Quintin Hoare (1938-2025)
A former editor of "Red Mole"
It is with a sense of profound loss that we reflect on the contributions of Quintin Hoare, a dedicated Marxist intellectual and a pivotal figure in the early years of The Red Mole. As an editorial board member of the publication, Quintin co-founded Red Mole after a crisis in the Black Dwarf newspaper. He was one of six Fourth Internationalists who served longest on the editorial board throughout Red Mole’s decisive years (the others were Tariq Ali, Robin Blackburn, Robin Blackburn, Ben Brewster and Paul Murray). They helped shape the political and theoretical direction of this influential organ of the International Marxist Group (IMG), at times working with comrades who joined the editorial board for shorter times, and design editor Don Edmonds. Quintin’s work during this period vividly illustrates a commitment to applying Marxist analysis to contemporary global challenges and fundamental questions of revolutionary strategy.
Hoare's Marxism, as expressed during his association with The Red Mole, was deeply rooted in the Trotskyist tradition, consistent with the IMG's status as the British section of the Fourth International. In addition to his role on Red Mole, he was on the editorial board of International, its magazine. His intellectual engagement extended beyond editorial duties, as evidenced by his participation in debates, where he represented The Red Mole's perspective.
As part of the editorial team, Hoare was instrumental in steering The Red Mole as a platform for Marxist analysis, aiming to provide insightful commentary on global and domestic political developments from a revolutionary perspective. His theoretical contributions were central to the intellectual ferment of the IMG and the broader left at the time.
Quintin Hoare's legacy within The Red Mole and the wider Marxist movement is thus characterized by his rigorous theoretical work and his active role in disseminating revolutionary ideas, grounded in a clear commitment to anti-imperialism and a Leninist approach to building a socialist future. His contributions continue to resonate for those seeking to understand the historical development of Marxist thought in Britain and beyond.
Postscript.
Many thanks go to a reader who pointed out hallucinations in the initial version of this article. We’ve made several corrections, and it's a massive learning.
Our approach is to train custom AI models solely on the documents themselves. For example, the corpus for our Red Mole model consists only of Red Mole issues; it’s not soaking in random information, unlike ChatGPT and similar systems. Our articles and podcasts are produced in discussion with our custom models. The results might be wonky at times, but they are generally robust. However, the errors in that article were larger than the sum of all other errors in Substack's short life, multiplied by ten. We're introducing a process to build duplicate models using alternative systems, which could allow us to monitor each other more effectively and help our humans identify problems.
Of course, it's especially tasteless that this happens on an obituary for someone who was a friend of the FI for such a long period.
We also need to make it much easier for people to contact is and flag content. The use of AI hugle multiplies our contribution to translating, publishing and applying valuable materials from those times. Errors like this - of identifed - help us improve what we're doing -- but because readers flag them up to us, or our advisory board members. That’s how we can do better.
Thanks again, and many apologies. We’re learning, and your help makes all the difference.