After 35 Years, Britain’s ‘Marxism Today’ Is Relegated to the Trash Heap of History

Marxism Today labored for 35 years to reflect the vicissitudes of an ideology. Perhaps the magazine did it best in its December issue, when it died.

“It’s time to move on,” editor Martin Jacques said in a farewell editorial in the final issue.

A lively magazine that claimed credit for coining the term “Thatcherism” and put Karl Marx on the cover with egg on his face after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Marxism Today bowed out with the good wishes of Britain’s Establishment.

Among them were the chairman of the Conservative Party, the No. 2 man at the British Broadcasting Corp. and writers Ian McEwen, Margaret Drabble and Malcolm Bradbury.

“I shall miss Marxism Today more than I’ll miss the philosophy in whose name it was founded,” said Tory chairman Chris Patten, who complimented the magazine for writing about ideas rather than trading in political gossip.

Marxism Today expired without being granted a last wish: an interview with Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister and onetime scourge of communism. Instead, the monthly printed her rejection letter, written by an aide.

The heyday of Marxism Today and its circulation peak of 17,000 coincided with Thatcher’s 11 1/2 years in power. The magazine, which was put out on a shoestring by a tiny staff, was fascinated by her impact on Britain.

Stuart Hall, a sociologist and member of the editorial board, coined the term “Thatcherism” in an article in January, 1979, four months before she came to power.

In the final issue, Hall wrote that it would be premature to bury her, although she was overthrown by her own party a year ago.

“While every effort is being undertaken to make the memory of the Thatcher government disappear, Thatcherism is still working its way through the system,” Hall said.

“Addicted to the euphonious cadences of her lovely voice as I became, even I never believed in her political immortality,” Hall wrote.

Jacques said he began thinking about closing the magazine in 1987. But the collapse of one communist regime after another in 1989 persuaded him that “our title was now an albatross and the relationship with the Communist Party a busted flush.”

“I have always hated institutions that don’t know when to call it a day,” Jacques wrote. “Britain is littered with them, and the Left is a particularly brilliant exponent of the art.”

“I wanted the magazine to close as it had lived--with intelligence, energy, courage and imagination.”