Posted by Peter Ceresole on August 01, 2003 at 22:39:18 from 80.177.22.49 user PeterC.
In Reply to: 'Marxist nonsense' posted by Duncan on August 01, 2003 at 18:22:19:
I do think that if people are going to dismiss 'Marxist nonsense' they ought to remember that AR was by no means a non-political person himself.
Given Ransome's profession (journo) and history (reporting on and being relatively supportive of the Bolshevik Revolution) and his marriage to Evgenia, it seems quite impossible for him to be 'non-political'. It doesn't mean that he was any kind of propagandist, but as Mike points out his values were strongly in support of 'you are what you do, not what you own'. This of course is a very bourgeois or middle class attitude too, and it's clear that he was writing stories mostly for, and about bourgeois children. The Death and Glories were the exception that throw this into sharp relief.
You also have to remember that when he wrote the books, Fascism was in the ascendant and the only really active anti-Fasicts were the Communists. Orwell saw through that and we know now that they were very much cut from the same cloth, but at the time to be a Marxist was a perfectly honourable thing to be. As it still is today, of course.