Living Marxism

This article is part of or related to the LM group series:

LM group Living Marxism Institute of Ideas Spiked Online

Living Marxism was originally launched in 1988 as the journal of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). It was later rebranded as the glossier LM Magazine and closed in March 2000 following a libel lawsuit brought by British news agency ITN. Gave its name to the LM group, a libertarian political network of LM/RCP supporters.

History

Despite its beginnings as a far-left outlet, the politics espoused by the magazine developed a pronounced libertarianism. In February 1997, the publication ditched its old title in favour of the modern-sounding LM. The introduction to this issue summised the adversarial libertarian outlook:

Living Marxism borrowed its style, although not its content, from Marxism Today, the theoretical journal of the CPBG. Marxism Today became fashionable and media aware first, and it's contributors were frequently seen in the media espousing their 'new times' philosophy of not left or right, but inquistive and seeking. This was the model adopted by the Furedians for LM.

"We live in an age of caution and conformism, when critical opinions can be outlawed as 'extremism' and anything new can be rubbished as 'too risky'. Ours is an age of low expectations, when we are always being told what is bad for us, and life seems limited on all sides by restrictions, guidelines and regulations.

The spirit of LM is to go against the grain: to oppose all censorship, bans and codes of conduct; to stand up for social and scientific experimentation; to insist that we have the right to live as autonomous adults who take responsibility for our own affairs. These are basic human values that cannot be compromised if we are ever going to create a world fit for people. " [1]

At around the time the time Living Marxism became LM, a campaign of entryism into academic and media circles was being pursued by LM partisans and former members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, according to some observers [2]. Such observers claim that associates were encouraged to found their own organisations to act as seemingly independent platforms for LM and its political agenda. This unofficial political network came to be known as the LM group. Other commentators have been sceptical about whether any such campaign of entryism was ever pursued [3][4].

Views expounded with regularity in LM included opposition to sanctions on apartheid South Africa, downplaying concern over AIDS as a heterosexual disease or as a problem in Africa, attacking environmentalists and eulogising biotechnology. LM writers also engaged in a sustained campaign of denial of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

As the magazine attempted to reinvent itself, however, it sowed the seeds of its downfall. In the same issue the journal was re-christened LM, editor Mick Hume published an article by German journalist Thomas Deichmann which claimed that British Indepent Television News (ITN) had fabricated its dramatic discovery in 1992 of prisoners held by the Bosnian Serbs. "The picture that fooled the world" argued that ITN's footage, in which emaciated Bosnian Muslim men clung to barbed wire, showed not a detention centre, as ITN maintained, but a safe haven for refugees. The Bosnian Serb soldiers at the camp were not detaining the Muslims but defending them [5].

The publishers of LM, Informinc (LM) ltd., were promptly sued for libel by ITV and in March 2000 the magazine was forced to close. The network now lives on in its current media incarnations, the Institute of Ideas and web magazine Spiked online, edited by Mick Hume. LM and its successor organisations continue to espouse a range of libertarian views, though they continue to regard themselves as "left wing". [6]

Example articles

Rwanda

• Fiona Foster, "Massacring the truth in Rwanda", LM 85, December 1995. Refers to the genocide by using inverted commas: "This was not a pre-planned genocide of one tribe by another...The lesson I would draw from my visit is that we must reject the term 'genocide' in Rwanda." For commment on this above article see: Chris McGreal, "Genocide? What genocide?", The Guardian, 20 March 2000
• Helen Simons and Barry Crawford, "Rwanda: the great genocide debate", LM 88, March 1996. "In reality the Rwandan war was not a campaign of genocide motivated by ethnic hatred."

The environment

• Ron Arnold, "Unabomber: a darker shade of green", LM 108, March 1998. Argues that the unabomber is an environmentalist.
• Rune Frøvik and Simon Ward, "The whaler's tale", LM 119, April 1999. Describes restrictions on whaling as "cultural imperialism".

Bosnia

• Thomas Deichmann, "The picture that fooled the world", LM 97, February 1997. Accuses ITV reporters of faking footage of emaciated Bosnian muslims in a Serb detention centre.

Fox hunting

• Ceri Dingle, "Fox Hunting is Fun", LM 108, March 1998. "The hunting fraternity should stop waffling about pest control and economics and speak up for the thrill of the chase".

References and further reading

General

• GMWatch.org, Living Marxism profile, accessed Dec 2003
• Powerbase LM network | Living Marxism
• Archive.org archive of LM Magazine website

SourceWatch

• LM group category index
• LM group
• Revolutionary Communist Party
• Institute of Ideas
• Spiked Online
• Mick Hume
• Frank Furedi
• Claire Fox
• Fiona Fox
• James Heartfield

Press articles

• George Monbiot, "The Revolution Has Been Televised", The Guardian, December 18, 1997.
• George Monbiot, "Far Left of Far Right?", Prospect Magazine, November 1998.
• Matthew Price, "Raving Marxism", Lingua Franca, March 1999.
• Andy Beckett, "Licence to rile", The Guardian, May 15, 1999.
• The Guardian, "Living Marxism and the Serbs", 17 March 2002
• Chris McGreal, "Genocide? What genocide?", The Guardian, 20 March 2000
• Eddie Ford, "Farewell, Living Marxism", Weekly Worker 344, 13 July 2000
• David Pallister, John Vidal and Kevin Maguire, "Life after Living Marxism: Fighting for freedom - to offend, outrage and question everything", The Guardian, 8 July 2000
• David Pallister, John Vidal and Kevin Maguire, "Life after Living Marxism: Banning the bans", The Guardian, July 8, 2000.
• Nick Cohen, "The rebels who changed their tune to be pundits", New Statesman, 12 August 2002
• Andrew Billen, "A prickly opinion on just about everything" (profile of Claire Fox), The Times, December 17, 2002.
• George Monbiot, "Invasion of the Entryists", The Guardian, December 9, 2003
• Chris Bunting, "What's a nice Trot doing in a place like this", Times Higher Education Supplement", 28 January 2005 (log-in required). Mirrored "here".
• "Interview with Monbiot on the LM group," LobbyWatch.org, April 11, 2007.
• Andy Rowell, "LobbyWatch: SMC complaint", April 2007. (This is an edited version of a submission made by Andy Rowell to the board of the Science Media Centre).

Blogs

• Brian Micklethwait, "Revolutionary Communist Party as in Living Marxism as in LM as in Spiked and Institute of Ideas - I agree with George Monbiot: who are these people?", 13 December 2003
• Oliver Kamm, "Living Marxism and Tory Sleaze", 13 December 2003

Libel action

• Thomas Deichmann, "The picture that fooled the world", LM Magazine issue 97, February 1997
• LM Magazine, Press release to accompany Deichmann article, 25 January 1997
• Ed Vulliamy, "I stand by my story", The Guardian, 2 February 1997
• LM Magazine, "Press statement: ITN tries to gag LM", 21:00 24 January 1997
• Julia Hartley-Brewer, "ITN reporter 'bent over backwards for accuracy'", The Guardian, 1 March 2000
• BBC News, "ITN wins bosnian war libel case", 15 March 2000
• Ed Vulliamy, "Poison in the well of history", The Guardian, 15 March 2000
• Mick Hume, "The end of LM Magazine. Statement by Mick Hume, Editor", 29 March 2000
• John McVicar, "The Scoop that Folded a Magazine", Punch, #106, May 2000
• Alexander Cockburn (with Phillip Knightley's 1998 excerpts), "Storm Over Brockes' Fakery", Counterpunch, November 5/6, 2005