Why you should be a communist. By Fiona Lali. Wellred Books. £2. 2025.
Fiona Lali is a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (ex-Socialist Appeal, the section of the Militant Tendency that stayed in the Labour Party after most left in 1991 until they were themselves finally expelled in 2021). She stood as their candidate in last year’s general election and has become their poster girl (literally as she appears on many of their posters). This pamphlet has been written as part of a recruitment drive by the RCP, at the moment the Trotskyist group that seems to have been the most successful in recruiting young people.
The pamphlet starts off with an attack on capitalism and is aimed at young people who realise that something is wrong with the world and want to do something about it. There is not much that can be objected to here. It’s the second part — about what is to replace capitalism and how — that is open to criticism. It starts off with the absurd claim that ‘the Russian Revolution of October 1917 — led by Lenin and Trotsky — was the greatest event in human history’. An important event in 20th century history perhaps, but in the whole of human history?
We are told that the regime it ushered in, while far from perfect (due to Stalin being in charge), was able, thanks to its ‘nationalised planned economy’, to industrialise the country and provide the workers with ‘extremely low rents’ that included ‘energy and phone services’ and retirement at age 55. The implication is that what happened in Russia in the last century is something to be emulated. But what the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 led to was a form of state-run capitalism that left the workers propertyless wage-workers, indeed forcibly changed the peasantry into these. It had nothing to do with communism or socialism. Lali is deceiving herself and misleading others in suggesting otherwise. It is not the path to go down.
She presents the Bolshevik seizure of power as the model for the future. In a section headed ‘need for a revolutionary party’, she tells us that ‘what is required is a party of trained class fighters — cadres — who dedicate themselves to the study of the class, its history, and the theory needed to liberate us’ and that:
‘In the not too distant future, Britain will be convulsed by revolutionary upheavals. It is essential that we build a revolutionary party in advance of these titanic events. This is what we are doing. And we appeal to you to join us in this effort.’
Apparently, hundreds of young people, of which Lali is one herself, have responded to this appeal. It’s the classic formula, successfully applied in the 1960s and 1970s by the founders of Trotskyist groups, to attract young people discontented with capitalism — promising them exciting times of ‘revolutionary upheavals’ and ‘titanic events’ in ‘the not too distant future’.
There are good opportunities to advance the socialist cause at the moment but to make extravagant promises like these can only lead to disillusionment when they don’t materialise. The only positive outcome would be that some will be able to sort the Marxist wheat, which they will have had to study, from the Leninist chaff.
Adam Buick
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