Socialist Science Fiction

Mr. Crossman, to be sure, is not a real socialist. His is the milder British Labor world. In it the rigors of class domination have been watered down into élitist power struggles that occur over the heads of the hapless population. Nobody is going to get liquidated. Indeed it looks as though nobody is even going to get completely expropriated. Something much worse is going to happen; we will all be equalized. In this future world there will be no stupid, aristocratic elites to frustrate our destiny. Rather, in the classless calm of the British welfare state the intellectual Left will inform the people, out of whom by some inexplicable process, wisdom will then flow.

It is only against this background that I find unity in the collection of vignettes Mr. Crossman has pulled together here. The Charm of Politics is not an arid theoretical work but a collection of essays, sprightly and querulous in turn, on some thirty of the leading political figures of the twentieth century. Consequently it lacks the unity found in a consecutively reasoned discourse. But as we follow Mr. Crossman’s reflection we perceive two unifying themes: 1) a profound disregard for existing society, and 2) an interestingly anomalous attitude toward “the people.”

SP

About the Author

Stanley Parry

Featured Tags

Mr. Crossman, to be sure, is not a real socialist. His is the milder British Labor world. In it the rigors of class domination have been watered down into élitist power struggles that occur over the heads of the hapless population. Nobody is going to get liquidated. Indeed it looks as though nobody is even going to get completely expropriated. Something much worse is going to happen; we will all be equalized. In this future world there will be no stupid, aristocratic elites to frustrate our destiny. Rather, in the classless calm of the British welfare state the intellectual Left will inform the people, out of whom by some inexplicable process, wisdom will then flow.

It is only against this background that I find unity in the collection of vignettes Mr. Crossman has pulled together here. The Charm of Politics is not an arid theoretical work but a collection of essays, sprightly and querulous in turn, on some thirty of the leading political figures of the twentieth century. Consequently it lacks the unity found in a consecutively reasoned discourse. But as we follow Mr. Crossman’s reflection we perceive two unifying themes: 1) a profound disregard for existing society, and 2) an interestingly anomalous attitude toward “the people.”