Read the hilarious satire of CPUSA speak by long time Party stalwart Jessica Mitford, printed as an appendix to her autobiography, "Life of the Party." Entitled, "Lifeitsmanship, " an inquiry into L or left-wing usage, taking off on U and non-U (upper class) Her Party comrades really raked her over the coals for dissing JVS pamphlet, "Mastering Bolshevism, " as, "Menshevizing Idealism."
Do you speak New Labour? - jargon New Statesman, August 20, 2001 by Nick Cohen Nick Cohen discovers a little-known pamphlet published by Jessica Mitford in 1956 and finds a little updating helps him understand politicians today
Nancy Mitford's Noblesse Oblige made her better, if not better-known, sister shudder. Jessica (Decca to family and friends) Mitford's reaction to Nancy and the rest of an aristocratic family that was a touch too fond of fascism, even by the standards of the Thirties, had been to convert to communism and flee, via Spain, to America. When a copy of her sister's Noblesse Oblige, with its elucidation of U (upper-class) and non-U language, reached her in exile, she retaliated with a cyclostyled pamphlet for friends and lefty bookshops, a copy of which I found recently among my father's papers.
Left-wingers, she thought, were unlikely "to find much of practical value" in the knowledge that the best society said "hall" rather than "lounge", substituted "false teeth" for "dentures", and preferred "napkin" to "serviette". A crash course in "L" (left-wing) and "non-L" terminology would be far more useful to those mystified by Marxist rhetoric, she thought. "A spot-check has convinced us that the need for such a course, both for beginners and for more advanced students, has long been felt by many," she wrote.
Lifeitselfmanship or How to Become a Precisely-Because Man was published in 1956 under her married name, Decca Treuhaft, and sold for "1/-", five pence in new money. She begins with helpful translations:
"Non-L: 'Time will tell whether that plan was OK.'
"L equivalent: 'The correctness of that policy will be tested in life itself.' (Alt., 'in the crucible of struggle').
"Non-L wife to husband: 'I'm having tea with Mrs Snodgrass this afternoon. Some of the nursery school mothers will be there; we're going to talk about expanding the school.'
"L wife to L husband: 'I'm going to spend the afternoon doing mass work.' (Alt., 'at a meeting of my mass org.') 'We are projecting some expanded goals on the Woman Question.'"
After readers had grasped the basics, Mitford interrogated them, asking, for instance: "What must we do soberly?"
"Evaluate, estimate, assess, anticipate (correct answers); go down to the nearest bar (incorrect answer)."
Or: "List various kinds of struggle.
"Answer: All out, political, class, cultural, principled, many-sided, one-sided, inner-party."
The exam wasn't exhaustive, she accepted, but she "sincerely hoped and believed that more qualified scholars" would take up where her paper left off. Students, she continued, would "no doubt be anxious to dig in further and learn more about the correct approach to L-usage".
All an ambitious young person can learn from Mitford today is that there's nothing new about political correctness. If he or she (and I must make it clear that "he" is always followed by "or she") were fool enough to follow her advice and talk of "lackeys of the bourgeoisie" or "Wall Street galloping to its own destruction", the seat in the House of Lords or the chairmanship of the BBC governors would be lost for ever.
-- Michael Pugliese