Zimbabwe after Mugabe
“This is the way the world ends,” wrote T S Eliot in “The Hollow Men”. “Not with a bang but a whimper”. Well the world didn’t come to an end in Zimbabwe on 21 November 2017, when Robert Mugabe resigned… Continue Reading
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The Third Republic, the war and the mutiny in the French Army in 1917
As France entered the 20th century, it embodied, for many people, and to many socialists, the ideals of liberty, egality and fraternity that had been the pillars underpinning the revolution of 1789. Surrounded on all sides by kingdoms and empires,… Continue Reading
A hard road to travel: black people and racism in the 19th century United States
The following lyrics were written by an anonymous black soldier in the 54th Massachusetts (Colored) Regiment, one of the first black combat regiments, at the height of the Civil War in the United States (1861-5). They undermine the pernicious myth… Continue Reading
After the surge: Corbyn and the road ahead
The June 2017 general election saw a voter revolt, once again, shake the political establishment in Britain. And once again, like the close-run 2014 Scottish independence referendum and the vote to leave the European Union in 2016, almost all the… Continue Reading
The Russian Revolution and the British working class
The two Russian Revolutions of 1917 inspired socialists and trade unionists across the world. The February Revolution raised the prospect of the overthrow of dictatorship, October the possibility of workers’ revolution and socialism.1 October ripped up the blueprint for socialism… Continue Reading
Maxim Gorky and the fellow travellers
Maxim Gorky rose from poverty to become one of the most celebrated writers of the 20th century, the father of Soviet literature and the heir to Tolstoy. Like Tolstoy, he wrote of the cruelty and insanity of Tsarism, and his… Continue Reading
The orphaned revolution: the meaning of October 1917
Many of the great revolutions of modern times continue to be celebrated. This is true, for example, of the American and French Revolutions, which have their national days (4 and 14 July, respectively), of the Irish Easter Rising, whose centenary… Continue Reading
Grenfell: this should change everything
After the terrible fire at Grenfell tower on 14 June and its deadly aftermath, political shock waves are still agitating communities and disturbing politicians.1 Grenfell is a council housing block in west London which burned for 24 hours killing many… Continue Reading
Where is Venezuela going?
A profound economic, political and institutional crisis is sweeping Venezuela. The economy is suffering a deep recession triggered most of all by the collapse of the international price of oil, which accounts for something like 95 percent of the country’s… Continue Reading
Lise Vogel und die Politik der Frauenbefreiung
http://isj.org.uk/lise-vogel-and-the-politics-of-womens-liberation—Oktober 2014, aus dem Englischen von Rosemarie Nünning1 Mit der wachsenden Wut über Frauenunterdrückung und angesichts der Aktivitäten gegen diese sind auch viele der Argumente aus den 1970er und 1980er Jahren über die Brauchbarkeit der marxistischen Analyse der Frauenunterdrückung wieder… Continue Reading