KING’S LYNN, NORFOLK – We regret to inform the proletarian masses of Britain that the infamous ‘Comrade X’, the Lenin of East Anglia who lives in the shadows and contains within her incomparable mind the totality of proletarian science, has been thwarted in her nigh-successful quest to build a vanguard cadre organisation for proletarian revolution by being placed on mandatory 12-week isolation due to the global pandemic COVID-19.
“I was really going to do it this time,” she informed our correspondent via messenger pigeon. “I’ve been traveling on weekends around the region, sussing various contacts to see how trustworthy they are, carefully providing contact information… we were really building.”
“But then the fucking Tories botched the whole Coronavirus job, and now I’m in isolation forever so… blame the objective conditions.”
Upon being informed that “that sounds like the sort of cop-out the Trotskyites might give us”, ‘Comrade X’ called our correspondent by WhatsApp video chat to furiously respond:
Don’t even jokingly compare me with that cult, Worker’s Spatula. I know I’ve made some excuses in the past, but things were really going well for a change. I was meeting with some promising trade unionists. I was coordinating with people close to the Lever and some ICOR representatives. I had made contact with some people experienced in [REDACTED] and we went together to [REDACTED] to set up a training [REDACTED] for [REDACTED] who [REDACTED] in case [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] or [REDACTED].
I put in the hours, door to door. But literally what am I supposed to do in mandatory social isolation? I’m not a Trotskyite… the coronavirus is.
Noting that her practical work had made her “feel more alive than ever before”, and with each passing day in social isolation, she can “feel the fighting spirit diminish”, ‘Comrade X’ emphasised that “if I had just had a few more days, we could have built a functional organisation that would have survived the outbreak, but it’s too late now.”
‘Comrade X’ also noted the extremely unlikelihood of rebuilding potential organisational links when COVID-19 blows over: “the post-Corbyn period was perfect, because Corbyn’s contrarian and controversy-courting style of social democracy really did a lot to radicalise the kids, and then he got undermined by the system, leaving a small segment of the youth with a high potential for radicalisation. But as this COVID-19 nonsense wears on, the British state is going to realise that just as the Corbyn phenomenon had a potential to undermine the British state, it also had the potential to legitimise and preserve it that Boris just doesn’t have.”
“Once they realise that, they’re going to position some ‘just critical enough’ Labour politician that Corbyn and company can anoint who can fix the COVID-19 mess and return us to business as usual with a couple more compromises from the state’s side, and then they’ll make the kids fight tooth and nail to maintain that.”
Her bleak but practically speaking not absurd prediction caused ‘Comrade X’ to light up a cigarette in distress, a habit she had kicked during her weeks of regular organising work, signalling a likely return to being relegated to her own bed save for trips to the door to pick up the delivery she ordered.
“There’s no use trying to organise British people anyway. If things are going to kick off, it’s going to be in Ireland, and I have faith in them to change the world in the ways I’m too depressed to take part in because the world has made me the sort of person who’s too depressed to change it.”
At time of press, ‘Comrade X’ was forlornly stroking a photo of Ethem Sarısülük and mouthing the words “I have failed you”.
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