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From POBox82, Socialist Review, No. 5, September 1978, p. 19
Transcribed & marked up by by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Socialist Review is awful. That’s not because all the articles in it are awful. It’s not because the people who produce it don’t work hard enough.
Socialist Review is awful because it is aimed at the wrong people. It is aimed at intellectuals and semi-intellectuals. What about all the working-class people who are just becoming interested in socialist ideas? They are the most exciting people in the world and there are more of them about now than for many a long year.
There is not a hint in Socialist Review of the thousands of political discussions that go on among ordinary people every day. Everything from profit and unemployment to sexual relationships. Many revolutionaries in the past have written about these things in a way that appeals to working-class people. They had that much respect for workers. It is this respect that is so sadly lacking in Socialist Review.
Finally, I think that it’s very important for an organisation like the Socialist Workers Party to have a monthly magazine that clearly belongs to it and argues its politics. Debates with other socialists certainly (as long as they represent a presence in the working class at least as important as ours). But let’s stop fooling around pretending that the members of the editorial board just happen all to be in the SWP by chance.
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Last updated: 14 September 2019