We are all Marxists now — if the badges are anything to go by. A Marxist is a radical thing to be, and it’s such less bother than becoming a vegetarian or getting yourself Born Again. Yes, the fashion for Marxism has a big future — as long as it doesn't get out of hand.
The attraction is that there are just so many Marxisms to choose from. When you get tired of one you can attach yourself to another. There’s Russian Marxism: you can bore your fellow workers at union meetings with how rents in Leningrad haven’t gone up for forty years — and the need for “anti-Soviet wreckers” to be sent for a long holiday in People’s Siberia (a sort of Leninist Disneyland). Then there's Chinese Marxism: if you take that option you get your script supplied in a Little Red Book: “He who does not work his sweet and sour balls off for the State is a counter-revolutionary tapeworm". Plenty of clichés are provided with Chinese Marxism, but the grey and grey uniform can be a trifle offputting. Let us not forget Albanian Marxism. All Albanian Marxists will insist on telling you (whether you want to hear or not) that there is no inflation in Albania. As a matter of fact there's not much money in Albania either. Of course, there's Polish Marxism: the latest joke in Gdansk is that "A spectre is haunting Leninism — the spectre of trade union consciousness" (subtle, but subversive). A bit of the old African Marxism is always worth consulting if you want to see the Old Man’s words distorted; a good example is Mugabe’s “National Socialism'”— a free copy of The Marxist Misprint to the first person who tells us where that little phrase was used before.
For those who don’t fancy Marxism there are plenty of other "isms" to print on your chest. There’s Leninism — the game for people who like the sound of Marxist slogans, but detest their meanings. Trotskyism is for ideologists, who’ve been everywhere and want to spend the rest of their days infiltrating Labour Party sleeping clubs. (No wonder they call them "bedsit socialists".) There’s feminism for men who feel sorry for women, anarchism for individuals who feel sorry for themselves and masochism for Labourites who have high hopes and always end up feeling sorry.
There are some who say that Marxism is more than a badge. More than a chant. More than a tone of voice even. What more do they expect — ideas? Yes: Marxism is a way of thinking about the world. It is not a dogma to be repeated parrot-fashion by tired old secular monks or a slogan to be scrawled on a wall by a rebel who runs away. To be a Marxist is to understand the world you live in. And to change it. The educators need to be educated — the uneducated need to discover the power within them. The world can be ours — those who pose as revolutionaries are in our way.
Steve Coleman
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