Back to earth with a bump.

Here is a startling puff-piece for radical communism in the Independent.

It is all about a neo-Trotskyist postman, one Olivier Besancenot, who it is claimed ‘defies the Trotskyist stereotype’ by having short hair and wearing well-fitting jeans and a black or white T-shirt.

His aim? To overthrow the Western world.

But presumably because even the French masses still hanker after some shreds of civilisation, his website is coy on his precise aims:

The NPA website also tells a tale. There is nothing to explain in Trotskyist detail what the ideology of the party is. Instead, the site lists dozens of approved causes, from anti-nuclear to pro-Palestine.

M. Besancenot says that the party is democratic but wants to overturn "pseudo-democratic" institutions and give people control of their own lives. This means getting rid of the market economy, starting with the nationalisation of the banks into a single "state banking service".

Saperlipopette! Quel elan! I get more control of my life – by having no choice but to put all my money in a state-run monopoly! But at least when I have so much less life (when the state owns it) I can control it better.

Any more on this feelgood facteur genius’s plans for us? Mais oui:

"Our political logic is to take the best of the different traditions of the working-class movement, whether it be Trotskyism, Socialism, Communism, libertarianism, Guevarism, or radical environmentalism."

This fine tradition of Guevarism should make for some interesting discussions in EU Human Rights Working Groups:

Che Guevara presided over the appellate court. He never overturned a sentence. I would visit those on death row at the galera de la muerte. A rumor went around that I hypnotized prisoners because many remained calm, so Che ordered that I be present at the executions.

After I left in May, they executed many more, but I personally witnessed fifty-five executions. There was an American, Herman Marks, apparently a former convict. We called him “the butcher” because he enjoyed giving the order to shoot.

I pleaded many times with Che on behalf of prisoners. I remember especially the case of Ariel Lima, a young boy. Che did not budge. Nor did Fidel, whom I visited…"

The Independent ends with a Question:

What if M. Besancenot has merely invented a new form of Trotskyist "entryism"? Trotskyist "entryists", or moles, disguised themselves as moderate members of mainstream parties. M. Besancenot is, arguably, trying to create a kind of "political entryism by an entire party". He has cleverly re-packaged radical politics for a disaffected, but non-ideological, age.

Huh? Is that the issue?

Maybe better to ask what would happen if this fellow actually came to power and tried to implement his ‘cleverly repackaged radical policies’?

How many French people would be killed directly as state policy, or indirectly through systems crashing in imposing his views?

How long before he handed in his cutesy jeans and t-shirt – and donned instead the leather overcoat, jackboots and whip?

The Stranglers pose another pertinent question:

Whatever happened to Leon Trotsky?
He got an ice pick, that made his ears burn

No more heroes any more,
No more heroes any more