Marx remains the essential base of any adequate study of history, because—so far—he alone has attempted to formulate a methodological approach to history as a whole, and to envisage and explain the entire process of human social evolution. In this… Continue Reading
In the first ten years of independence in Africa, even leaders of states that were not explicitly Marxist expressed an allegiance to socialism and an admiration for the Soviet Union. This included many famous leaders of independent Africa: Gamal Abdel… Continue Reading
The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States crystallised fears among sections of the financial elite that the world economy was beginning to spin towards a new era of protectionism. During his campaign Trump used rhetoric that… Continue Reading
In August 2017 Donald Trump tweeted that transgender people1 were no longer welcome in the military because they are a “burden” due to “tremendous medical costs and disruption”.2 This was the latest in a series of attacks on transgender people… Continue Reading
“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
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
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
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 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 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