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Grab your pen, buddy, German socialist culture needs you!

A visit to the Beeskow Art Archive

Rosemary Grennan
19/09/2022

In late August I visited the Beeskow Art Archive as part of a €9 day trip organised by Left Berlin. The Beeskow Art Archive preserves an extraordinary range of artistic production from the GDR; from huge mural-like panel paintings, bronze busts, still lives, to student projects, photography and ceramics. Both the collection, and how the archive was created gives us an insight into the role and conception of the culture and art of GDR, as well as bringing up the question of public ownership of material that was produced under a state system of patronage that no longer exists.

So what did cultural policy look like in the GDR? A look back at the Bitterfelder Weg conference of 1959 which introduced a new program of the socialist cultural policy in the GDR, can help reveal the origins of prevalence of public art as well as the role of art in Alltagskultur (everyday life culture). The conference was organised to look at how working people could be given access to art and culture, overcoming the “existing separation of art and life” through getting the working class more involved in the cultural project of socialism. Walter Ulbricht, the head of the SED party, initiated the slogan “Greif zur Feder, Kumpel, die sozialistische deutsche Nationalkultur braucht dich!” or, “Grab your pen, buddy, German socialist culture needs you!” This program attempted to place artists and writers in factories and other sites of mass production, to support workers in artist activity.

This in some ways mirrors the Worker Photography Movement which went against a representative mode of photographing working class movements, instead locating artistic production as part of or in aid of struggle. In the 1970s revival of Worker Photographer in London by photographer Terry Dennett, where he poses the distinction between, ‘workers’ photography, those movements in which Socialists and ordinary people have played an active and formative role, and the various bourgeois controlled practices which we have termed photography for the workers.

However, the Bittefelder Weg was soon abandoned, and in April 1964, cultures were instead given the task of promoting political education in socialist consciousness and key figures in socialism. Much of this was funded by the GDR Kulturfonds, a fund founded by FDGB, the Kulturbund, and the Department of Public Education, which acted as the commissioning body for most of the works that are housed in Beeskow Art Archive. A month before reunification, Herbert Schrimer, the final minister of Culture of the GDR and Walter Patig, the last director of DDR Kulturfonds formed a new foundation whose aim was to continue the public access to works funded by the Kulturfonds.

At this time the artworks were dispersed all over the GDR in the institution that they were commissioned for. After reunification those institutions would no longer exist, so a separate organisation that would continue after reunification was needed. Florentiner Nadolny, the director of the Archive, reminded us that there is no public art collection in West Germany that houses artists from the GDR. This ambivalence of GDR cultural heritage since reunification is only starting to change after a generational gap.

Up until the last five years or so, GDR cultural production was seen as socialist kitsch rather than serious artist work. Two current exhibitions that are helping shift this change in perspective are Kunstraum in Berlin, current exhibition Worin unsere Stärke besteht: Fünfzig Künstlerinnen aus der GDR, showcases the work of fifty women artists from GDR, and Künstlerinnen. Fotografien von Sibylle Fendt, which is housed within the Beeskow Art Archive.

As part of the visit we were given an excellent tour around the collection by Florentiner Nadolny ( which you can book here). Many of the brief insights in this article were inspired by Florentiner’s deep knowledge of the collection and I highly recommend it. I want to highlight a number of pieces from the tour which showed the breadth of aesthetics in GDR commissioned art despite a very much regulated system of state patronage, as well as how art permeated much of public and everyday life in the GDR. We were unable to take pictures in the Archive, so I have managed to source some pictures to give you a glimpse of the works.

There was so much interesting work to write about but I could not include them all, other artists that were of particular note on the tour were: Norbert Wagenbrett, Sibylle Fendt, Kostas Sissis, and Sabina Grzimek.

The fee for the commission was for around twenty-five thousand East German Marks which was the equivalent to around a year’s wages for an artist in the GDR… Although application to the professional organisation was highly controlled, once a member they ensured that cultural workers were properly paid and the art that became part of the state and mass institutions.

Top right panel of Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch! (Workers of the World, Unite!)

When entering the archive in Beeskow the room is full of grey metal plan chests full of drawings, prints and photographs. Above them hangs a huge painting, Aus dem Leben Ernst Thälmann (From the life of Ernst Thälmann) by Christian Heinze, which was commissioned in the early 1980s to be hung in the mensa of Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB). A communal table in the centre of the canvas shows people from the GDR living a common life, above them a crowd of people and at the centre Ernst Thälmann, former leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), with his fist raised high. Around the edges of the painting we see the Red Army defeating fascism, the destruction of Berlin and the building of industry in the GDR.

Due to the fact that most works in the Beeskow Art Archive were owned by the Free German Trade Union Confederation (FDGB) and other mass institutions, during the GDR they remained in the public sphere (as opposed to private collections). Art was not just confined to the gallery or museums, but seen as integral to building socialism, so sharing lunch with Ersnt Thälmann in mensa was very much part of the fabric and material culture of life.

The fee for the commission was for around twenty-five thousand East German Marks which was the equivalent to around a year’s wages for an artist in the GDR. These kinds of commissions were only available to artists who were members of the Verband Bildung (Artist’s Union) and were paid for by the GDR Kulturfonds. Although application to the professional organisation was highly controlled, once a member they ensured that cultural workers were properly paid and the art that became part of the state and mass institutions.

Am Strand (On the Beach) by Walter Womacka was painted in 1962… The painting was reproduced more than three million times as an art print, postcard and art calendar, as well as a stamp in 1968 had a circulation of twelve million.

Hanging on the wall, right next to Aus dem Leben Ernst Thälmanns, were various versions of probably the most famous painting in the GDR. Far from portraits of Thälmann, bronzes of Lenin and or numerous tributes or Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, this intimate everyday picture struck a chord with the population. Am Strand (On the Beach) by Walter Womacka was painted in 1962 and was presented to Walter Ulbricht by the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED on his 70th birthday. The picture shows two young people, perhaps not yet a couple, sitting on the beach, their middle fingers touching in an uncertain gesture of adolescent love.

Very much in a Socialist Realist style which elevated everyday life under socialism into a “revolutionary romanticism”, the painting through its circulation became a key to the people in GDR’s image of themselves. The painting was reproduced more than three million times as an art print, postcard and art calendar, as well as a stamp in 1968 had a circulation of twelve million. Indeed, one of our tour group remembered the painting from her parent’s sitting room.

Womacka was very much a ‘state artist’ and a member of the SED who was commissioned to do many commission in prominent GDR buildings, such as Unser Leben (Our Life) for the teacher’s house on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz and panel painting Wenn Kommunisten träumen (When Communists Dream) was hung in the Palace of the Republic. The latter was also reproduced as a stamp in 1981 (see below). The dramatic shift in style between Am Strand and Wenn Kommunisten träumen shows that even for ‘party artists’, art was neither uniform or simple functional within socialism.

A Stamp of Wenn Kommunisten träumen (When Communists Dream) by Walter Womacka in the GDR Palast der Republik

One of the most spectacular, and mildly grotesque pieces of the archive was a huge multi-canvas piece by renowned GDR artist Willi Sitte, entitled ‘“Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!’ or ‘ Workers of the World, Unite! Each section, mounted on sliding archival storage, was revealed individually due to the size of the piece. First came Marx; a lightning bolt grasped in one hand and the other lifted high as a fist radiating rainbow colours, below a small refracted side portrait of Lenin.

The next panel brings a sharp contrast between the austere sepia portraits of the figures of communism in Germany (Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and Ernst Thälmann) adorn the top of the picture, under this a baroque mass of bodies, muscles and guts. The people are tearing themselves down from the cross and heralding a new dawn with golden trumpets. Sitte, who deserted the Wehrmacht in 1944 and briefly went and fought for the Italian Partisans, and this style evidently resembles Italian Baroque.

Printout from the tour of all the panels of Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch! together.

The final panel we were shown continued this lineage of communist figures with a young Marx and Engels in the left hand corner all the way through to Kautsky, under the canvas is grey with lumpen naked figures shrouded in cloth, newspapers emerge and fall from the grey background. They both form a revolutionary base, reminiscent of Willi Neubert’s Die Presse als Organisator (The Press as Organiser) mural on the Presse Cafe, in which the communist press takes on an activity and integral part of the revolutionary project.

Pieced together almost triptych-like murals portray the progression of revolutionary consciousness and mass politics from the beginning of the communist movement to what is assumed to imply state- socialism of the GDR. But far from the perhaps drab social realism that one might associate with ‘socialist’ art, the end panel shows a psychedelic mass of colour, power of collective action and the strength of people rising. Interestingly though this was not deemed a fitting piece to be displayed in the Parteihochschule in Köllnischer Platz by SED officials. Due to the prevalence of naked people in the painting the piece was hung at the top of the main staircase in the school and covered by a curtain. Florentiner Nadolny, the director of the Art Archive in Beeskow, said that this was suspected to be due to GDR relations with the Soviet Union. Sitte objected to it being covered up and attempted to buy the painting back through a public campaign, after much conflict the piece was permanently displayed.

This example of the top down sanctioning of even their most prominent artists (from 1974 to 1988 Sitte was President of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR), showed the rhetoric of the Bitterfelder Weg had become highly institutionalised. However, like many of the contradictions that come out of the GDR, the conditions in which art was produced there can not simply be dismissed. The art in the Beeskow Art Archive emerges, not just as a top down expression of social values, but a site of struggle and negotiation around what it means to create socialist culture. The collections in Beeskow are testament to the huge variety and vibrancy of art that came out of GDR, and their work is key to reasserting it’s artistic and cultural heritage back into public view.

Zero Waste Berlin Festival

The first international event for zero waste, circularity and sustainability

The Left Berlin
15/09/2022

The Zero Waste Berlin Festival take places on September 16-17th at Engelnest Co-Working in Berlin-Schöneberg.

This year’s festival focuses on Green Cities and how it connects to sustainability, circularity, and zero waste. See more info on the website.

The Friday is set up for professionals working in the sustainability field—and you’ll notice this in the pricing 😅 The focus here is on networking, sharing ideas, and finding collaboration partners, and we also have a few masterclasses for those who want to go deeper.

Saturday is meant for the broader public, and tickets are only around 10 euros 🙂 We’re inviting Berlin citizens and anyone curious about the topics of sustainability, circularity, and zero waste.

Here is how you can get a discount ticket

• Visit our tickets website.
• Click on Tickets
• In the left top corner click on Enter promo code
• Insert your code: 20BYZWBF2022
• Get your discounted ticket and fill in the details

Notre Dame, Eco-colonialism, and The Wretched of Pakistan

The muted altruistic response to Pakistan’s calamitous flooding reveals the persistence of colonial priorities of the Global North.

Ali Khan

I emigrated from Pakistan with my family at the age of 17 in 2010 and I have never returned. I never really felt an emotional connection to the country, the language, or the history. I was always eager to come to the West and assimilate there and my wish was fulfilled. Only after I read Frantz Fanon’s “The Wretched of The Earth” did I begin to feel a sense of patriotism towards the motherland. My sense of righteous anger at the legacy of colonialism-at-large found an expression towards colonialism as it shaped the lives of myself and those whom I perceive as my people.

The Notre Dame Cathedral fire occurred on 15^th April, 2019. Within a week, nearly 1 billion Euros were pledged for its restoration. Not a single person died, nobody was displaced from their home. In humanitarian terms, this was a non-event. For a country that can never stop beating its chest about its secular humanism, the eagerness to restore a church to its former glory contrasts starkly with the indifferent response of the, comically named, international community. Laïcité seems like a cruel, taunting insult to the wretched of Pakistan.

The list of donors is worth highlighting. The French energy giant Total pledged 100 m, the chair of Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) pledged another 100, Francois-Henri Pinault pledged 100, the heirs to L’Oreal pledged 200 more, the city of Paris pledged 50. Half a billion Euros pledged on a whim in a grotesque auction for public self-aggrandisement. Why is it that any entity in the world has the power to allocate such sums to satisfy their own vanity? But perhaps more immediately, how were (and still are) these fortunes generated in the first place? How much did their generation contribute towards the destruction wrought on the biosphere which precipitated the catastrophe in Pakistan?

Even though the lands of Pakistan were colonised by the British, today, in the age of the “Rules Based International Order”, the people and the land can be exploited by capital of any nationality. It is in short, an economic and environmental gang rape facilitated by institutions like the IMF and the World Bank. Greenhouse gas emissions have no nationality. To reiterate, Pakistan is ranked within the top 10 most vulnerable countries to climate change, despite ranking around 158^th in the world for emissions. In light of this frightening divergence, I feel comfortable highlighting the French response to the Notre Dame fire and the French state’s barbaric response to the floods. A web search for stories on money or support pledged by the French state or actors yields nothing in terms of money and little in terms of aid that is commensurate with the scale of the crisis.

But if France, with its hypocrisy and wealth built on colonialism, both new and old, is a chief accomplice of this catastrophe and its perpetuation, then the UK and the USA are the primary conspirators.

“Colonialism hardly ever exploits the whole of a country. It contents itself with bringing to light the natural resources, which it extracts, and exports to meet the needs of the mother country’s industries, thereby allowing certain sectors of the colony to become relatively rich. But the rest of the colony follows its path of under-development and poverty, or at all events sinks into it more deeply.” – Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

Fanon is speaking through the map at the top of this article. Almost the entirety of Balochistan has been affected, even in areas far flung from the Indus River, the primary conduit for flooding. Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, until 2010 referred to by its colonial name: North West Frontier Province, is similarly affected. The river Indus merges with the flows of the other four rivers of Punjab (Sutlej, Ravi, Chenab, Jhelum) at the border between Sindh and Punjab. Roughly a third of Sindh comprises the Thar desert and is therefore extremely vulnerable to flooding. A catastrophic increase in river volumes would make Sindh difficult to defend as the river swells up downstream. But the damage caused upstream and across in Balochistan are, at least partially, the consequence of the wounds of imperial neglect.

The British government has offered a miserly package of £15 million, or 46p per person displaced. The United States is providing $30 million, 91c per person displaced. Contrast this with the estimates of value extracted from the Indian sub-continent (in the order of trillions in present value) or the money offered to successive Pakistani governments to help prosecute, first the Soviet-Afghan War, and then the War on Terror. The US Congressional Research Service estimates US aid to Pakistan’s military since 2001 to be over $10 billion. The US military is estimated to have emitted 23.4 MTe CO_2,eq in 2017. The entirety of Pakistan’s emissions in 2017 were approximately 221 MTe CO_2,eq. The confluence of historic economic plunder and present-day environmental vandalism has turned Pakistan into perhaps the first victim of eco-colonialism. The effects of such widespread destruction of homes, crops, and livestock in conjunction with country-scale displacement through a single climate change induced event is without precedent. Countries in the Global South may see what has happened to Pakistan and ask themselves: “Are we next?”.

In light of these facts, the moral outrage of such preventable devastation is already unfathomable to the mind, but it would be remiss not to address one final element to its causality; the role of the IMF and debt. Governments across the Global South are familiar with the dreaded structural adjustment programs that condition any transfer of financial aid from the IMF. In practice, the IMF acts like a loan shark preying on the desperation of the very countries that emerged in the period of decolonisation after the second world war. In Pakistan’s case, this is illustrated by the fact that in 2022-2023 it is expected that 56.4% of tax revenues will service debts.

The demands of the IMF, as a rule, entrench indebtedness and make it impossible for these countries to progress beyond emerging market status. They become centres of unequal value exchange, providing raw materials and cheap labour to perpetuate the wealth and power of the Global North. Work by Jason Hickel and co-authors estimated that in the period 1960-2018, the Global North extracted $62 trillion dollars from the Global South through what they term “unequal exchange” i.e. paying less for something from abroad than what it would cost within the Global North.

Coupled with the entrenchment of economic relations mimicking the period of imperialism, the indebtedness imposed on Global South countries makes it impossible for them to adequately mitigate the impacts of climate change as a last resort. It leaves countries like Pakistan stripped of autonomy, forcing governments to beg at international gatherings like the COP Summit to provide for the harm they have been perpetrating for centuries, and then diligently obstructed through conduits like the IMF. The genealogical links between imperialism, neo-colonialism, and eco-colonialism are thus reified.

Contemporary Pakistani politics is similarly plagued by these legacies. Punjabi elites, the most populous and economically dominant province, coupled with their Sindhi counterparts (home to the largest city in the country) have monopolised political power since its inception. Bangladesh seceded after a brutal war of subjugation led by West Pakistan failed, geography and the intervention of India facilitating Bangladeshi independence. However, efforts to gain autonomy or independence within Balochistan have been brutally suppressed to the present day, with abductions a routine facet of political activism.

Khyber Pakthunkhwa has, owing to the War on Terror, been a similarly militarised region in the country, driven into the grip of religious fundamentalism on account of a war it had little say in participating in. Therefore the scale of devastation caused by these floods and the woefully inadequate response, at home and abroad, is the result of a synergistic function of colonial socio-political legacies, neo-colonial domination, and ecological collapse. The entirety of the Global South must unify to negate these synergies, casting off all old rivalries and apprehensions so that they do not suffer the same fate as Pakistan, one after the other.

You can find some sites where you can donate to Pakistan flood victims here. On Saturday, 17th September there will be a Solidarity Fundraiser for flood victims in Café Karanfil in Berlin Neukölln.

News from Berlin and Germany, 15th September 2022

Weekly news round-up from Berlin and Germany

The Left Berlin

NEWS FROM BERLIN

More than 3,800 students waiting for a place in in Berlin

In no other federal state there are so few available places in student halls of residence as in Berlin. The Senate promised to create more affordable housing. But three weeks before the semester starts, rooms in shared flats are rare – and very expensive. The Studierendenwerk Berlin, which offers halls of residence, has a very long waiting list: this year, more than 3,800 students are on it, and the number is rising. Those in the queue are likely to get a place there… in two to three semesters. Also, because of rising energy costs, the Studierendenwerk recently announced it would increase the rents in its halls of residence. Source: rbb

Day care centre: additional fees and child separation

700 euros in extra fees in a private day-care provider in Berlin-Lichterfelde – and if you can’t pay, your child must go into an extra group, bringing its own food and not having age-appropriate toys. This was confirmed by the Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family. According to the senate administration, the Berlin day-care centre supervisor has already made an unannounced visit to the facility in Drakestraße on Tuesday and sought talks with the management. The education administration by the Senate threatens to withdraw the operating licence if the situation does not change. Source: rbb

Berlin police officer allegedly racially insulted woman on duty

A couple from Berlin reported a police officer after an operation in their home because he allegedly made racist insults to the wife. According to the report, the police came to the woman’s flat because she was confronted with a threat. Her husband, against whom an arrest warrant has been issued for fraudulent payment of benefits, was also there. After his arrest, the threat assessment was carried out. During the operation, one of the police officers allegedly said in a condescending manner the woman should return to her home country. The couple submitted a video documenting the insult. Source; Spiegel

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Energy prices – Redistribution from the bottom to the top

Energy prices continue to explode. But the federal government is sticking to its gas levy, which means that citizens will have to fork out even more money. This redistribution from the bottom to the top orchestrated by the federal government is in no way alleviated by the “third relief package” presented this week. Christoph Butterwegge, a researcher about poverty, complains the package is a “poking around at symptoms”, but does not solve any problems. Furthermore, according to a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation recently published, three out of four adults agree with the statement the state should “ensure a reduction in the difference between rich and poor”. Source: jW

Germany’s green card plans

Germany wants to make it easier for non-EU citizens to enter the country and combat the shortage of skilled workers: with a green card variant, the so-called “opportunity card”. The German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH) estimated that Germany lacks about 250,000 skilled craftsmen. To get that card, the skilled workers must meet at least three of four criteria: a) university degree or vocational qualification; b) at least 3 years of professional experience; c) language skills or previous residency in Germany; and d) age below 35 years. Those conditions are though criticized by experts, not to mention some challenges to be faced such as the German bureaucracy. Source: DW

Municipalities warn of blackouts

The German Association of Towns and Municipalities warned of widespread power cuts in Germany because of the energy crisis. “There is a danger of a blackout,” mentioned Chief Executive Gerd Landsberg. On the other hand, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) assured at the weekend about the energy crisis: “We have prepared ourselves.” A power grid stress test by the federal government recently concluded: “hourly crisis situations in the power system are very unlikely in winter 22/23, but currently cannot be completely ruled out”. Still, experts reaffirm the German power grid to be well prepared. Source: taz

Brandenburg Greens call SPD position on nine-euro ticket a ‘mistake’

As part of the latest relief package, the federal government is seeking a successor to the nine-euro ticket for 49 to 69 euros per month. Berlin’s Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) had held out the prospect of a temporary, regional successor offer. She is planning a bridging solution from October to December 2022 for the capital until a nationwide ticket arrives. The Brandenburg state government has so far rejected a transitional solution, affirming it has less money than the federal capital. The passenger association IGEB criticised the attitude of the Brandenburg state government. Source: rbb

Fridays for Future calls for 100 billion euros for energy transition

The climate movement Fridays for Future is calling for a special fund of 100 billion euros to accelerate the phasing out of fossil fuels. The sum could be raised through a combination of excess profits taxes and a relaxation of the debt brake, spokesperson Luisa Neubauer said. The roughly 65 billion euros in subsidies for fossil fuels could also be used for this purpose. The movement is also calling again for a global climate strike on 23 September. “The is a direct consequence of a policy that has refused for too long to establish true energy independence based on renewable energies,” Neubauer said. Source: Berliner Zeitung

Manufacturing Consent around the Queen’s Death

Socialists must vocally oppose the artificial consensus around mourning the Queen

John Molyneux
13/09/2022

Many years ago I read about a social psychology experiment in which a group of seven people were presented with two cards. On card 1 were three lines of different lengths– A, B and C. On card 2 was one line – D. They were asked to say which line on card 1 matched the length of line D. The answer was fairly obvious but 6 of the group were actors primed to give the wrong answer. What the experiment showed was that in most cases the seventh person (the victim) gave in and agreed with the majority in spite of the evidence of their own ideas.

Such is the social pressure exerted by ‘majorities’. Ruling classes everywhere are well aware of this and exploit it to their advantage. Much of the time they cannot achieve the consensus they desire, especially when there are substantial organised oppositional forces in society (trade unions, left political parties etc.) but there are certain moments when they sense they have the opportunity to really enforce their view of the world on everyone.

This is what the British ruling class is doing at the moment with the aid of centuries of tradition and, very importantly, the leadership of the Labour Party and some trade unions. They declare that the nation is in mourning and that everybody agrees (‘Surely there is one thing we all agree on’ says the short propaganda video repeated endlessly on TV). Then they say that anyone who dares to disagree is not only mistaken but ‘disgusting’, ‘outrageous’, ‘vile’ and so on.

Clearly the media is central to this and the BBC is certainly playing its part to the full. But it is important to understand that in its wall to wall to coverage it is doing the bidding of its master, the British ruling class. It is not reflecting public opinion; it is going into overdrive to manufacture the consent it claims to reflect. More or less all dissenting voices are excluded on the grounds that they would cause ‘offence’. They would cause offence by disagreeing with what everybody agrees with.

They are doing this now over the Queen but the most important occasions on which they do it are when they are going to war. This is what all the belligerent countries did over World War 1, handing out white feathers and the like. In my experience, they did it quite successfully in Britain over the Falklands/Malvinas War but failed spectacularly over the Iraq war. In Ireland it was, until quite recently, simply not allowed in public discourse to criticise the Catholic Church. You couldn’t say that the local priest was a child abuser or that Catholic Industrial schools were sites of systematic violence and cruelty, even though large numbers of people knew this to be true. Why? Because ‘everybody’ knew this couldn’t be so (and because every politician, journalist, TV presenter etc. knew there would be a price to be paid for saying it).

One effect of this is the pressure on the left, on political forces overtly committed to challenging the current order. It is worth remembering that in 1914 the parliamentary deputies of German Socialist Party (SPD) – a party which had always opposed the coming war – voted by 110 to1 in favour of war credits i.e. to support the war (the one was Karl Liebknecht). Inside the left there are always voices who say we know this is bullshit but we must go along with it or we will lose votes.

Another version of this is the slightly less cynical, ‘we have to go along with it because that is what “our members”, “the working class” etc. want, but however it is put the effect is the same; it reinforces precisely the consensus the ruling class is trying to impose. It should be remembered that on these grounds it would have been necessary to accept and collude in overt racism, overt sexism, overt homophobia- all of which were normal and part of the consensus in the not too distant past and on all of which the heavy lifting was done by minorities who were denounced at the time.

Another effect of the pressure is that some people try to get out from under it by saying that feel sorry for the Queen’s family ‘personally’ etc. This was the ‘tactic’ used by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana and others but, as Eamonn McCann put it, they didn’t feel obliged to make such comments when his Aunty Maisie died. In other words, this kind of public statement is still a collusion with the propaganda and I think those who do it really know this.

The only decent position for socialists is to state unequivocally that we are republicans who are opposed on principle to monarchy and therefore will not assent to or take part in any of this nonsense manufactured mourning. Given the number of people who now consume their news online and via social media, reflecting critical coverage from outside the UK is an important tasks to puncture efforts to enforce pro-monarchy sentiment internally.