While I have not the slightest sympathy for the crowd Anthony McIntyre is lampooning in his article ‘Workers of the West. Fight!’ I do wish he wouldn't make it sound as though all Marxists subscribe to the pathetic approach of these Trotskyist sectarians.

Some of us, such as many in the IRSP, still think of ourselves as good Marxists while avoiding these folks like the plague.

If there is any single theorist responsible for the approach and worldview of these members of the Left, then it is by all rights Lenin who must bear the blame. By taking consciousness out of the hands of working people, where Marx had firmly placed it, and attributing it instead to the intervention of intellectuals, the way was paved for groups such as these to see themselves as the indispensible 'leaders' of the working masses and their tiny sects as the 'vanguard' of the revolution.

It is simply unfair that poor old Karl is forced to take blows to the head for the nonsense that was put forward in his name nearly half a century after his death.

Peter Urban
IRSP

[In response to] Workers of the West - Fight!