Starmer’s lurch to the right
“For reasons which they could not comprehend…they found themselves made strangers in their own country”.1 —Enoch Powell, the “Rivers of Blood” speech, 20 April 1968. “[W]e risk becoming an island of strangers”.
Author: International Socialism
Class struggle and identity politics in the era of Trump
Trump’s second election victory has dealt a severe blow to the idea that people see politics through the prism of identity.1 Kamala Harris did not win enough votes from women or black men to secure victory. Commentators and activists are… Continue Reading
Pick of the Quarter
The January-February issue of New Left Review, the latest to reach us, is among the most interesting editions in recent years. It includes a short update on Donald Trump’s return to power by the editor, Susan Watkins. The emphasis here… Continue Reading
“No one hears our speeches…”
A review of Osip Mandelstam: A Biography by Ralph Dutli, translated by Ben Fowkes (Verso, 2023), £25 In November 1933, in the midst of the Stalinist counter-revolution, the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938) began to recite a poem in the… Continue Reading
From value to uneven development
A review of From Value to Uneven Development: Selected writings by John Weeks in the Marxist tradition edited by Ben Fine, Simon Mohun, Alfredo Saad-Filho (Brill, 2024), £110 This book brings together a selection of the theoretical writings of the… Continue Reading
Escaping from history?
A review of The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland (John Murray Press, 2023) Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian journalist and liberal Zionist who accused Corbyn of antisemitism. Currently, he… Continue Reading
“The circle of death of the counter-revolution”: allied intervention in Bolshevik Russia
A review of A Nasty Little War: The West’s Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution by Anna Reid (John Murray Press, 2024), £12.99 From 1918 to 1920, a total of 180,000 allied troops conducted an undeclared war to overthrow the… Continue Reading
Race, capitalism and the spectre of Marx
A review of The Psychosis of Whiteness: Surviving the Insanity of a Racist World by Kehinde Andrews (Allen Lane, 2023), £10.99 What is Anti-racism? And Why it Means Anti-capitalism by Arun Kundnani (Verso, 2023), £16.99 The Black Lives Matter Movement… Continue Reading
A reply to John Mullen on the New Popular Front
In the previous issue of International Socialism, John Mullen wrote a reply to my article.1 I had criticised the strategy of the Nouveau Front Populaire (New Popular Front; NFP) in light of the history of the original Popular Front in… Continue Reading
The comintern: colonialism, nationalism and imperialism
In 1919, the Communist International, or Comintern, was founded in high hopes that the Russian Revolution would spread globally.1 The focus was on western Europe with its mass working-class movement. Given the wave of revolutionary fervour, it seemed little was… Continue Reading