The Red Reaction: How Orthodox Marxism Abandoned Materialism for State-Sanctioned Exclusion
When self-described revolutionary organisations begin operating as domestic border guards for the bourgeois state, the betrayal of historical materialism is complete. The institutional trajectory of the Communist Party of Britain (CPB) and its youth wing—from formal executive statements condemning legislative self-identification to congress resolutions committing to aggressively "develop a strategy... to reverse gender identity policy capture in the trade union movement"—lays bare a profound ideological collapse. Under the banner of defending "sex-based rights," these orthodox elements have traded genuine structural analysis for reactionary biological essentialism, proving that dogmatic gatekeeping transcends the traditional left-right divide.
The Weaponisation of "Materialism"
The core intellectual sleight-of-hand deployed across party organs, from Challenge essays to official executive committee pronouncements, relies on a vulgarised, cartoonish distortion of dialectical materialism. By reducing human existence to a static caricature of gametes and chromosomal counts, these writers attempt to paint trans identity as a symptom of "postmodern idealism" that elevates subjective feelings over physical reality.
This is not Marxism; it is biological determinism wrapped in red bunting. Historical materialism was never meant to serve as a cudgel to police human variation or enforce rigid state-sanctioned binaries. Instead, it was designed to interrogate how social relations, power structures, and economic systems shape human life. By treating biological sex as an immutable political weapon used to justify exclusion, these orthodox groups abandon structural critique entirely. They retreat into a defensive formalism that mirrors the exact authoritarian impulses they claim to oppose.
Fracturing the Working Class to Protect the Status Quo
The practical outcome of this ideological retreat is an active assault on labour solidarity. Trade unions are ostensibly built to defend all workers against exploitation, precarity, and division. Yet, the CPB’s explicit strategy to reverse union policies turns labour organisations into internal battlegrounds.
By manufacturing a moral panic over trans workers—blaming them for the systemic oppressions explicitly engineered by capitalist class relations—these dogmatists act as a wedge for right-wing populism. They echo the exact talking points of religious fundamentalists and conservative reactionaries, arguing that recognising a marginalised minority somehow undermines the fight against male violence or the gender pay gap.
In reality, it is the exact opposite. Scapegoating a hyper-marginalised group does nothing to dismantle patriarchy or capitalism; it merely offers a convenient safety valve for popular discontent, deflecting attention away from the actual structures of exploitation. When a workers' party spends its time plotting how to purge and isolate its own members to satisfy rigid, state-aligned legal definitions, it has ceased to be an instrument of liberation. It has become just another mechanism of bourgeois control, complete with a hammer and sickle.
References
- Challenge Magazine. Towards working class unity on sex and gender. Available at:https://challenge-magazine.org/2023/06/10/towards-working-class-unity-on-sex-and-gender/
- Communist Party of Britain. The Gender Recognition Bill and Equality Law. Available at:https://communistparty.org.uk/2023/03/29/the-gender-recognition-bill-and-equality-law/
- Morning Star. Communists will fight for recognition of women's sex-based rights across trade unions, party congress agrees. Available at:https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/communists-will-fight-recognition-womens-sex-based-rights-across-trade-unions-party
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