ed miliband
6th January 2011, 21:56
I'll start: CLR James.
At least on this board he doesn't seem to be mentioned very much, but James is very popular (or was, I think) with the British left, from Labour leftists to anarchists. He has a library named after him in Hackney, and The Black Jacobins is widely considered a classic, yet everyone knows James simply as a Trotskyist, despite him rejecting Trotskyism quite sharply. His work with the 'Correspondence Publishing Committee' can be seen as a forerunner of autonomist Marxism (Harry Cleaver and a number of others argue it is), and his book with Cornelius Castoriadis, Facing Reality, is an excellent (if dated) account of the Hungarian Revolution.
He wasn't perfect politically but he was an interesting character nevertheless, and he had a great mind; he wrote on Shakespeare, Herman Melville, ancient Greece, existentialism, cricket...! He argued with Stokely Carmichael about the phrase 'Black Power', had meetings with Trotsky, and wrote a play that had Paul Robeson in its lead role.
It's funny though, despite James being a staunch Leninist until his death, I was introduced to him by a libertarian socialist, who also introduced me to my other cool but underrated figure:
Maurice Brinton
I don't really have much to say about him except that I like his work and that Solidarity seemed like an awesome organisation. Like James, Brinton was a rejected Trotskyism and had links with Cornelius Castoriadis. Unlike James Brinton was a highly respected doctor as well as revolutionary socialist.
For Workers' Power is great and on Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=_ztHKlN_ObwC&lpg=PP1&dq=maurice%20brinton&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
So yeah, who do you think is deserving of more attention than they are given? They don't have to be particularly obscure even.
Honorary shoutouts go to Ricardo Magon Flores and Lucy Parsons (better than Emma Goldman imo).
At least on this board he doesn't seem to be mentioned very much, but James is very popular (or was, I think) with the British left, from Labour leftists to anarchists. He has a library named after him in Hackney, and The Black Jacobins is widely considered a classic, yet everyone knows James simply as a Trotskyist, despite him rejecting Trotskyism quite sharply. His work with the 'Correspondence Publishing Committee' can be seen as a forerunner of autonomist Marxism (Harry Cleaver and a number of others argue it is), and his book with Cornelius Castoriadis, Facing Reality, is an excellent (if dated) account of the Hungarian Revolution.
He wasn't perfect politically but he was an interesting character nevertheless, and he had a great mind; he wrote on Shakespeare, Herman Melville, ancient Greece, existentialism, cricket...! He argued with Stokely Carmichael about the phrase 'Black Power', had meetings with Trotsky, and wrote a play that had Paul Robeson in its lead role.
It's funny though, despite James being a staunch Leninist until his death, I was introduced to him by a libertarian socialist, who also introduced me to my other cool but underrated figure:
Maurice Brinton
I don't really have much to say about him except that I like his work and that Solidarity seemed like an awesome organisation. Like James, Brinton was a rejected Trotskyism and had links with Cornelius Castoriadis. Unlike James Brinton was a highly respected doctor as well as revolutionary socialist.
For Workers' Power is great and on Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=_ztHKlN_ObwC&lpg=PP1&dq=maurice%20brinton&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
So yeah, who do you think is deserving of more attention than they are given? They don't have to be particularly obscure even.
Honorary shoutouts go to Ricardo Magon Flores and Lucy Parsons (better than Emma Goldman imo).