A new blog. The title comes from Marx, who in the one autobiographical sketch that he wrote said that following the collapse of the revolutionary wave of 1848 and the triumph of the counter revolution by 1851, he made the decision to "withdraw to the study".

I have self identified as a communist since I was 12 years old. That's 46 years ago. My political involvement and activism has gone through waves of engagement and withdrawal since that time. My current wave of activism commenced in 2004 when I became active in the refugee movement and the Perth Social Forum. That's 12 years. I have as of now decided consciously to withdraw to the study.

This may seem odd to many. After all, are we not in a surge, an upswing of progressive politics? Left of centre parties have been doing well in European elections, establishment parties have been pegged back, there is the Corbyn phenomenon and the Sanders campaign...Well all these individual issues can and probably will be discussed in this blog. But for now, let me state, no, I don't think so. I don't see these as harbingers of change. That is not to negate the underlying pressures and popular swings that have the potential to direct towards social transformation, but to acknowledge that the mechanisms, ideas and dynamics that could lead those underlying developments in that direction do not exist.

Furthermore I live in Australia, and even more so in the state of Western Australia, a reactionary, complacent, generally prosperous region. What I have observed - especially in the last few years - is the left in Perth engaged in vicious and ugly cycle of self destruction - not that I am convinced it is entirely self destruction. There are elements that are I think hell bent on destroying the revolutionary left. Not necessarily consciously or willfully, but as prisoners of the kind of pseudo left ideologies that have grown up in the world since the 1980's. Again this is a topic I intend to comment on in more detail some other time. But for now I am merely seeking to introduce the blog and explain the title.

A number of people may recall my other blog "An Historians' Notebook". It has been idle for some time, mainly because I have not been engaged much in reading and writing history for some time. Perhaps in withdrawing to the study I will be able to engage in reading, thinking about and writing history again and that blog will revive too. But the point I want to address is the distinction between the two blogs, and it will be one of subject. I hope to address historical matters in "Historian's Notebook" and matters of general theory and current politics in this blog. But best laid plans of mice and men and all that, we shall simply have to see...