2 NOVEMBER 1991, Page 36

Marx and Marxists

Sir: I have been waiting for someone to pop up reminding me what I wrote about Marx in the 1930s. It still remains that, intellectu- ally, the Marxist approach has much to offer in the study of society and politics, perhaps especially history, and even cul- ture.

Going further, it would be short-sighted to think that communism is finished, when China remains communist, for the Chinese are one-fifth or one-sixth of the human race.

I suppose I don't have to explain that I am not, and never have been, a communist — unlike many of my intellectual contem- poraries.

A.L. Rowse

St Austell, Cornwal