How one of the great science fiction authors helped

China Miéville’s ‘A spectre is haunting the world’ defends Marx and Engels’ text.

The Communist Manifesto is one of the most influential political works, regardless of affiliation. Its brevity (it’s a “manifesto” rather than a book like Marx’s Capital) doesn’t diminish its intensity, and its commissioned origin and shared authorship give it an urgency that makes it valuable today.

We repeat: no nostalgia needed. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ clarity is worth studying regardless of your politics. Over the decades, ill-intentioned enemies and those who hadn’t read the ‘Manifesto’ have misinterpreted it. This new book in bookshops aims to fix that.

‘A Spectre is Haunting the World – On the Communist Manifesto’ by Akal contains the entire ‘Communist Manifesto’, just over forty pages. The ‘Manifesto’ is mostly an essay by China Miéville on Marx and Engels’ text, so it’s only an appendix.

One of the most unique and award-winning science fiction writers today. He has won many awards, including the Hugo, three Arthur C. Clarke Awards, two British Fantasy Awards, and four Locus Awards, despite his association with the new weird science fiction genre. Much of his work reflects his British left activism.

Although influenced by many genres, he usually writes fantasy worlds (not in the style of Tolkien, whom he considers a reactionary author) with elements of crime fiction, early twentieth-century pulp, and unclassifiable concepts. His Bas-Lag trilogy mixes magic and steampunk. The Guardian describes one of his best books as “it shows the problems of a society in which people are blind to others, emphasising how much things can improve if we open our eyes a little more.” while maintaining its political intent.

His most successful novel, the multi-award-winning The City and the City, follows a criminal investigation in two Eastern European cities that coexist. Highly metaphorical and fast-paced, the novel captures the complex vision of two realities that coexist in time and space and reveal themselves at will to their inhabitants. The ultra-violent fantasy The Book of Elsewhere, written with Keanu Reeves, is his latest.

Why is Miéville a good guide for non-science fiction texts? As mentioned, Miéville is a left-wing writer who knows his subject and history. He is a committed activist and takes seriously the task of explaining a text that may have become outdated over the decades (although many of its claims are still important, at least in the context in which they were written).

‘A Spectre is Haunting the World’ is about what? It debunks many communist myths that, with the ‘Manifesto’, are inaccurate and even contradict Marx and Engels’ theses. For instance, that communism is against democracy and in favour of dictatorships (Marx claims the opposite, that the abolition of capitalism would lead to an effective and real democracy).

Miéville doesn’t just explain the Communist Manifesto in its time because he brings it to the present. Miéville’s value is explaining why this book is relevant today and how its ideas affect society in light of today’s deep social and class tensions.

How one of the great science fiction authors helped

China Miéville’s ‘A spectre is haunting the world’ defends Marx and Engels’ text.

By b0oua

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