Salvage #8: Comrades, This is Madness

Like many things, Salvage #8 was a little disrupted by the global pandemic, but it’s at the printers and if you’re a print subscriber, it’s on its way to you very soon.

As we have announced, our comrade, friend, and contributor Neil Davidson died as we were preparing Salvage #8 for press. We cannot even begin here to acknowledge the political, intellectual and personal inspiration that Neil gave both to Salvage and the wider Marxist Left. A fuller accounting of his enormous contribution will feature in a forthcoming issue. In the meantime, we honour Neil and give our gratitude for having had him as a comrade and friend by dedicating this issue to him. It is Neil who gave us the title of this issue. He uttered the four words some years ago, in stern and fervent corrective to one of the Left’s many episodes of moralist autophagy. In its insight, its good sense, its fecund polysemy and its sheer urgency, the phrase immediately became indispensable in the political idiolects of those of us who would become the Salvage Editorial Collective. We have had occasion to speak it many times since then, and we will doubtless have many more. Whenever we do, we will remember our dear comrade.

Contents

The Salvage Editorial Collective on the Covid-19 crisis

‘Mothering Against the World’: Sophie Lewis on ‘Momrades’

‘The Bushes’: new fiction from China Miéville

‘Hookers and Other Angels’: photography from Juno Mac

‘Prepared for the Worst’: Richard Seymour on Disaster Nationalism

‘Welfare State Populism and the “Left-Behind Left”’ by Kevin Ochieng Okoth

‘A Glimmer of a Shell of a Husk’ by Maya Osborne 

‘The Phallic Road to Socialism’ by Sebastian Budgen

A newly translated interview with Daniel Guérin

‘Nationalism After Coronavirus’ by Sivamohan Valluvan 

‘Striking in Striking Times: Capitalism’s Coronavirus Crisis’ by Gregor Gall 

‘Getting Dressed for a Pandemic’ by Camila Valle

‘Out of the Iron Lung: A Miasma Theory of Coronavirus’ by Matthew Broomfield

And poetry by Nisha Ramayya, this issue’s featured poet, and an interview with her conducted by Salvage poetry editor, Caitlín Doherty.

Plus the return of the Salvage Editorial Collective perspectives pamphlet, and a postcard.

If you’re not yet a subscriber, or your subscription lapsed, head over to our website and subscribe with 25% off your first payment by entering the code COMRADES25 at the checkout. 

If you’re not sure if your subscription is still active, email us at subscriptions@salvage.zone and we will let you know.