Hitherto philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways. The point however is to change it. Karl Marx
Economic & Philosophic Science Review
Subscriptions - £20 p.a.  [P&P Bulletin Publications PO BOX 50, London SWI7 9NL] [ Port Office Regd.]
No 976  Tuesday Nov 24 1998                                                                                                                               10p

Save scientific inquiry from the fascist thought-police, and save homosexuals from the damage of Gay Rights extremism. All single-issue 'reformism' is an obstacle to understanding of the most sensitive questions because it is based on idealist illusions and not on a materialist analysis of all social relationships. Marxist books will be the next complaints-procedure target for self-righteous SLPers. But all anti-communism will eventually be defeated, just like the Trots, because of growing revolutionary consciousness about imperialist crisis. Fighting anti-Marxist confusion in workers minds is now an urgent priority, not just a possible option.

The people round the SLP who want other comrades politically condemned because of their use of 'discriminatory language' need to explain what they would have made of an attack by Marx and Engels in 1869 on a homosexual political conspiracy, using the ripest terms of ridicule (see below).

They need to spell out their own scientific and social analysis of the homosexual phenomenon in 'undiscriminatory language' because the existing scientific literature on the subject (see below) will face the burning of books, — Hitler, Arrow Cross, and Pinochet style.

They will have to explain how a sensitive caring response to any impairment (see below) is possible by pretending it doesn't exist or that really it is a superior condition.

And they must prove there is no connection between the extreme individualism and the philosophical subjective-idealism of single-issue 'reformism' (Black nationalism, Feminism, Gay Rights, etc) and the reactionary politics that they frequently unquestioningly link up with (see below).

The greatest obstacle now to Marxist-Leninist scientific understanding of the imperialist system's incurable and revolutionary crisis is this last gasp 'reformism' of single-issue politics (feminism, black nationalism, gay rights, etc). It has stepped up its attacks immediately in this period of promising developments around Socialist Labour.

Like all 'reformism', these are halfway-house philosophies which willingly or unwillingly feed the illusion that constant campaigning pressure on capitalist society can change it fundamentally.

But such campaigning basically changes nothing. All the corrupt injustices of the imperialist world go on afflicting ALL women (as they do everyone else), overwhelmingly outweighing any greater happiness or satisfied aspirations some women might feel from having gained some RELATIVE advance in one area of life or another from the double burden of exploitation that women suffer.

On a worldwide scale with capitalism collapsing everywhere towards chaos and inter-imperialist conflict, the idea that women's problems as a whole are being 'solved' by feminism is ludicrous.

But at this point, the fundamental premise of feminism, — that men's backwardness is the cause of women's suffering, (insanely shallow and unbalanced to start with), — becomes the most obstructive poisonous REACTION.

The mass anti-imperialist movement needs to get ahead as far and as fast as possible into a completely communist revolutionary outlook which understands that only the overthrow of the free-market capitalist system will now offer civilisation a way forward.

But single-issue extremism holds it back, deliberately spreading distrust of the communist revolution on a feminist, black nationalist, or gay rights basis.

It works perfectly hand-in-glove with organised Trotskyite anti-communism, — cynical sectarian individualism that is forever factionalising and can never stop reflecting its roots in the petty-bourgeois mentality of defeatist suspicion.

These individuals have a CLASS hatred of communism and instinctively know how to react against it.

Their tactics are utterly ruthless, — single-mindedly clinging to the workers movement to martyr themselves over some factional bee-in-the-bonnet or other, — some 'democratic' or 'human' right or other that has allegedly been infringed by the mass movement or the revolution.

The 'politically correct' style of vilifying opponents for breach of some linguistic etiquette or other, suits them admirably, — pretending to be so 'ultra-principled' and 'ultra-left' but in reality creating only total shallowness and confusion.

This style spread to the derision of all Marxist-Leninist science as being the output of "dead white males" by these right-on, single-issue 'reformist' campaigners.

Attempts to keep arguing for communist philosophy have been put down with philistine sneers of 'racist, sexist, chauvinist, homophobe', etc, — bourgeois ideology stopping all thought, — a gift for anti-communism.

The defeat for leading anti-communists around the SLP has unleashed a hypocritical witch-hunt to try to redress the balance.

A stunt reeking of self-righteous thought-police has immediately tried to ensure that the SLP be held back from making new progress now that Trotskyite factionalising has been demoted.

The racket is the same 'homophobe' nonsense that was used to create a physical-violence provocation outside the special congress, and which politically-defeated Trot groups have been playing non-stop all-year.

From a 5,000-word article in EPS Review 973 analysing New Labour's Ron Davies fiasco, five sentences have been picked out as 'discriminatory' and therefore in breach of the SLP constitution.

Far from being homophobic, the article quite clearly denounced the Davies situation for the damage it had done to "homosexual tolerance and understanding".

The whole section (from which the quotes have been taken) reads: 

"Some commentators are pretending that Davies is being hounded and ditched from the government just for being a homosexual. This does not make sense when there are already many open homosexuals on the government benches and prominent in public life generally.

Alternatively, the blame for the scandal is being put on society's backwardness which caused Davies to stay in the closet and then so embarrassingly fall out of it in public. 

This is dud logic too. What is the government of the country if not the best-placed authority to campaign for more enlightened attitudes on things, — on racism, on drugs, on drink-driving, on the protection of children, etc, etc. Davies and New Labour deliberately CHOSE to remain in this particular closet. 

The real issue is WHY did they so choose?? Because of very REAL lifestyle problems posed for homosexuals, and by no means all to do with continuing popular ignorance and distaste.

In the very broadest terms of the history of human culture, being homosexual cannot help but constantly be recorded as an aberration. It is always an abnormality.

This has nothing to do with homophobia but with biological reality and with the obvious clinical/social frustrations and deviations which both give rise to and result from the homosexual condition, — clearly not made any easier by public prejudice, but equally clearly not remediable no matter how enlightened social attitudes become.

For whatever reason, the politically ambitious Davies decided to base his career on the pretence of being 'normal'.

This sad fraud is not helped by the PC (politically correct) shallowness of the gay rights lobby which refuses to accept the clinical description of how the homosexual orientation arises out of inadequate parenting in the crucial emotional-formative years and especially up to the age of four.

A compensating aggressiveness is substituted instead which INSISTS that being abnormal is perfectly normal, and even as good as or even better than being straight, and that anyone who will not go along with this is a homophobic reactionary. 

Many homosexuals reject this militant irrationalism, and prefer trying to stay in the closet to actually deal more tolerantly with their own sadness (arbitrarily called 'gayness' in PC's determined irrationalism) than aggressive 'gay pride' can ever allow.

It is the FUNDAMENTAL exploitational sickness and ideological distortions of capitalist society which will ENDLESSLY foment all the splits, divisions, fears, hatreds, and envies it can, in order to keep the working masses divided and ruled via deliberately-imposed ignorance, thus INCURABLY keeping homophobia going all the time that capitalism lasts.

It is just more illogicality to INSIST that this continuing period of prejudice will produce more enlightenment and be more comfortable for homosexuals if the relentless in-your-face 'gayness' of the 'pride' movement and the 'liberation' front retains 'politically correct' support. 

Many homosexuals have indicated a preference for a quieter life in as civilised a society as possible where homosexuals could be protected from persecution but did not need to be making a permanent song-and-dance about their sexual preferences on a 24-hour basis.

Such calmer open acceptance of homosexual abnormality might have suited Ron Davies but his real 'sin' (of political ambitiousness and opportunism, endemic throughout New Labour,) got the better of him. Humbug, character weakness, and unsuitability (as prime minister of all the Welsh) became the issues because of New Labour's deviousness, — not Davies' sexuality.

Sexual preferences are clearly, as widely claimed this week, a "private and personal matter" — up to a point.

What turns ANYONE on, whatever it is, is in one sense neither good nor bad. It is entirely their own private personal concern, — up to a point.

The problem for Ron Davies and New Labour is grotesque hypocrisy and dubious credibility as public figures.

Modern politics is more outrageously shallow, deceitful, and purely image-conscious than ever before in history. The glamorous glossy video-clip and the snappy but meaningless advertising-slogan-soundbite are the favoured 'message' in this new age of slick multi-media communications.

Leading politicians have to be seen to be 'happy families' people, — playing football in the garden with the kids, walking romantically along the beach with the spouse, being cute with a loving and beloved family pet, etc, etc, plus going to church if possible.

ANYTHING is good to feed to the gullible public as long as it enables too great depth of policy investigation TO BE AVOIDED.

So get the Blairites elected just by repeating mindlessly, stuff like "New values on old traditions; Everyone for society and a society for everyone; Care for the family, and families that care; A new Britain for a new age;" etc, etc.

The all-round caring 'concern and wisdom' of the leading figures in the New Government was the general impression being aimed for, — responsible, self-denying, right with the mainstream popular pursuits, tastes, and interests, etc.

At this point, the 'normal' abnormalities of the Ron Davies homosexual lifestyle became a question of electoral misrepresentation at least, even if people remain unconvinced that they necessarily also indicate extremely vulnerable emotional instability.

And although 'normal' for the abnormalities of some aspects of homosexualism, it is NOT homophobic to anticipate that the public would have preferred the opportunity to have had a franker understanding of the potential future prime minister of Wales BEFORE a clearer picture of Ron Davies had to emerge in the police/tabloid revelations, — all sparked off by Blair & Co's own monstrous hypocrisy of only kicking Davies once he was down.

Once again, it is the oh-so-correct PC warriors of New Labour who emerge as one of the biggest reactionary sicknesses in society with their inveterate philistine shallowness, substituting glib electability for any serious sensitivity, either to the electorate's problems or even to their own hand-picked 'leading representatives'.

One minute, Ron Davies is portrayed as a 'sound family man', and 'utterly reliable' and carrying New Labour's "full confidence" as the future prime-minister of Wales. The next minute, the completely insensitively misdescribed Ron Davies is out on his ear for lacking all ability to show any judgement at all. 

What a degrading farce the whole thing is.

Tragically, Davies then went on to slam the free-market press, — the one that the New Labour privatising pro-capitalist spirit surely alone believes in, — for pillorying him with 'disinformation'.

Not true. For whatever rotten profit or political motive, the media have simply pursued all the obvious contradictions in the whole deceitful New Labour behaviour on these matters. New Labour and Ron Davies have been deliberately spreading all the disinformation, — from start to finish.

Davies should use his tragic position to urge on society a much more openly agreed scientific analysis of exactly how and why the homosexual phenomenon occurs, and to urge that a simple relaxed understanding and acceptance of the existing reality of homosexualism, in all its idiosyncrasies, would be society's best way forward, — minus the cover-up pretence of family-normality in the Davies/Blair style, but equally minus the shallow, aggressive PC posturing of the 'gay' militancy with its completely irrational insistence "that homosexuality is the same as heterosexuality", etc.

The general all-round talentedness of homosexuals which, like that of any other sector of the population, will only be able to be fully utilised by society once capitalist divisiveness is got rid of for ever, — and once PC hysteria is got rid of forever, — comes to fitful prominence under capitalism due to the effects of lingering homophobia which on the one hand continue to discriminate, but on the other hand inspire homosexuals to strive that much harder to achieve greatly in order to compensate for the difficult hand life has dealt them, particularly in a still-ignorant society where prejudice abounds.

And in a bourgeois social system which is steadily dying because of the endlessly mounting contradictions of its long-term insoluble cutthroat-competitive crisis, — more homosexuals come to outstanding prominence than ever, in all walks of life, due to a general paralysis in motivation by the main bourgeois class.

Tebbitt's comment implying the emergence of secret homosexual mafias in many key institutions, helping each other gain promotion, is almost certainly true, but is a bit rich coming from the Tory ruling class, the masters of freemasonry corruption. Blame capitalism, Mr Tebbitt, if you don't like such dubious developments.

The Davies scandal has great similarities to the Clinton scandal, with every section of bourgeois ideology, from the far right to the fake-"left", either deliberately missing the point, or doing it out of 'democracy'-mesmerised PC stupidity.

In one sense, Clinton's office groping IS a private matter, — for the girls involved, Clinton, and his family and loyal staff. If none of them mind his creepy exploitative opportunism, then no one else should mind it either.

Except that in American politics even more than in Britain, the shallow soundbite personality presentation of a nice image is EVERYTHING, — with hundreds of millions of dollars expended to put across completely synthetic illusions of what the President and the First Family are supposed to be like.

And, as EPSR analysed in detail, the total lying nonsense about Hillary supposedly 'standing by her man that she so admires for what he has done for the American people', etc, etc, was even still being peddled right at the moment of the seediest climax of this humiliating farce, — at the holding of the 'prayer breakfast' after the truth had come out about all the lies and the cover-ups, when Clinton turned on even more of the 'serving the people' humbug, and Hillary at last staged some gesture of forgiveness and solidarity, etc.

All utter bunkum. They HATE each other. They are in it together for a power-grabbing business, along with very influential Democrat-Party sectors who backed the glamorous Clintons from way back to deliver the electoral goods.

And still the farce goes on now, with total brainwashing propaganda control being churned out at a cost of more hundreds of millions of dollars to just get the right spin on all the tacky imbecilities which have gone on around the investigation of presidential misconduct, lies, and cover-ups.

Entirely lost in all this media frenzy is the slightest awareness of what an insult to the working people of America is this billion-dollar spin-doctoring circus which keeps serious discussion of important political issues at even greater arms length than in Britain. 

No wonder that less than half the electorate can routinely now be bothered to turn out even at presidential elections. In both Europe and the USA, electoral 'democracy' is becoming increasingly like a remote theatrical event, — so bizarre and outrageous that it would be hard to make up a satire about it any more.

Only the incurable crisis of the capitalist system puts a perspective on everything.

The 'discrimination' obviously rejected by SLP constitution means the showing of partiality or prejudice, not merely 'distinguishing between' which is the other meaning of 'discriminate'. The constitution itself 'discriminates' about women, — i.e. distinguishes between men comrades and women comrades to form the women's section. 

More notoriously, it used to 'discriminate' about black skins and white skins, but fortunately no longer. (Living, mass collective wisdom and common sense, — unquantifiable and uncodifiable, — is, by the way, always obviously infinitely superior to any written-down constitution, — even the best in the world.)

The first complaint is for describing homosexuality as 'abnormal'.

Sexuality has one purpose only as far as evolutionary science is concerned: reproduction of the species; in the majority of species, male/female sexual interaction is the norm. Despite the enormous evolutionary/social complexities of the human species, male/female sexual interaction remains the only reproductive process, and the overwhelmingly normal sexual evolutionary drive. By definition, the homosexual inclination is abnormal.

To say so distinguishes, — in order to analyse why New Labour might have kept Ron Davies' sexual proclivities in the closet with a series of state lies while accepting the open homosexuality of Cabinet colleague Chris Smith. The explanation of this contradiction in EPSR 973 is self-explanatory, not discriminatory.

The brief description of how such abnormality occurs gave rise to complaints 2 and 3 for mentioning "social frustrations and deviations arising out of inadequate parenting in the crucial emotional-formative years and especially up to the age four".

The scientific understanding on this comes from standard psychotherapy studies such as that of Robin Skynner. Most of the fixing of sexual/gender identity takes place from 2½ to 3 within very intimate emotional relationships to both parents. Fathers need to be both masculine AND openly loving and caring towards the children. Mothers need to be positive towards their own and their daughters' femininity, but ALSO to enjoy the masculinity of their husbands and their sons. Both models are needed for both gender offspring to get the easiest maximum sex-identity orientation from.

An absent father makes it particularly difficult for a boy to develop his masculine sexual identity, who needs two strong influences to help him progress from his normal complete infant identity with his mother. 

He needs a mother who is capable of letting her son break away to some extent from the powerful emotional umbilical cord which makes mother and infant virtually one; and he needs an emotional pull from a loving father to make him want to begin to identify with his father as a fellow male.

An absent father is not there to play this role, and a lone mother can more easily fall for unhelpful overclinging to her son. A girl's sexual identity is also helped by a helpful and loving father's presence because she needs to separate herself from her mother's identity fairly early on.

But at the same time, a girl's sexual identity suffers even more if her mother is cold and unloving, possibly pushing a little girl towards complete emotional/sexual identity with her father and even to a trans-sexual personality.

If a little boy has not acquired his masculine sexual identity by 2½ to 3 because of a powerful possessive mother and an absentee or nonentity father, his interest in becoming male psychologically may already be irreparably vanishing. 

And not having reached his father's side emotionally/psychologically/sexual-identity-wise, a little boy can then miss out on the Oedipus phase of development where he childishly flirts with his mother and childishly rivals his father for his mother's affection. He stays psycho-sexually focusing on the masculine father-figure he wanted and needed but never got. 

And especially if he has missed out on a loving, cuddling, physically horse-play identity with his father at that crucial early formative age, he can end up desperately seeking such male warmth and identification in adult sexual life.

Such male homosexual orientation particularly suffers from missing the masculine-authority-identity of RESPONSIBILITY for the family at that early formative age, sharing a feeling of authority from a caring loving father towards wife and children. Not reaching that required sexual/emotional-identity goal with a father, a homosexual orientation can then keep seeking it lifelong with other men.

In three-year-old subconsciousness, the male penis is the symbol of male-role strength and authority. Thereafter in life, it is that symbol of father-identity authority that is relentlessly sought out, — other men's penises; but never able to satisfy this deep emotional need from childhood. 

Being never enough, homosexual male love can take the form of a rapid succession of anonymous partners.

Such a précis of contemporary scientific thinking in psychotherapy could run to book length, but the question to ask at this stage is how does such an account of "social frustrations and deviations arising out of inadequate parenting in the crucial emotional-formative years" amount to "discrimination"???

The whole of this farcical complaint suffers from the same thing:- the self-righteous thought police are decreeing that no SLP member can discuss contentious political matters interesting the whole country (the Davies case was headline news for more than a week) if the issue of homosexuality is involved.

So what do we have next?? The burning of books which discuss such matters??

A better description of this 'politically-correct' hysteria would be fascism.

And what worthwhile articles on these questions can be read from these thought police, sending in their slanderous word-picking denunciations?? Are any of them capable of writing a single coherent word on the subject??

Let there be an SLP complaints procedure by all means, but the first complaint going in will be against the small-minded fascist philistines who are keeping going this slanderous 'homophobe' stunt, whoever they are and whatever position they occupy in the party.

If destructive witchhunts are to be the immediate phase of the SLP's development instead of constructive debate, then there are some prize examples of monstrous reactionary backwardness around the political life of the SLP which want to start preparing their defences quick.

Racist apartheid (separate schools for black children, separate schools for white children) is being advocated around the party; drug-taking being promoted; a CIA invasion of the Republic of Congo is being recommended; and socialism has been dismissed as a dirty word — all, apparently with SLP approval. And now a reactionary-fascist witchhunt is being approved for breaching the self-righteous 'rules' of some barmy thought police. 

All concerned in all of this nonsense should be charged with bringing Socialist Labour into disrespect.

So what will be next stunt up to try to ban thinking in the SLP via a complaints-procedure slander, — a 'discrimination' charge for suggesting that Jews might not have the most objective opinion on the Zionist genocidal colonisation of Palestine? Or that junkies might not provide the soundest judgement on the advisability of taking drugs? Or that a child's upbringing in the crucial emotional-sexual formative years might ideally benefit from male and female parents with a secure sexual identity? Or that alcoholics might give tainted advice on using drink as a social lubricant? Debating which of these might be termed 'discrimination'??

The real fuel of this complaints stunt is anti-communism, smuggled in on the coat tails of a philistine inability to debate serious matters scientifically. These people HATE theoretical discussion, and fear its revival worse than the plague. The way round it is bogus complaints.

EPSR 973 did jeer at Ron Davies but not because he was homosexual, discriminating against him. It jeered him and New Labour for their dishonesty and cover-up about his lifestyle which revealed great emotional instability. As a leading Cabinet minister in a government which would massacre the people of Iraq on a political whim of aggressive US imperialism, it is fair and relevant to kick him while he is down as a political stooge of inter-imperialist crisis, the most reactionary threat to the survival of the whole planet and everyone on it in all history, — and not rush to his defence as a discriminated-against homosexual.

But any stick would do to beat an opportunist New Labour dog with, — that is the only communist revolutionary attitude.

Marx and Engels, the most enlightened thinkers the world has ever known, totally dedicated to the emancipation of ALL mankind from the stifling ideological tyranny and vicious cruelty of class-society injustice, — had fewer scruples when lambasting their fake-'left' intellectual opponents, — the anti-communists and self-righteous thought police of their day, — here ridiculing a group of Lassalle-anarchist followers for their daft Utopia perspective which would harm, not help, the socialist idea, and in any case was just a homosexual-club scam. (N.B. The first copy of the letter, from a capitalist press edition, shows the extremes of hysterical distortion to which 'political correctness' takes the self-righteous, petty-bourgeois mind in the editorial note (explained further on)):

Manchester, 22 June 1869
Dear Moor,

Well, that is a most curious 'Urning' that you've sent me.* These are indeed exceedingly unnatural revelations. The pederasts are beginning to stand up and be counted and discovering that they are a power in the state. All they lacked was organization, but to judge by this it seems already to exist secretly. And since they include such important men, in all the old and even the new parties, from Rosing to Schweitzer, they cannot fail to be victorious. 'War to the front apertures, peace to the rear apertures of the body', will be the slogan now.† 

It is fortunate that we personally are too old to have to worry that, at the victory of this party, we might have to pay physical tribute to the victors. But the young generation! 

Incidentally, only in Germany is it possible that a chap comes along and transforms this filth into a theory and then invites: Join us, etc. Unfortunately he still lacks the courage to declare himself openly as 'that' and still has to operate before the public 'from the front' though not, as he says in one place, by a slip, 'in from the front'. 

But just wait till the new North German Criminal Code recognizes the rights of the posterior, then he'll talk quite differently. And we poor frontal chaps, with our childish inclination towards women, we'll have a very thin time then. If that man Schweitzer were any use he might lure this strange solid citizen into disclosing the identities of those prominent and most prominent pederasts — which surely should not be difficult for him as a kindred spirit. [...]

Yours, F. E.

† Allusion to the French Revolution slogan: 'War to the palaces, peace to the cottages!' (translator's note).

* 'Urning' is a malicious, pejorative word for homosexual, which both Marx and Engels liked to use because they despised and ridiculed homosexuality. Shortly before this letter Marx had sent Engels Karl Heinrich Ulrich's Argornauticus, Zastrov and the 'Urningen' of the Pietistic, Ultramontane and Free-thinking Camp, which appeared in Leipzig in 1869. That both of them were occupied with this problem and such reading was connected with the fact that Lassalle's follower, Schweitzer, was homosexual (editors note).

Alternative translation and editing:

The Urningc you sent me is a very curious thing. These are extremely unnatural revelations. The paederasts are beginning to count themselves, and discover that they are a power in the state. Only organisation was lacking, but according to this source it apparently already exists in secret. And since they have such important men in all the old parties and even in the new ones, from Rosing to Schweitzer, they cannot fail to triumph. Guerre aux cons, paix aus trous-de-culd will now be the slogan. It is a bit of luck that we, personally, are too old to have to fear that, when this party wins we shall have to pay physical tribute to the victors. But the younger generation! Incidentally it is only in Germany that a fellow like this can possibly come forward, convert this smut into a theory, and offer the invitation: introitee etc. Unfortunately, he has not yet got up the courage to acknowledge publicly that he is 'that way', and must still operate coram publico 'from the front', if not 'going in from the front' as he once said by mistake. But just wait until the new North German Penal Code recognises the droits du culf, then he will operate quite differently. Then things will go badly enough for poor frontside people like us, with our childish penchant for females. If Schweitzer could be made useful for anything, it would be to wheedle out of this peculiar honourable gentleman the particulars of the paederasts in high and top places, which would certainly not be difficult for him as a brother in spirit.

At the end of the week, Schorlemmer will be going to Germany for 4 weeks via Grimsby and Rotterdam.

The strikes here in the cotton factories326 have been over since this morning, when the Oldhamites went back. So overproduction has no restraints any more. Close of post. Best greetings.
F. E.

cK. H. Ulrichs. 'Argmauticus', Zastrow und die Urninge des pietistischen, ultramontanen und freidenkenden Lagers. - 
d War on the cunts, peace to the arse-holes  
e enter   
f rights of the arse-hole 

First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913    Printed according to the original Published in English in full for the first time

Now the 'homophobe'-shouting, SLP thought-police would obviously know how to respond to Marx and Engels if they turned up tomorrow to join their colossal socialist understanding and revolutionary leadership-abilities to help build Socialist Labour.

They would immediately put them on a complaints procedure charge for 'discrimination'.

They would, of course, be hopelessly wrong again. The language is of the roughest you might hear in a factory, and so far from 'politically correct' that the single-issue 'reformist' fanatics (see last week's EPSR denouncing feminism) would immediately throw their Marxist books on the fire (if they had any).

But Marx and Engels would no more dream of encouraging discriminatory persecution of homosexuals than any civilised person would.

A very careful study of this correspondence shows that it is a political attack on a homosexual freemasonry which was becoming an influential force in bourgeois government circles, which is another real-life notion, relevant today as well, which the SLP thought-police want to ban all discussion of.

So how does the ritual book-burning this self-righteous, philistine (i.e. anti-scientific investigation) censorship would call for, differ from the anti-Marxist book burning in Pinochet's Chile, or in the CIA's earlier counter-revolution in Hungary in 1956??

Marx and Engels used the weapon of ridicule against the gay-rights reactionary pretentiousness of rightwing political freemasonries which wished to conceal their fundamental anti-communism behind a smokescreen of bogus 'cultural' organisation for homosexuals whose serious bond (as far as Marx and Engels were concerned) was political conservatism. They saw Gay Rights as completely bogusly 'progressive' as far as the capitalist state's economic dictatorship was concerned.

They were correct to do so then, and they would be correct to do so now.

Their ridicule is rugged, but the anti-communist editor of the first translation (from a bourgeois publication) is logically stretching it to claim that this savage barrack-room humour is proof of "despising" homosexuals with its hint of a wish to persecute. 

No such thing. Marx and Engels took the communist attitude of ridiculing EVERYTHING that was unscientific, false, and posturing about political opponents, and obviously regarded these gay political freemasonry pretensions as fair game.

Only the terminally stupid would join forces with reaction to dismiss such political criticism as 'discrimination'.

Unlike the book-burning self-righteous thought police around the SLP who would make brain-dead complaints about 'discriminatory' language and who have most in common with the petty-bourgeois fascist mentality, communist workers would welcome Marx and Engels with open arms for their most colossal epoch-making contributions to scientific socialism, and as fellow class-fighters with heroic lifelong anti-imperialist revolutionary records.

And none would be so stupid as to kill off scientific political analysis because of an over-robust style of political ridicule. They would welcome the total ideological defeat of all anti-communist thinking, including all the single-issue 'reformist' diversions introduced precisely to keep workers away from Marxist-Leninist science about the basic relationships of the capitalist system being at the root of ALL alienation, atomisation and divisiveness, making life difficult and sowing endless confusion to thwart revolutionary socialist clarity.

There is no chance of avoiding the suspicion that these single-issue self-righteous individualists end up so frequently in reactionary positions of authority, or backing reactionary institutions, because their own thought-police mentality is itself so reactionary.

They hate Marxist science BECAUSE it means abandoning their cosy self-righteous subjectivism, — BECAUSE it means a sustained & difficult battle for objective knowledge, free of all comfortable delusions. 

Such mentalities are ideal for Blairism which is why his government is swarming with representatives of the Feminist, Gay Rights, and Black Nationalist 'reformist' delusions, — all coming together in support of soundbite philistinism in order to try to undermine all traditions of serious scientific inquiry.

These thought police are like the editor of the first (bourgeois) version of Engels letter who makes a fuss about the word 'Urning' which was not malicious or pejorative at all but was, in fact, the homosexuals' own new word for themselves, — Ur-anians, — as is clear from the book title in the footnote, a word gladly adopted by pioneering Gay Righters in Britain around Edward Carpenter because it springs from 'Uranus'. 

But in this abysmal PC shallowmindedness, the Marxist political criticism is automatically assumed to be Gay Bashing. If such attitudes prevail, it will be an end to all thinking. It is fascism.

And what political conspiracies might Marx and Engels have suspected in some of the crucially ruthlessly anti-communist institutions of most importance in the 20th century such as Hollywood, the FBI, and the BBC where gay cliques in leading positions have helped to cement dominant reactionariness for decades??? 

The reactionariness is all capitalism's. But if the operatives are all Tories, Liberals, and Labourites to the exclusion of all Communists (as a deliberate victimisation policy), what to conclude about Gays and Feminists who have got on so well in such institutions?

Obviously being homosexuals and being director and deputy director of the FBI for 50 years, in the most reactionary-fascist period of communist repression in all history, only proves something about the FBI and about J Edgar Hoover and his partner, but not about homosexuals as such.

But then equally invalid is the idea that homosexuals only have to be Gay Rights campaigners in order automatically to be accepted as a progressive movement beyond criticism. Gay affairs are not necessarily anything of the sort.

Progressive homosexual conspiracies have already been lauded in history, and properly so, such as the Lesbian friendships in Nazi Germany where Jewish women were protected from denunciation by their otherwise fully committed Aryan master-race lovers.

But let reactionary homosexual conspiracies not be ruled out altogether from historical inquiry, — as in the Marx-Engels correspondence.

Why does all this matter? Is the EPSR fixated? No; it matters because Political Correctness (shouting 'homophobe' at people you have lost out to politically, etc) has become an enormously reactionary phenomenon, trying to prop up bourgeois anti-communist ideology by any means possible in this FINAL, GREAT, DECADENT CRISIS of the capitalist system; — and every one else is fixated (by feminism, gay rights, black nationalism, and every other kind of 'reformist' single-issue delusion).

It matters because actually dealing with any impairment of any kind is a sensitive question for the whole of society, and a particularly complex, emotional, and often painful matter for parents. If any of these 'homophobe'-screaming thought police had any experience of such personal family tragedy, they would know that the one ludicrously IMPOSSIBLE suggestion about any physical or emotional disability is to just pretend it is not there and never discuss it. The great human need for ALL malfunctions is to be able to discuss everything about it freely and openly. 

Extremist hysteria, which screeches that 'homosexuality is the same as heterosexuality', helps absolutely no one, and presumably arises out of some sort of denial. It clearly isn't true, — as every scrap of parental evidence, biography, and autobiography-proves. The emotional difficulties of a homosexual orientation just add to the burdens of growing up anyway, — lifelong; and they deserve the most sensitive understanding possible, — from the whole of society.

These cretins screaming swearwords at any discussion of the subject, could not be a worse enemy of homosexuals if they tried. Their 'contribution' to society's progress in this matter is nothing but a piece of ignorant self-advertising: 'Look at me, I'm a progressive'. It is as likely to increase misunderstanding of the homosexual emotions as decrease it.

Like all 'reformism', it will delay that rational socialist world where EVERY condition of mankind will get infinitely better circumstances in which to flourish to every individual's satisfaction.

The world of 'free market choice' produces exactly the opposite reality, — a world where rigid class hierarchies, and alienation for the masses, create an incurably violence-ridden and prejudice-driven society, full of potential factional, communal, and race hatred. There is no chance of homophobic prejudice disappearing from the international workers movement before the capitalist system is overthrown. 

It is correct to keep up the educational and cultural fight on these issues, but it is also time to stop missing the wood for the trees. The feminist movement as such will NOT be on the side of the REVOLUTIONARY struggle by the working class, nor will any of the other single-issue 'reformist' movements. ALL of the leading feminist writers and activists have been 100% unthinking anti-communists, swallowing the whole history of anti-communist propaganda.

Individual Gay Rights campaigners, Black Nationalists, and Feminists may occasionally line up with one of the easier 'progressive' political options like Cuban Solidarity, but they are not remotely organisations dedicated to the defeat of imperialism, starting with the imperialist system in one's own country, which is the Marxist-Leninist understanding of really serious international solidarity.

And they will never become such because philosophically, they start from a purely SUBJECTIVE view that life is wrong because they suffer from the way of thinking of everyone else living under capitalist society (where racism, male chauvinism, and homophobia are endemic), but make no further progress with their understanding, and end up CONVINCED that changing the way people think WITHIN THE EXISTING SOCIETY is the road forward.

This is subjective IDEALISM which ignores the fact that it is divisive, envy-making, exploitational and unjust capitalist society ITSELF which constantly recreates subjective backwardness IN EVERYONE.

Even in 'healthy' times, the cut-throat competitiveness of capitalism is one long round of never-ending racial and nationalist banter (just study the ads of the last few years), and trade-war chauvinism is never far from the surface.

The shattering of livelihoods, and all aspirations, by the coming world slump will bring out all this rottenness to the full, both international AND internally. The Germans, the Japanese, eventually ALL 'foreigners' will be blamed for the slump. And the collapse of industries and jobs around the country will breed endless rounds of "THEY have got OUR jobs", meaning London if you live in Scotland, or vice versa; or Birmingham if you live in Cardiff, or vice versa; or Liverpool if you live in Manchester, or vice versa, etc, etc, all round the country.

And even worse. It will mean one side of town hating the other side of town if only one of two factories has to close.

And worse still, it will mean hatred BETWEEN workers in the same factory when one half get laid off but the other half stay and double up on the labouring.

And worse still, there will be plenty of idiots who will see racist differences in who has kept jobs and who hasn't.

And it can get even worse in housing shortages and disrepair, and in the shortage of good school places, and in shortages of health and hospital care, etc, etc, etc, — all of which will soon be pressing more heavily on the working class than ever before.

It is the OBJECTIVE realities of the capitalist system which create the subjective unpleasantness, — envy, self-protectiveness, fear, sense of inadequacy, opportunism, discrimination, self-deception, etc, etc, — all of which sets up a monstrous stew of feuding and competitiveness and prejudice.

A subjective-idealist approach blames the problem on individual responsibility for people not thinking the right way.

An objective scientific approach urges exactly the same re-education, but fights for the overthrow of capitalism to ALONE make it possible to seriously start clearing out all the old prejudices and ignorance of mankind on ALL matters which keep people confused, backward, and easy prey to continued divide-and-rule by capitalist exploitation indefinitely.

Build Marxist-Leninist education.

Royston Bull

World Socialist Review
(edited extracts from a variety of anti-imperialist struggles).

Chiapas rebels face starvation

POLHO used to be just a small rebel village in Chiapas, Mexico, about 700 Zapatistas living in a valley off the main road, overlooked by the school.

Now Polho is home to 10,500 people driven from their homes by paramilitary groups loyal to the government. The valley is dotted with houses made out of rusty tin and cardboard.

According to Domingo, president of the municipal council, the biggest problem is that people cannot leave the valley to work in their fields. "We are dependant on donated food; the situation at the moment is very bad. and it is very difficult to sit around all day and not be able to do anything. But we cannot leave."

A young man takes me up to the top of a hill and explains why: "Over there are paramilitaries. Over there more. And over there. Over there the army." Polho is encircled, constantly under threat.

As we cross the road, the army roars past. Angry faces stare down at us and shout abuse.

Manuel, one of the health promoters at the rebel-run clinic, tells me that the poor housing and diet are responsible for many people having bronchitis and flu, diarrhoea and parasites from the water. There have been cases of typhoid, and a lot of people have ulcers from going hungry. Stress is causing low blood pressure problems, he adds. His clinic is chronically short of medicines. 

The Red Cross clinic, Manuel alleges, has a lot more medicines, but the wrong ones. The Mexican Red Cross is seen as pro-government (a view disputed by the doctor in charge of the clinic in Polho) but the situation is so desperate that the community has had to accept their help, while calling for the International Red Cross to move in instead.

Despite it all, people keep going. Thirty women have formed a weaving co-op. Other women grow vegetables. On the side of the hill a welding school is being built, though they are not sure where the welding gear will come from. And a group of university students from Mexico City has started classes for the children. The struggle goes on.