The following essay was written in February of 2020, for the website of left-wing arts and culture publication Red Wedge magazine, not long before its activity ceased and former editors moved on to other projects, including Locust Review. We post it here in an effort to give readers a sense of LR’s roots, the artistic and political questions that we have sought to answer, and the bearing they have on those being taken up by the Locust project. In the coming weeks, we will also be publishing a selection of Red Wedge’s best material.