I was shocked to hear of the sudden death of John Molyneux, my friend and comrade. A few words now with, no doubt, more to come.

John had a huge influence on me, stretching back to my school days in Bradford when I started reading Socialist Worker and other party publications. Articles by John, along with Chris Harman and others, helped draw me into the Marxist tradition and shaped my own political development. A little later, at university, I read one of John’s books, “Marxism and the Party”, which made a great impression, as did his talks at events such as the Marxism festival, which I attended each year from the mid-1990s.

John was part of a wonderful generation, forged in the political upheavals of 1968, who helped to renew and carry forward the living tradition of revolutionary socialism. They were often the comrades I felt the most affinity with, robustly independent-minded, not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, but deadly serious about both theory and practice, and serious about seeking to unify the two through building revolutionary organisation. I was fortunate to meet and work with many of these figures once I left university.

John was also someone who took younger Marxists seriously. I think the first time I really crossed his radar was when, as a young party full-timer, I was sent down to Portsmouth, where he was living, to do some public meeting or other. He contacted me to warn that some serious worker activists the branch had met were planning to attend, probably worried that I’d go off on some obscure tangent of Marxist theory (something of which I’m entirely capable). After the meeting, he apologised in case he’d offended me and thanked me for doing the talk, about which he was extremely generous. Around that time, we became close and spoke fairly often over the next two decades.

They were good talks. John was the type of person who would come up to you in the bar at the Marxism festival to ask you a question about Marx’s concept of abstract labour—and later regale you with an anecdote about the time he met Allen Ginsberg.

In 2010, he moved to Ireland, to be with his partner Mary. I happened to stay with them in Dublin not too long after and was delighted to see how contented he seemed to be in his new home. Of course, there was no chance of a “retirement” from politics, even after four decades of tireless writing, speaking, campaigning and organising. John threw himself into political work in Ireland. As well as editing Irish Marxist Review, and joining in the work of the Socialist Worker Network, People Before Profit and the Global Ecosocialist Network that he helped found, he continued to write for International Socialism here in Britain, which I’ve edited in recent years.

I saw John less often in person, but he would phone me from time to time, usually for a chat about some or other problem of theory. Our last conversation was just a couple of days before his death: he wanted to sound me out about a couple of passages from “Capital”. We managed to squeeze in a twenty-minute chat, between him attending various protests and me dealing with union work and teaching. I’ll miss those conversations, often challenging, but always warm and always insightful.

For comrades not familiar with John, there’s a fine volume of “Selected Writings”, published by Bookmarks Publications earlier this year. It was edited by John’s friend and comrade Huw Williams, and I was flattered to be invited to write an introduction. As John points out in his own preface, being a member of a real, living revolutionary organisation is to be influenced by thousands of comrades. In turn, John, through his writing, his speeches and his activity, exerted a huge influence on thousands of others in the revolutionary tradition and the working-class movement. He will be greatly missed. Condolences to his partner, Mary, and all who are mourning him today.