I learned this afternoon that my friend and comrade, John Molyneux, a gifted theoretician and populariser of Marxism, editor of Irish Marxist Review, has died suddenly in Dublin. He was a good friend of MIA. I will shortly be posting an archive of some of his works.
I was shocked to hear of the death of John, who I have known for over 40 years, first through my work on the early Marxisms in London and later through my work at Bookmarks. I remained in occasional email contact with him over the years meeting him at various Marxisms during the 1990s. Later he was very helpful when I started work on the Marxists’
Internet Archive, particularly after his move to Dublin and helped to establish Irish Marxist Review, which I have mirrored (after a bit of a delay on MIA). I’ve had a number of very interesting discussions and conversations over the years.
I particularly remember one meeting in Prague, where both of us hads been invited to speak at a conference. We were staying in the same flat and ended up talking about all sorts of topics, mainly political until at least 4 in the morning although both of us had to be at the conference by 10. Somehow we both made it and contributed to the discussion (John much more eloquently than I did).
John convinced me earlier this year that I should write an article on the German Revolution for IMR. I haven’t started on it yet but had planned to start after Christmas. In memory of John I willendeavour to keep to this plan.
I received my last communication from John on Saturday afternoon – he was asking me for advice about a simple introduction to socialism/Marxism for a young German comrade – I presume he was asking for a comrade based in Ireland. I replied to him later that afternoon.
I’m writing a short obituary for The Left in Berlin website. I hope to be able to send it in by tomorrow. My emphasis will be on John’s theoretical contribution – but I will include that anecdote about Prague. I will miss my email exchanges with John – but I hope to contribute to upholding his memory by maintaining a fairly comprehensive archive of his major works as well as adding stuff from his blogs and links to his podcasts.
My sincerest condolences to Mary and all of John’s family as well as his comrades.
Best wishes to you all, Einde O’Callaghan
As announced earlier here is a preliminary version of the new John Molyneux Archive:
More material will be added later