IN 1992, political commentators felt poised for a Labour victory after 13 devastating years of Thatcherism which resulted in mass unemployment, the butchery of Britain’s industrial base and rioting over the poll tax.

All signs pointed to a slim success for Labour, consistently polling marginally above the Tories. Yet the Tory defeat did not materialise and pollsters were forced to concede that there was a flaw in their methods.

This apparent gulf between the polling results and the actual general election outcome was put down to a new phenomenon — the “shy Tory factor.” Pollsters realised that there were many people up and down the country who were so ashamed of their intention to vote Tory that they either gave a non-committal response when questioned on voting preferences or who were prepared to answer with an outright lie.

The surge in support for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership campaign has given rise to the notion of so-called “shy socialists” — those people whose opinions closely align with socialism but who were either concerned about declaring themselves as socialist or couldn’t equate their values to the version of socialism that is perpetuated by the mainstream media — of a totalitarian, Stalinist state with a murderous bent and which removes the notion of freedom of any kind.

This is the only version of “socialism” that the Daily Mail and its ilk believe to exist.

Yet socialism is a complex term with no single correct definition. The late Tony Benn described socialism as a way of organising society around production for need and not for profit, as a commitment to a fairer society, a progressive change driven from below rather than dictated from above, where power is transferred to the people via the ballot box and removed from the wallets of the wealthy.

This seemingly perfectly reasonable commitment to a fair society was denounced by the Daily Mail’s Dominic Sandbrook in the days following Benn’s death, with the glaring and alarmist headline: “If he’d got his way, we’d have been like North Korea.”

In the aftermath of the general election, some sections of the press repeated the fallacy that Labour lost “because it was too left wing,” where “left wing” equates to being a proponent of Stalinism.

Martin Daubney, editor of Loaded magazine and contributor to Breit

bart.com opined that “British socialism’s corpse is barely twitching now, it’s death rattle long since extinguished,” then went on to denounce the left wing of the Labour Party, left-leaning voters and sympathetic media outlets as “ghoulish pall-bearers for Soviet economics and far-left social identity.”

By the same token, if you’re a socialist and you’re not expounding the joys of totalitarianism, then you must be a fantastical utopian dreamer living in a parallel universe.

In his autobiography, Dennis Skinner describes his take on socialism.

“It involves public ownership, assertive trade unions, redistribution of wealth, regulations and democratic control,” with the aim of creating a fairer society.

Again the alarmist Mail ran a screaming headline designed to persuade its readers that democratic control and public ownership are the preserve of unhinged, out-of-touch leftists by declaring: “Why Dennis Skinner deserves to be called a dinosaur” (heavy underlining on “deserves”).

The inference being, if you agree with anything Skinner says, you’re stuck in the past and therefore irrelevant.

This two-pronged attack of equating socialism with totalitarian regimes on the one hand, while simultaneously deeming any left-wing ideas as utopian or irrelevant on the other, has served big business and the right wing well.

The momentum behind the Jeremy Corbyn campaign is changing that.

Perhaps the most revealing comment on the surge in support for the socialist ideas advocated by Corbyn was made, not by any of the so-called “Labour grandees,” but by 23-year-old Heather Shaw, who told the Guardian: “People say he is an old leftwinger or an old Marxist, but to my generation his ideas seem quite new.”

Shaw represents an entire generation who have never had anything to vote for other than neoliberal parties surviving in Thatcher’s dark shadow.

For this generation, a voice calling for public ownership of utilities, the nationalisation of railways and the scrapping of tuition fees seems radically new, despite the fact that such ideas would not have been deemed as anything outside the norm before 1979.

The right-wing press and Thatcherite governments of the 1980s onwards have dictated the conversation for so long that socialism has almost been removed from the terms of debate by stealth.

Yet it’s not that straightforward, as those on the right wing are now experiencing, to completely outlaw what is essentially the politics of hope. As Skinner remarked: “To be a socialist, you have to be an optimist.”

Ralph Miliband, writing in 1994 on Socialism For a Sceptical Age, could have been commenting on the Labour leadership election taking place 21 years later when he observed: “In all countries, there are people, in large numbers or small, who are moved by the vision of a new social order in which democracy, egalitarianism and co-operation — the essential values of socialism — would be the prevailing principles of social organisation.”

The Corbyn campaign has provided a focal point for those who share the vision outlined by Ed Miliband, and offers a hopeful vision of the future whereby the despair at the general election result can be cast off and reforged as a viable and optimistic alternative.

This injection of hope has galvanised people of all ages who had felt disenfranchised after years in which the ballot paper offered various shades of blue.

At 57, Phil, a former shipyard worker, explains that he was politicised during the 1972 miners’ strike and that he has considered himself a socialist since the age of 14.

“Prior to Jeremy’s campaign my perception of socialism was of something tangible that had seemed within our grasp when I was a teenager, but was now barely visible on the distant horizon.

“If Jeremy doesn’t win I won’t despair as his candidacy is Britain’s ‘Syriza moment’ … the socialist genie is well and truly out of the bottle.”

This view is reflected in the comments of another Corbyn supporter, Jeremy Dodd, 45, who “walked away from politics completely disillusioned” in 1991, following the defeat of the miners and the increasingly rightward trajectory of the Labour Party.

“Twenty four years later, the wheel has turned and now there seems a chance that a form of progressive socialism could have a national impact.”

A major factor in Corbyn’s campaign has been to not only reinvigorate those who had become disillusioned with politics such as Phil or Jeremy Dodd, but to inspire a new generation of young socialists.

Sib, a 24-year-old filmmaker and disability rights campaigner, noted a reluctance among his peers to use the word “socialist” to describe their political views, which he feels has been branded a “dirty word” by a mainstream media which “promotes the idea of avarice and marginalising people … I was afraid to call myself a socialist before Jeremy Corbyn ran his campaign.”

Sib credits the campaign with changing his perception on what it means to be left wing.

“Previously I thought it was just cathartic to challenge unwelcome government policies. Now I recognise the once-in-a-generation opportunity to change the world for the better.”

Pete, 27, a former history student and ex-taxi driver, also expressed this reframing of the practicalities of what it means to be on the left when asked about his experience of the Labour leadership campaign.

“The campaign has definitely let me see that my political views are far from fringe. It’s inspiring to see how Corbyn is working to shift the centre ground away from the right.”

In contrast to Sib’s experiences of being afraid to call himself a socialist before the Corbyn campaign, Labour MP Richard Burgon had no such qualms, and ran his general election campaign on a socialist platform, with Skinner attending his meetings to speak in support of the newly elected MP for East Leeds.

“There’s certainly nothing shy about my socialism. People like the fact that I’m upfront and proud to be a socialist. It reassures them that I’m real and that I’m in politics for something other than myself. It reminds people of a time when they felt a greater emotional commitment to Labour.

“In 2015, people react far better to an MP describing themselves as socialist than they do of an MP describing themselves as an admirer of Tony Blair!”

Burgon agrees that the campaign has politicised a section of society that had previously felt disenfranchised or disinterested in politics.

“The huge public meetings — 1,500 people in Bradford and 2,000 people in Leeds — are not full of habitual labour movement rally attendees. I’ve spoken to a lot of people who have not only never been to a political meeting before — they never thought they’d ever attend one.”

MPs such as Burgon and Corbyn are reclaiming the S-word for people like Sib, who is confident that he’ll remain politically active whatever the outcome of the leadership election.

That, perhaps, is one of the most positive and long-lasting effects to have come out of the 2015 summer of socialism.

Every single Corbyn supporter I have spoken to in recent weeks is committed to continuing to fight for the causes his campaign has highlighted, such as scrapping Trident and an end to austerity — whether he becomes Labour leader or not.

Burgon explains: “People didn’t realise just how many others there are out there who share their anger at the injustices of the current system and their hope of building a better world. The Corbyn campaign is showing them that they are far from alone.”