, Minority-faction union). However, this does not mean Minorities are inherently leftist in orientation. In the 1940s and 1950s, during a period of radical union hegemony, a collaborative form of second unions developed assisting the purge of radical leaderships. Our focus here is on a contemporary radical democratic current. While articulating concerns of those in full time employment outside the political mainstream they may also represent ethnically and otherwise socially marginalised workers. The community unions, a form of what are known as ‘new-type union’, shingata kumiai (this term will be used here to describe the community unions) articulate the concerns of those socially and economically marginalized in the community and the wider labour market. Controversially, the term ‘Minority union’ is used to depict the different forms of oppositional social movement union in a broader sense than is typically understood in the literature. This is because they share a common concern with the articulation of Minority social and political interests in the context of the employment relationship and the local community. In considering the character of these social movement unions the article seeks to add to what Price (1997) describes as ‘bottom up history’ which we term ‘sociology from below’.

The Souls of Black Radical Folk

W. E. B. Du Bois provides an important, though often overlooked, Africana history, culture, and philosophy – informed framework for (a) redeveloping Africana studies and relating it to the crises and conundrums of the 21st century; (b) reconstructing critical social theory, making it more multicultural, transethnic, transgender, and non-Western European–philosophy focused; and (c) reinventing what it means to be an insurgent intellectualactivist (one who relates critical theory to radical political praxis). Du Bois has been hailed as an historian, sociologist, Marxist, and political activist but never an early interdisciplinary social theorist with concrete political commitments to not simply Black liberation and racial justice but to women's liberation, the poor masses and working classes, and colonized people of color worldwide. He has long been praised and criticized by scholars who have interpreted and reinterpreted his work, often overlooking its deep critical theoretical dimensions. In this article, Du Bois's multifarious and ever-evolving social theory is situated at the center and examined for its significance to the discourse and development of Africana studies, contemporary radical political theory, and revolutionary social movements.

Repression and reaction: militant democracy and the radical right in Germany and France

ABSTRACT Minkenberg tackles a variety of issues in the debate about state repression and examines them in relation to the contemporary radical right in western democracies, particularly Germany and France. He addresses concepts developed mostly in research studies of movements, and reviews more theoretical accounts in an attempt to advance an analytic framework for examining the effects of repression on the radical right. Does the application of state repression have the desired effect on the radical right? Or is state repression rather counter-productive and, if so, under what circumstances? Minkenberg attempts to provide a tentative answer as to whether state repression reduces radical right-wing mobilization (as some have argued) or provokes resistance and a sense of solidarity that undercuts the intended effects (as others have suggested). The case of the German Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (and the failure of an attempt to ban it)—which provides evidence both of the organizational and strategic flexibility of the non-party radical right and of ghetto-formation and a hardening of ideology—raises serious questions about the usefulness of state repression against the radical right. It seems that the damage to democracy outweighs the benefits of state control, particularly when the fight against the radical right is limited to the institutional level of ‘militant democracy’. Instead, alternatives within civil society need to be strengthened both because they can affect the radical right on their own and because they can ‘embed’ state action and thereby render it more effective.

Abstracts and keywords

Peter Holbrook Shakespeare, ‘The Cause of the People’, and The Chartist Circular 1839–1842 Left political critics such as Cultural Materialists are now often rather hostile towards Shakespeare, apparently agreeing with William Hazlitt that great poetry such as Shakespeare's tends to be inimical to ‘the cause of the people’, i.e., democracy. This is a changed situation from that when the Communist Arnold Kettle, writing in the 1960s, could take it for granted that Shakespeare was an indispensable author for a radical working-class culture in Britain. This article explores the politics of Shakespeare through an analysis of how he and a selection of his plays are represented in a Chartist newspaper of the early 1840s. It argues that the Chartists saw Shakespeare as, in broad terms, an ally – they are closer to Kettle's position than Hazlitt's, let alone that of contemporary radical Bard-bashers. Nevertheless, their enthusiasm for Shakespeare did not prevent the Chartists dissenting from what they took to be conservative implications in texts such as Coriolanus and Othello – and in ways that seem to anticipate recent ideological critiques of these plays. (Hamlet the Chartists find a vastly more sympathetic text.) Overall, the explicit political bias of the Chartists' reading of Shakespeare was valuable, alerting them to political implications of the plays, including democratic or progressive ones, that less or differently biased approaches are likely to miss.

Shakespeare, ‘The cause of the people’, and The Chartist Circular 1839–1842

Left political critics such as Cultural Materialists are now often rather hostile towards Shakespeare, apparently agreeing with William Hazlitt that great poetry such as Shakespeare's tends to be inimical to 'the cause of the people', i.e., democracy. This is a changed situation from that when the Communist Arnold Kettle, writing in the 1960s, could take it for granted that Shakespeare was an indispensable author for a radical working-class culture in Britain. This article explores the politics of Shakespeare through an analysis of how he and a selection of his plays are represented in a Chartist newspaper of the early 1840s. It argues that the Chartists saw Shakespeare as, in broad terms, an ally - they are closer to Kettle's position than Hazlitt's, let alone that of contemporary radical Bard-bashers. Nevertheless, their enthusiasm for Shakespeare did not prevent the Chartists dissenting from what they took to be conservative implications in texts such as Coriolanus and Othello - and in ways that seem to anticipate recent ideological critiques of these plays. (Hamlet the Chartists find a vastly more sympathetic text.) Overall, the explicit political bias of the Chartists' reading of Shakespeare was valuable, alerting them to political implications of the plays, including democratic or progressive ones, that less or differently biased approaches are likely to miss.

On the Proletarian Identity of “A Woman Dressed as an Enormous Beetle”

A set of politics that uses rhetoric, imagery, music, and performance to promote interests that are distinctively and explicitly identified with the working class, Burgmann productively suggests, might revitalize the labor movement. Yet the effort to apply lessons from “identity politics” to “class politics” reproduces two problems in contemporary radicalism. First, by reducing the movements of ethno-racial minorities, women, and gays and lesbians to “identity politics” Burgmann underestimates those movements' claims to civil rights, human rights, socioeconomic improvement, and their general democratic nature. Second, the use of “class” to explain the antiglobalization movement is anachronistic and inadequate to the task of understanding radical politics today.

In vitro antioxidant activities of antioxidant-enriched toothpastes

Several forms of periodontal diseases (PD) are often associated with modified phagocytosing leukocytes and contemporary free radical production. Host antioxidant defenses could benefit from toothpastes used as adjuncts to counteract plaque-associated bacteria. The aim of the present study was to determine possible antioxidant activity (AA) of 12 differently antioxidant-enriched toothpastes, regardless of their efficacy as antimicrobial agents. Toothpastes were enriched alternatively with sodium ascorbyl phosphate, α-tocopherol acetate, pycnogenol, allantoin and methyl salycilate or a mixture of these. AA was tested in a cell-free system with a ABTS-decolorization assay improved by means of a flow injection analysis device. Comet assay, using NCTC 2544 keratinocytes, was performed to test if it was possible to identify any protection against in vitro DNA fragmentation provoked by a challenge with H2O2 in cultures pre-incubated with toothpaste extracts.Only toothpastes containing sodium ascorbyl phosphate displayed clear AA with I50 values ranging between 50 and 80 mg of toothpaste/ml water. COMET analysis of cells challenged with H2O2 in presence of toothpaste extracts revealed a limited protection exerted by sodium ascorbyl phosphate. The results described herein indicate that toothpastes containing sodium ascorbyl phosphate possess AA. All the data were obtained in systems in vitro and the demonstration of in vivo AA is desirable. These findings could be useful in the treatment and maintenance of some forms of PD and should be considered when arranging new toothpaste formulations.

On mosques and malls: Understanding Khomeinism as a source of counter-hegemonic resistance to the spread of global consumer culture

Recent work on globalisation, in particular that of Leslie Sklair, has identified the culture-ideology of consumerism as the life-blood of global capitalism. As such, the most significant challenge to the hegemony of globalisation would be a political movement characterised by an anti-consumerist ethos. While many look to the so-called ‘anti-globalisation’ movement for such a counter-hegemonic force, I argue that this movement is too disparate, and does not enjoy any meaningful focus on the genuine causes and social infrastructure of consumerism. Thus, I suggest we must look elsewhere if we are interested in identifying a truly counter-hegemonic anti-consumerist political movement. My main assertion is that some forms of contemporary radical Islam represent such a challenge. To support this assertion, I discursively explore the key cultural-historical themes and aspects of Shi'ism, ideological discourses in twentieth-century Iran, and the rhetoric and policies of the Khomeinist state, in an attempt to illustrate their anti-consumerist tenets and consequences.

Appropriation as Agrarianism: Distributive Justice in the Creation of Property Rights

The water-law doctrine of prior appropriation, developed in Colorado in the late 1800s, has received much scholarly attention, due to the claimed efficiency advantages of the system of private property rights it is supposed to have instituted. Supporters and critics alike have associated the doctrine with values such as the preference for private over common property, the privatization of the public domain, and the facilitation of markets in natural resources. This article relies on analysis of previously unexamined historical sources to demonstrate that the appropriation doctrine actually was intended to express contemporary radical, agrarian ideals of broadly distributed property and antimonopolism. The unofficial codes of the Colorado mining districts, conventionally thought to be the source of the doctrine’s first in time, first in right principle, focused primarily on rules designed to ensure wide distribution of property. Similarly, the statutes of the Colorado Territory, the water-rights provisions of the state constitution of 1876, and early judicial decisions culminating in the leading case of Coffin v. Left Hand Ditch Co., were mainly concerned to prevent control of water by capitalists, and did so by breaking the common-law monopoly of riparian owners and opening access to the resource to all bona fide users. This historical analysis raises the broader question of whether distributive justice has been adequately considered, alongside efficiency and public choice, as a factor in explaining the evolution of property-rights regimes. SCHORR(FINAL) 5/31/2005 6:31:50 PM 3 Appropriation as Agrarianism: Distributive Justice in the Creation of Property Rights

Beyond the institutional site and the ethos of the void: the relevance of Gabriel Marcel's Creative Fidelity

The article addresses ethical issues concerning spectatorship and art practices. It explores an alternative to both modern institutional authority and postmodern nihilism by referring to the concept of ‘creative fidelity’ developed by the French ‘existentialist’ philosopher Gabriel Marcel. Contemporary radical reactions against the excesses of modernity in the western world have led to profound mistrust in the idea of subject/object, and have as a result favoured attitudes which tend to dissolve such a dichotomy. These attitudes, by expressing the contingency, indeterminacy, or groundlessness of meaning, have triggered the disappearance of the self, authorship, authenticity and insight. In art, both spectators and practitioners have left the modern cage of institutional ‘sitedness’ to behave like nomads in the jungle. The question therefore becomes: How is it possible to perceive, make, or even teach art in a meaningful manner without imposing frameworks, closures, boundaries or perspectives? This, it is argued, can be achieved by understanding the vital complementary relationship between innovation and faith, creativity and fidelity, renewal and availability.

Theory of the Islamic State in Hasan al-Banna’s Political Discourse

The goal of this paper is to analyse the political discourse of one among the most influential thinkers of Islamic resurgence movement Hasan al-Banna. who is frequently considered the father of contemporary radical movements advocating the must for the Islamic state what is due to extra-legal activities of his created Islamic organization. “The Muslim Brotherhood” which was often taken as an organizational model by subsequent Islamic groups. The theoretical analysis. however. of the major principles that Hasan al-Banna employs in constructing foundations of the legitimate Islamic state reveals that his political theory is compromising and open to the basic values of Western democracy. This article seeks to show how Hasan al-Banna reconstructs Islamic political theory by reworking the meanings of its basic foundations.

Female sexual dysfunction after radical cystectomy: a new outcome measure

Objectives To assess, in our contemporary radical cystectomy (RC) series, female sexual dysfunction and whether the type of diversion affected the occurrence of sexual dysfunction. Outcome data after RC with and without orthotopic diversion has focused primarily on cure, urethral recurrence, and continence. Methods The baseline and follow-up data from 27 sexually active female patients (mean age 54.79 ± 12.7 years) who underwent RC from 1997 to 2002 for transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder (16 with Stage T1-T2 and 11 with Stage T3-T4) were obtained. Thirteen patients were premenopausal before RC. Of the 27 patients, 10 (37%) underwent Studor orthotopic diversion, 7 (26%) Indiana cutaneous diversion, and 10 (37%) ileal conduit diversion. A 10-item version of the self-administered Index of Female Sexual Function questionnaire was used to assess sexual dysfunction. The specific domains analyzed in the Index of Female Sexual Function include the degree of vaginal lubrication, ability to achieve orgasm, degree of pain during intercourse, overall sexual desire and interest, and overall sexual satisfaction, with responses graded on a scale of 1 (almost never, never) to 5 (almost always, always). Results With a mean follow-up of 24.2 months (range 15 to 65.1), the total mean baseline Index of Female Sexual Function score decreased from 17.4 ± 7.23 to 10.6 ± 6.62 after RC ( P ≤0.05). The most common symptoms reported by the patients included diminished ability or inability to achieve orgasm in 12 (45%), decreased lubrication in 11 (41%), decreased sexual desire in 10 (37%), and dyspareunia in 6 patients (22%). Only 13 (48%) of the 27 patients were able to have successful vaginal intercourse, with 14 (52%) reporting decreased satisfaction in overall sexual life after RC. Eight partners (30%) had a decrease in desire for sexual activity owing to apprehension after cancer diagnosis and treatment. Although the numbers were small, the preliminary data suggested no differences in sexual function between patients undergoing Studor orthotopic diversions and those undergoing Indiana cutaneous diversions. Conclusions Sexual dysfunction is a prevalent problem after female RC. The nature of the dysfunction involves multiple domains, including decreased orgasm, decreased lubrication, lack of sexual desire, and dyspareunia. Our early results suggest that the type of continent diversion does not affect sexual function. Surgical modifications such as urethral and vaginal sparing, neurovascular preservation, and tubular vaginal reconstruction sparing may improve female sexual function after RC.

Editorial comment

Clinical staging, as determined by examination under anesthesia and TURBT, dictates the management of bladder cancer. A superficial (Ta) or superficially invasive (T1) transitional cell carcinoma will be managed endoscopically, and muscle-invasive tumors will require radical cystectomy. However, clinical staging has its limitations, with a rate of understaging of 30% for T1 tumors, even in the best of hands. 1 Thrasher J.B Frazier H.A Robertson J.E et al. Does stage pT0 cystectomy specimen confer a survival advantage in patients with minimally invasive bladder cancer?. J Urol. 1994; 152: 393-396 Google Scholar , 2 Pagano F Bassi P Galetti T.P et al. Results of contemporary radical cystectomy for invasive bladder cancer a clinicopathological study with an emphasis on the inadequacy of the Tumor, Nodes and Metastases classification. J Urol. 1991; 145: 45-50 Abstract Full Text PDF Scopus (351) Google Scholar A second TURBT has been advocated to decrease the understaging error in patients with tumor involving the lamina propria. Residual bladder tumor has been detected in 76% of patients subjected to a restaging TURBT, with 49% having muscle-invasive tumor in the second resection if no muscle was present in the original TURBT. 3 Herr H.W The value of a second transurethral resection in evaluating patients with bladder tumors. J Urol. 1999; 162: 74-76 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (407) Google Scholar Furthermore, a second TURBT has resulted in better staging, as indicated by an 11% understaging error in patients with Stage T1 who underwent two TURBTs immediately before undergoing cystectomy. 4 Dalbagni G Herr H.W Reuter V.E Impact of a second transurethral resection on the staging of T1 bladder cancer. Urology. 2002; 60: 822-825 Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF Scopus (96) Google Scholar

Learning from defeat: reform, revolution and the problem of organization in the first New Left

Within the contemporary anti-capitalist movement a debate concerning the most effective forms taken by political organizations has opened. However, few of the contributions to this debate include an adequate historical component: indeed, while many have labelled the anti-capitalist movement a new left, few draw any lessons from the first British New Left of 1956–62. This article addresses this lacuna through an analysis of the debate over the question of political organization as it was articulated within the first British New Left. It is argued that the New Left’s critique of Leninism was underpinned by the political reformism that many of its leading members inherited from the Communist Party, and suggested that this left-reformist strategy informed its collapse in the early sixties. It concludes that contemporary radicals should learn the dangers associated with both a too close relationship to the Labour Party, and from the New Left’s failure to begin the process of building a political organization that could have begun to act as an alternative to Labour.