REVIEW ARTICLE 83 necessity of progressive and revolutionary kinds of nationalism, and it does not characterise nation-states as coercive entities as such.' The two trends of Third Worldism' and 'post-structuralism', against which the author polemises are manifestations of two different— complimentary as well as contradictory—forces in English literature. Firstly, they represent a continuation of the anti-imperialist struggle which raged throughout the world before, during and after the anti-fascist war; imperialism and colonialism are the major targets of attack for those who represent these two trends. Secondly, while they themselves adopt anti-imperialist and anti-colonial positions, they are part of the counter-offensive launched by the world bourgeoisie against Marxism; they do not base themselves on the Marxist position that the fighting proletarians and other revolutionary democrats are the original creators of radical literature. It is precisely to negate this Marxist position that various theories are evolved—theories which confuse the radical intelligentsia. The Marxist intelligentsia will therefore have to fight these trends, while fully utilising the anti-imperialist, anti-colonial positions which these trends represent. II How important this is for the radical literature in our country will be clear from the fact that the proponents of these theories in India claim that there are so many new trends of Marxism. It has been the experience of this writer that the anti-Marxists in the radical literary movement in Malayalam throw to our faces, excerpts from the writings of those Western authors who represent the literary trends mentioned by the author. Some of the Marxists themselves claim that these 'new' trends in literature are the 'further development of Marxist aesthetics.' Professor Ahmad convincingly shows that these so-called 'post-Marxian' theories and trends of literature are, in fact, a negation of Marxist aesthetics: in the name of 'going forward' from the Marxist positions, they go back on the Marxist position that the working people, the revolutionary people's movements, are the root of all radical literature. It is therefore as necessary to debunk these 'theories' as to recognise what is positive and revolutionary in them. It is necessary in this context to go back to the essentials of Marxism concerning the world of ideas of which aesthetics in a major part. Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto said: 'The history of ideas proves that mental production changes concomitantly with material production. In every epoch the ruling ideas are in the main ideas of the ruling classes.'