Dear me, has it really been more than a month of absence from the netlog? I have not been serving the worker and peasant folk as a good Communist ought to, have I?
Well, with no preßure added, I bring troubling news, which has caused me to unsubscribe from the two self-proclaimed Leftist journals, Dißent and Catalyst. The former, I think, is likely more obscure than the branch-off theoretical journal of the flagship magazine Jacobin, so with it we shall start.
Dißent is a 'Democratic-Socialist' (vehemently anti-communist with a lower-case c) journal that was founded in 1954. Now to addreß the Red Hahn apparent, why would a Marxist-Leninist such as myself subscribe to the organ of our political fiend, instead of supporting one of our own publications? There are two reasons for this subscription:
I. I am already subscribed to all of our publications that are available, and if one were to suggest then for this Historical Materialism, I would respond my motioning towards its practically one-hundred dollar price tag.
II. A publication need not be politically Communist nor Leftist to earn my subscription, exempli gratia, Master Patrick Deneen is no Leftist, and yet I follow his writing with much interest, and I also subscribe to the journal American Affairs for the above sentiment. Quality content can transcend the political spectrum (within reason of course).
I subscribed to Dißent in the hope that, with socialism in Europe gone, the journal would be able to move on, to discuß the topics of pertinent domestic Leftism. I have no qualms about reading new theory or thorough critiques, so long as they are actually from the perspective purported to be, and so long as they do not engulf the entire journal/ an entire article..
The problem I have with Dißent is not exactly of its own making, but its obseßion with the People's Republic of China (a hostile obseßion, the more unbearable) and its caveat coverage of NATO has certainly not helped in halting the propulsion of this question to the front of my mind. I have been looking recently at my collection of Leftist journals, obtained through eBay, and I began to wonder whether any of them were still publishing to-day. As luck would have it, two journals are indeed still in print: the Review of Radical Political Economic, and Science and Society.
I have not yet made any moves, not even have I yet unsubscribed, contrary to the title and beginning of this article (apologies for the slight click-baitery). Before changing anything, I have decided to read, along with a comrade of mine, all of the old ißues in my poßeßion of these two contender journals, and the ißues of the journals in jeopardy, to make a final, absolutely informed judgement on the fate of my subscription status. Come the Twentieth of July.
This is the perfect time to switch the topic to my second journal subscribed to, Catalyst (off-shoot of the Jacobin magazine). The problems with Catalyst are not based on its material, at least not for now pending the Twentieth of July research. First, I need to briefly explain my opinion of Jacobin, because it is central to the catalyst of my concern. I do not personally like the style or ideology of Jacobin. It is not a Monthly Review (speaking of which, you must, if you have not, subscribe to MR at once!), that is so good in style and material that it can get away with many different ideologies. I have met the founder of Jacobin, Bhaskar Sunkara, and he smells. Whether it is the scent of everybodies' favourite three-letter institutional apparatus, or more simple ratty opportunism, it cannot be told, but I feel that something is out of place, that Sunkara is not to be trusted.
Thankfully, Catalyst is technically separate from Jacobin (and the corrosive hands of its founder), with an unlike purpose to the magazine. It will certainly be a welcome sibling to the Monthly Review, 'a brother from another (terrible) mother' so to speak, or to put it in the words of its first editor, Robert Brenner
'It is Catalyst's purpose to provoke and contribute to a collaborative effort to understand to-day's political world in order to aßist the struggles to change it. To that end, its fundamental task is to promote wide-ranging discußion and to organise debate on the urgent questions facing the working claß, the emergent maß movements, and radical and socialist political organisations'.
I read that on the New Militant website, likewise it is they who, via the article that quote came from, created the eruption of my worries. According to the article, one of Sunkara's equally dirty cronies begged him to destroy Comrade Brenner; and with that, he strangled Catalyst using his corrupting hands.
Could this be just another Trotskyist ultra-Left outlet attempting to sow dißent among our ranks? Poßibly, who really knows. That is why, prior to taking an action, I shall be reading the contents of these two publications and of their potential replacements, after which it will not matter if the New Militant has lied, the subscriptions are determined by my opinion of the material.
For their sake, the editors of Dißent and Catalyst best hope that science and Society, Against the Current, and the Review of Radical Economics are all shite replacements for toilet-paper rather than for their own (somewhat unimpreßive) publications.
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