Why the British Left has fallen for China

In the Eighties, Marxism Today, the theoretical journal of the Communist Party of Great Britain, enjoyed remarkable influence. Edited by the journalist and academic Martin Jacques, it was the first magazine to properly examine the dramatic changes occurring in Thatcherite Britain. Boasting contributors who acted as the Left’s leading intellectual lights of the era, including Eric Hobsbawm and Stuart Hall, the journal explained how the old industries that had sustained British socialism were dying: the Left could no longer rely on mass trade unionism and politicized, blue collar militants as its solid class bloc. But for some Marxism Today writers, there were also signs of hope. Just as the Left bid farewell to the old proletariat, a new, educated creative class would become the new agents