Way way back in March 2016 I published an article extolling my liking for a book by a socialist by the name of John Sullivan, no not the one who wrote ‘Only Fools and Horses’, but a different one. The Late Mr Sullivan’s book was called ‘As Soon As This Pub Closes’ and was about the various factions of leftists that existed in the 1970’ through to the early 80’s. It’s really entertainingly written and explains in a very tongue in cheek way the beliefs, attributes and foibles of the far left scene back then. It’s a very interesting piece of political history.

As Soon As This Pub Closes was written by a socialist poking fun at socialists and some of those he poked fun at, such as Gerry Healy the abusive pound shop Caligula who headed up the Workers Revolutionary Party, really did deserve it.

But to bring things a little more up to date, some one else has had a go at having a wry dig at the various tribes of leftist. This time it’s someone from outside the Left, Kristian Niemietz writing in 1828 magazine.

Of course the Tankies and Trots are there on his list but it’s still depressing to see people on the left still admiring disgraceful authoritarians who murdered millions by bullet, torture and starvation and more so to see hard Communism and Trotskyism being sold to people as something good by other people who have zero knowledge of history and probably believe that ‘when the revolution comes’ they will be the ‘elect’ ones behind the machine guns not in front of them.

Some differences between Mr Sullivan’s book and Mr Neimietz’s piece are the presence of Patriotic Socialists, Tankie Adjacent Marxists, Libertarian socialists and Hipster Marxists. Some of these groupings would not have existed in a previous incarnation of the Left. I share Mr Neimietz’s scepticism about the seriousness of the Patriotic Socialists and I can see his point about how the Libertarian Socialists really don’t want to accept that with socialism, authoritarianism is an unavoidable feature not a bug. I do really like his description of Hipster Socialists:

Hipster Marxists are people who use political opinions, first and foremost, for image purposes. They adopt whichever opinions are currently most in vogue. If you know such a person’s opinion on one subject, you know their opinions on every subject, because nowadays, fashionable opinions come as a package deal. They may not have been a Marxist ten years ago, when that was not yet as trendy as it is today. But in the 2020s, being a Marxist is just as much part of the standard package of hip opinions as the latest woke fad or the latest environmentalist fad.  

While Tankies and Trots are usually quite well-versed in their corner of the Marxist literature, Hipster Marxists can be a little clueless. When debating with them, you may find yourself in the strange position of having to explain their own ideology to them. But what they have is a very keen intellectual fashion sense. They know instinctively where a political opinion, a political figure or a political movement ranks in the hierarchy of social kudos, and align themselves accordingly. 

Spot on. He could also use the term ‘digital left’ instead of Hipster Left as there are a lot of this sort of leftist online, something the author himself points out. People ache to be on trend so voice the views that will get them clicks from those who are seen to be on trend. I disagree with the author when he says that the Hipster Marxists will be politically important as he said they were in 2017. The political situation is radically different than it was then with economic problems that were not as bad then as they are now. People under pressure might be less willing to go with the flow of the crowd or fashion on the subject of politics and might start to think about the subject more rather than buying their opinions by the yard from others. The dispersal of many Hipster Marxists into causes like BLM, Extinction Rebellion, Insulate Britain and the loony Left of the Labour Party doesn’t seem to me to be something that is inspiring support for these causes, the opposite in fact, the promoters of these causes seem to be really pissing people off.

Anyway I thought Mr Neimietz’s piece was an interesting set of observations and contrasted well with John Sullivan’s book on a very similar subject.