Living Marxism: the Great Moving Right Show continues
I first came across Frank Furedi when he was using the pseudonym Frank Richards as part of the Revolutionary Communist Group in the 1970s. The RCG had split from the International Socialists(SWP) and in due course became the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Richards/Furedi spent time publishing interminable pieces on (not unimportant Marxist theory) things like productive and unproductive labour.
At some point they became fed up with that and started as the RCP publishing a glossy magazine Living Marxism. The speciality was contrarian positions- support for a ballot in the 1984/5 miners strike, opposition to no platform for fascists.
This might be seen as simply building the brand but in fact the contrarianism started them on a long and continuing journey to the right. Living Marxism stopped publication after losing a libel case but in due course Spiked OnLine with many of the same cast appeared.
It has moved steadily to the right. Its Editor Brendan O’Neil can be found writing in the Spectator supporting whatever the latest Tory Culture War is. Another well known figure is now Lady Fox sitting in the Lords after a brief period as Faragist MEP.
Furedi himself is now a Professor Emeritus at Kent and makes regular appearances on GB News. I regret to say he is a Spurs fan.
Private Eye(1589) reports that Furedi is now heading up the Brussels operation of the Hungarian ‘think tank’ Mathias Corvinus Collegium. It is funded by the hard right Hungarian Government of Viktor Orban. As the Eye notes the MCC ‘wages a culture war for right-wing nationalism’. Furedi is promoting its activities on his twitter account.
It will be interesting to see what its impact on the hard to far right in the UK is and a reminder that it and the views it espouses need opposing by the left every bit as much as Living Marxism did in the 1980s
A ex-RCP supporter writes… Here’s an extract from something I wrote last year on Frank F and his merry men and women:
There is a book or two awaiting for any study of the relationship between the charismatic leader and his true believers, especially one written ‘from the inside’, as it were. And what better than to have one written by the leader himself? It’s tempting to consider Spiked as Frank’s latest research project. After all, his academic field is sociology, and a project involving real live subjects would undoubtedly produce some fascinating results. So, rather than just letting the RCP expire, why not put failure to good use? Why not use the opportunity to run an experiment by seemingly reinventing yourself and your organisation, and then seeing how far your adherents will go in following you as you repudiate each and every idea that attracted them to your organisation in the first place? Here, the dramatic shrinkage of the RCP down to a few dozen true believers would actually work to Frank’s advantage, as it means that not only are there fewer subjects to monitor, but that they are also of the purest content, unsullied by any impurities or dross remaining from the past.
There is plenty of raw material for a concentrated study. There have been so many opportunities for former RCPers to cavil at the repudiation of their erstwhile beliefs, but one has to admit that they have proven remarkably loyal, accepting all of Frank’s new ideas and new pals with equanimity. To take one recent example, it is somewhat incongruous that someone of Frank’s background should be hobnobbing with Fidesz when one takes into consideration that Hungary’s hard-right governing party has rehabilitated both the deeply anti-Jewish prewar ‘Hungarian Christian’ tradition which made life so miserable for Frank’s forefathers, and Admiral Horthy, the hard-right dictator of Hungary who ended up as the wartime quisling ruler in Budapest, and which resorts to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories when dealing with its liberal bête noir George Soros. And yet our Spiked chums have taken it all in their stride, and one feels that a lack of familiarity with Central European affairs can only be partially to blame for this.