“Caution: invisible laser radiation emitted when cover opened and baffles defeated�
It’s good to know we’re on the side of the future. The (often forgotten) futurism of Soviet architecture is just the tip of the iceberg. The full thing is on display in the James Bond films, in which the most terrible enemies are both evil communists and mad scientists. It’s particularly good to see this element of the Cold War unconscious being taken out of its merely contingent historical setting and allowed to stand as a concept on its own in Die Another Day (the best of the Brosnan Bond films, by the way). The opening sequence makes a North Korean military base (North Korea, for god’s sake!) look like some kind of encampment from the far future (the massive stone gate, the implausible gun, the hovercrafts, oh yes, the hovercrafts). And on it goes, with the crazy commies making a giant (but environmentally friendly) laser to crush their decadent Western opponents, and seducing spies with their genetically enhanced bodies. That’s what marxism’s all about.
Someone else who knows that marxism is the future (and vice versa) is Ken Macleod. Indeed, the Koreans in Die Another Day are a lot like the Sheenisov, the all-conquering techno-communists from his ‘Fall Revolution’ books. He also knows that marxism is the past, and does a good line in Left in-jokes. I particularly like that the villain of The Stone Canal is a member of Socialist Action, the Pabloists within the GLA responsible for the ongoing stitch-up of the European Social Forum (well, if the Weekly Worker is to be believed, anyway). There’s also this passage, which I think will resonate with anyone who went on the smaller anti-war marches:
My father spotted a young womean carrying a bundle of papers whose headline — no it wasn’t even that, the actual masthead — read ‘Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!’ and asked her in a tone of polite curiosity: ‘Why don’t you try fighting capitalism for a change?’
But after the young woman had said only a few sentences, he stopped her with a smile and an uplifted finger. He looked at his watch and brought the finger down to tap it triumphantly.
‘One minute, twenty-five second,’ he said to the puzzled cadre. ‘That’s the shortest time yet for a member of — let me see —’ he made a pretence of counting on his fingers ‘— a split, from a split, from a split, from the Fourth International to call me a sectarian!’
For those of you keeping score, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! is the bit of the Revolutionary Communist Group (né Tendency) which didn’t become the Revolutionary Communist Party (not to be confused with the Revolutionary Communist Party, who are particularly insane Maoists). The Revolutionary Communist Tendency was a faction within the Socialist Workers Party (not to be confused with the Socialist Workers Party), a dissident Trotskyist organisation. None of these groups, however, are armed with lasers, and so should not be considered serious marxist organisations.
(By the way, the title for this post comes from a label on that most exotic of technologies, a CD player I bought for £10 from Tesco)
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