Bad Taste no. 14: a degenerate workers' state

The scan: sc-n63-sep-14-1978.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

This text was corrected by hand against the scan: the strip at the head of page 14, which the machine reading did not see; image taken from the scan and its lettering transcribed (18 Oct 2026). Number 14 of Cormac's weekly Bad Taste strip: a degenerate workers' state.

page 14 of the scan

Five-panel cartoon strip on left jargon: hearing that Russia is a "degenerate workers' state" conjures up a debauched Russian worker; "deformed workers' state" comes later. The scan is very dark. — Cormac, "Bad Taste" no. 14, Socialist Challenge no. 63, 14 September 1978, page 14. From the Marxists Internet Archive scan.

The strip, panel by panel

1. BAD TASTE. (Title panel; the scan is too dark to read further.)

2. Caption: "People sometimes complain about the incomprehensible verbiage and jargon which appears in leftist papers." (A man with a paper:) "But never, of course, in this paper!"

3. Caption: "But jargon has given me some of my happiest moments ... like when I first met a Trotskyist." Trotskyist: "Listen, [illegible] ... Russia is a degenerate workers' state." Caption: "And suddenly life seemed more beautiful."

4. Caption: "For a vision of a Russian worker crossed my mind." (A leering, dishevelled worker clutching a magazine titled "Bums & Tits".)

5. "Fortunately it was much later in my political education when I met the phrase 'deformed workers' state'."