Unmasking the State: A rough guide to real democracy
This is Action Guide #3 from ‘a world to win’, a group that somehow manages to avoid saying anything much about itself in this booklet. A visit to their website shows that while they are committed to a radical change in society and apparently have a proper democratic internal structure and claim to be non-dogmatic, a google for Paul Feldman and another awtw author, Corrina Lotz, shows they are former members of the WRP, and co-wrote a biography of Gerry Healey.
The text says:
‘No one can forecast exactly how such a transfer of state power would take place…. Where fundamental social change is posed, history indicates that a mass, revolutionary movement with a leadership prepared to stay the course and complete the task is absolutely indispensable.’
Which used to translate into some form of vanguardist political party, but you’ll search in vain for any mention of such a group in their literature. (As far as I can see they are not connected to a Marxist-leninist/Maoist group, ‘a world to win’, who live at aworldtowin.org as opposed to aworldtowin.net.)
The text itself is a well-presented but unexceptional run-through of the state from a Marxist perspective, starting with an historical overview, followed by some episodes of radical British history through to the present market-dominated state. This is followed by some vague outlines of what a state-free society might look like.
There is some use of mainstream political and economic commentators and box out quotes from their favourite Marxist writers. It lacks any bibliography or further reading, but advertises other publications from the group at the end of the text.
This might be of use to some naive students or sixth-formers requiring a primer in political and economic reality, but is highly selective in its viewpoint (no anarchist quotes I note) and is a dead-end as far as further research is concerned. More of a recruiting tool, I suspect, than a proper historical or analytical text.