In the early 1990s, after decades of unbroken Tory rule and a defensive Labour leadership increasingly echoing Thatcherite attitudes, a feeling of disenfranchisement was strong among the radical, green and feminist left. Following the 1992 closure of its predecessor, Socialist (a short-lived fortnightly paper borne out of the Chesterfield Socialist Conferences), the Red Pepper founders set out to establish a new alternative publication as an antidote to a frustrated and fractured left.
What prompted you to start Red Pepper?
Clifford Singer
‘Publications seemed to be either on the left politically but boring and attached to specific factions and grouplets, or bland and drifting rightwards. Those which in the 1980s had aimed to be radical, pluralistic and as engaged in arts and culture as political theory, such as New Socialist and Marxism Today, had gone into decline.’
Dee Searle
‘We wanted to create a space to bring together socialist and green politics through high quality journalism that would portray the lived experience and cultural activities of broad sectors of the population that are ignored by the mainstream media and other more sectarian left publications.’
Hilary Wainwright
‘Pleasure loving and mischievous but with serious intent; curious, eclectic and diverse at the same time as being principled; determinedly internationalist while simultaneously attentive to local, grassroots initiatives – this was the thinking that produced Red Pepper.’
Over the next two years, the founders worked to recruit financial backers for the launch of Red Pepper – so named after a 1920s Moscow newspaper which promised to ‘throw pepper’ at ‘bureaucrats, bunglers, swindlers and rogues in state and party institutions’ and ‘the world bourgeoisie’.
Through distributing leaflets at conferences containing manifestos signed by Jeremy Corbyn, a Guardian advertising appeal and the tireless persuasion of the founders, a donor base and a group of committed writers was laboriously built. After bursting onto the scene in the summer of 1994, Red Pepper swiftly found its feet and developed its distinctive maverick voice, winning the 1995 Alternative Press Award for Best New Publication.
What are some of your favourite memories or anecdotes from Red Pepper’s early days?
Tony Cook
‘Dennis Potter, in a piece for Red Pepper, calling his cancer ‘Rupert’ because, like Murdoch, it got into everything and ruined it! Also, when Harold Pinter was speaking at an AGM, we had to ask a theatre group loudly practising in the next room to be quiet. When it was time to introduce Harold, I told the audience that we’d informed the young actors that we had Harold Pinter in here so could they please practise their pauses. I thought it was funny. Harold didn’t!’
Hilary Wainwright
‘I have very vivid memories of our first office in Gunthorpe Street, where we had to negotiate over our unpaid rent with John Profumo (of Profumo Affair fame). Tony would do a few calculations on the back of an envelope and declare the fundraising we needed, and when our phone calls failed to deliver we had a visit from the bailiff. However, our computers (our only seizable ‘asset’) were registered in the name of a dead person, so could not be seized!’
In the 30 years that followed, Red Pepper has remained committed to documenting and platforming alternative and under-sung forms of social and political resistance, from early issues on the right to rave and the war on drugs, through the Seattle WTO alter-globalisation protests and Occupy, to its most recent anti-imperialist response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Its ‘nose for a movement’, as Hilary wrote in 2004, has never faltered.
What has it been like to watch the magazine grow and change?
Tony Cook
‘The skill and dedication shown by each successive wave of Red Pepperites has never flagged. Its influence, its ability to give people the information they need to further discussion and its unfailing ability to get into places that traditional media fail to cover are truly remarkable.’
Hilary Wainwright
‘One of the vital drivers of Red Pepper was the constant flow of highly creative young volunteers, always taking Red Pepper in new directions. Our roots among young activists and the independent-minded, largely outside of London, also meant that we never became conservative, self-satisfied, complacent or part of a clique.’
Clifford Singer
‘The magazine looks great – lively and accessible – and although its website is an excellent resource too it’s still nice to flick through tactile pages. Here’s to another 30 years – in whatever form it takes!’
Dee Searle
‘We live in frightening times, and a safe space where journalists, writers and thinkers can develop progressive, inclusive alternatives and tell the stories of people engaged in real-time struggle has never been more necessary.’
Early supporters of the magazine who signed the Guardian advertising appeal included:
Tony Benn, Huw Benyon, Roy Bhaskar, Billy Bragg, Victoria Brittain, Louise Christian, Julie Christie, Noam Chomsky, Jeremy Corbyn, Larry Elliot, Diane Elson, Mark Fisher, Glyn Ford, Maureen Foster, Stanley Forman, Carlos Fuentes, Paul Gosling, Trevor Griffiths, David Hare, Michael Hindley, Pete Jenner, Rana Kabbani, Helena Kennedy, Bruce Kent, Andy Kershaw, Jean Lambert, Colin Lindsay, Ken Loach, Mike Mansfield, Gabriel García Márquez, Jacquetta May, Ralph Miliband, Ursula Owen, John Palmer, John Pilger, Harold Pinter, Yvonne Roberts, Ruth Rendell, Tom Robinson, Sheila Rowbotham, Prunella Scales, Anthony Scrivener, Dick Scroop, Jeremy Seabrook, Margaret Sharkey, Sting, Sue Townsend, Timothy West.
