What We Learnt From the First Six Months of 'Red Mole'
Red Mole’s Editorial Evolution
Hi everyone,
Six months into Red Mole, we’re at a moment where the data from your engagement is telling us something important about what actually works. We want to be transparent about what we’re discovering, and how it’s going to shape what we publish.
We launched with an assumption that our audience wanted deep Fourth International history and archival material. The engagement data says otherwise. That material underperformed consistently. What resonates? Contemporary organizational crisis analysis with clear strategic lessons for movement building today.
Here’s what we’re learning about what serves you best.
How We’re Thinking About Content Now
On podcasts: We assumed our two-headed deep-drive format would be our strong suit. But podcasts underperform text analysis on the same topics, sometimes significantly. We’re being more selective about when we do audio content. When we do publish podcasts, they need to justify the format with real conversation value, not just deliver analysis you could read faster.
On Fourth International perspectives: You tell us in surveys that you value FI analysis. And you do, but the data shows you want FI ideas applied to contemporary struggles, not genealogies of FI figures or pure historical examination. When we frame FI thinking around current organizational decisions facing real movements, it lands. When we publish biography of historical FI leaders, it doesn’t.
On international coverage: This one’s complex. Many of you asked for expanded global coverage. We’ve provided it. But the honest pattern is that international analysis performs strongest when explicitly framed for British, US and Irish activist relevance. Pure South American or Asian left analysis, no matter how strategically important, engages fewer of you. We need to think carefully about what that means for our international commitment.
On historical content without contemporary hooks: We’ve learned the hard way that history divorced from current relevance doesn’t work for us. Pierre Frank in 1948 on Palestine? That worked because current Palestinian strategy echoes 1948 debates. Pure historical case studies, no matter how theoretically rigorous, underperform. History works when it illuminates what’s happening now.
On naming failures: We came in with an explicitly anti-sectarian approach. We meant it, and we mean it. But what “anti-sectarian” actually means became clear through your response patterns. You don’t want abstract unity principles. You want rigorous organizational intelligence. You want to understand why the CWI made strategic mistakes on Ireland. You want to know how the SWP got trapped in false strategy on Tommy Robinson. Rigorous critique of real organizational failures drives engagement. Abstract calls for unity don’t. So our anti-sectarianism means “rigorous accuracy over dismissive polemic,” not “avoiding critique of left organizations.”
On strategy framing: When we say “Strategic Lessons:” in our titles, something shifts. The same analytical content performs noticeably better when we explicitly frame it as extracting lessons for how revolutionaries should organize today. That clarity of application matters to how you engage.
On topic saturation: October showed us something we should have predicted. We flooded the channel with Ukraine/campism content. Even strong analysis on those topics started underperforming. You need variety and breathing room between deep dives on single issues. We’re spacing out major topic focus now.
On Palestine and Middle East content: This is a smaller audience segment within your base, but you engage with it intensely. We’re not deprioritizing this because of view counts; we’re recognizing that specialized strategic interest sometimes matters more than broad reach.
On organizational controversy: The strongest engagement comes when we analyze real conflicts between specific people and organizations. “Zarah Sultana’s strategic positioning” lands better than abstract discussion of “left distinction.” You want to understand the actual disputes shaping your movements, not principles without protagonists.
On content length and format: We’ve been assuming a particular article length works best. We haven’t really tested whether you’d prefer deeper investigative pieces or snappier analysis. That’s a gap in what we know about you.
What We’re Pausing
We’re not completing our two May 2025 archival series, popularising Pierre Frank’s history of the Third International, or Francois Moreau on Fourth International history. It was intellectually defensible; it wasn’t strategically aligned with what you need. We’ll preserve it as reference, but we won’t cycle it back as primary content.
We’re being more selective about podcast production until we’re confident the format serves you rather than just our production preferences.
We’re not expanding global coverage without anchoring it to British, Irish or US activist relevance, because that’s where our actual audience engagement happens.
What This Means Going Forward
Red Mole is settling into a clearer identity: We’re providing strategic intelligence for revolutionary activists building movements today, grounded in Fourth International analysis and historical lessons, focused particularly on English-speaking left movements while maintaining international perspective.
That’s more specific than we started. It’s also more honest about who we serve and what you actually want.
We’re going to be more intentional about all of this. Fewer but more focused podcasts. FI analysis directly applied to current organizing challenges. International content that connects to your context. Organizational critique that’s rigorous rather than abstract. Historical analysis that illuminates present struggles.
And we’re testing some things we haven’t tested before—like whether you want different content lengths for different purposes—because we don’t want to keep assuming what works without checking in with reality.
Thank you for being the audience that makes this refinement possible. Your reading patterns are telling us who Red Mole actually is, and we’re listening.
Keep organizing!
What would you find most useful from us? Reply to us or take our brief survey (here) if you want to weigh in on these shifts.
Regardless of the topic I always look forward to a new posting from Red Mole. And with what seems to be the embedded campism on much of the socialist left your pieces on Ukraine have been a resource.