The Marxist
Ukraine – what you’re not told
The Marxist
The first issues of The Marxist were published by a group of ex-members of the Communist Party of Great Britain who had left following that organisation’s total adoption of revisionism. This manifested itself very early on, in 1951, with the adoption of the Party Programme ‘The British Road to Socialism’. This revisionist stance even preceded that of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union which, from late 1956, had turned its back on the revolutionary ideology of Marxism-Leninism. The crucial event is this shift in policy in the Soviet Union was Nikita Khrushchev’s so-called ‘secret speech’ – where he attacked Comrade Stalin and all the achievements of the Soviet Union since the October Revolution of 1917 – at the Party’s 20th Congress in November of that year.
This caused confusion in most Communist Parties worldwide and it was no different in Britain. Many (both those still in the Revisionist CPGB and those who had left – or had been expelled) congregated in the Committee to Defeat Revisionism for Communist Unity (CDRCU) and the decision to publish The Marxist was a late manifestation of the work of that group.
As it says in the first article in issue No 1, Our Purpose;
‘This journal has come into being because of the urgent need to bring Marxist-Leninist thought and analysis back into the British political struggle.’ p3.
Amongst the early contributors were Reg Birch – who was later one of the principle founding members of the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) CPB(ML) in 1968 – and William Ash – who was for many years the editor of The Worker, the newspaper of the CPB(ML).
In the early days it was produced by a group of like-minded anti-revisionists. However, it soon became evident that being anti wasn’t enough and if the British working class were to have any say in their future then a proper constituted Marxist-Leninist Communist party was necessary. Although there were quite a lot of areas where there was common ground among different individuals it seems that personalities got in the way. The result was a fractured anti-revisionist movement – and the formation of a number of groups. When unity was needed it was not provided.
Some of those wanted to be ‘big fish in little pools’ and refused to unite in the common battle against British capitalism and imperialism. As is always a risk of little pools they dried up and few organisations had any significant longevity. The Marxist lasted longer than most.
A number of other organisations claiming the title ‘Marxist-Leninist’ appeared – and disappeared through the 1980s and 1990s. Examples of some of their publications can be seen on the the page devoted to The Marxist-Leninist and Anti-Revisionist Movement in Britain. To the best of our knowledge the only Marxist-Leninist organisation that was formed in the late 1960s/early 1970s that still exists is the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist) – CPB(ML).
The group that produced The Marxist went through a number of manifestations until the last (available) issue was published in 1994. For the first three years it wasn’t associated with any specific grouping but from September 1969 the magazine became the mouthpiece of the Communist Federation of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). However, sometime around 1977 the Federation must have dissolved and the publication came out under the name of the Marxist Industrial Group. After No. 44, at the end of 1985, there was a gap of more than five years before No. 45 was published. Here the name of the publisher became Marxist Publications – and that was the name it was published under until No. 52, (published at the end of 1994) the last in this list. Whether that was the very last issue we do not know, there’s no statement to the fact that it was.
[Many of these scans come originally from the Marxist Internet Archive, who we thank for their work.]
Volume 1, No. 1, November-December 1966, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1966, 29 pages.
Volume 1, No. 3, March-April 1967, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1967, 33 pages.
Volume 1, No. 4, May-June 1967, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1967, 33 pages.
Volume 1, No. 6, Spring 1968, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1968, 21 pages.
Volume 1, No. 7, Summer 1968, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1968, 25 pages.
Volume 1, No. 8, Autumn 1968, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1968, 21 pages.
Volume 1, No. 9, Spring 1969, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1969, 26 pages.
No. 10, April 1969, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1969, 21 pages.
No. 11, July 1969, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1969, 24 pages.
No. 12, Autumn 1969, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1969, 26 pages.
No. 13, Winter 1970, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1970, 21 pages.
No. 14, Spring 1970, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1970, 25 pages.
No. 15, Autumn 1970, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1970, 24 pages.
No. 16, January 1971, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1971, 22 pages.
No. 17, 1971, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1971, 34 pages.
No. 18, 1971, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1971, 32 pages.
No. 20, 1971/2? Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1971/2? 32 pages.
No. 21, 1973, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1973, 32 pages.
No. 24, 1973, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1973, 32 pages.
No. 28, 1975, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1975, 32 pages.
No. 30, 1976, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1976, 32 pages.
No. 31, 1976, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1976, 32 pages.
No. 32, 1977, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1977, 32 pages.
No. 33, 1978, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1978, 24 pages.
No. 34, 1979, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1979, 25 pages.
No. 35, 1980, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1980, 22 pages.
No. 36, 1980, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1980, 18 pages.
No. 37, 1981, Oasis Publishing Company, London, 1981, 25 pages.
No. 38, 1982, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1982, 18 pages.
No. 39, 1982, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1982, 22 pages.
No. 40, 1983, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1983, 32 pages.
No. 41, 1983, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1983, 22 pages.
No. 42, 1984, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1984, 29 pages.
Supplement to No. 42, 1984, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1984, 5 pages.
No. 43, 1985, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1985, 26 pages.
No. 44, 1985, Marxist Industrial Group, London, 1985, 26 pages.
No. 45, 1991, Marxist Publications, London, 1991, 22 pages.
No. 46, 1991, Marxist Publications, London, 1991, 26 pages.
No. 48, 1992, Marxist Publications, London, 1992, 22 pages.
No. 50, 1993, Marxist Publications, London, 1993, 22 pages.
No. 51, 1994, Marxist Publications, London, 1994, 30 pages.
No. 52, 1994, Marxist Publications, London, 1994, 26 pages.