On 2 April 2019, Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika was forced to resign.1 In scarcely more than one month, a massive popular movement that had emerged for the first time on 22 February managed to get rid of the ageing and… Continue Reading
I am grateful to John Kelly for taking the time to respond to some of the issues raised by my review of his history of the British Trotskyist movement, Contemporary Trotskyism.1 I will here just aim to reply briefly to… Continue Reading
A review of John Kelly, Contemporary Trotskyism: Parties, Sects and Social Movements in Britain (Routledge, 2018), £29.99 Leon Trotsky, the organiser of the October 1917 insurrection and founder of the Red Army, cannot be dismissed by anyone lightly. However, amid… Continue Reading
In 1967 New Left Review (NLR) published an article called “Trotsky’s Marxism” by Nicolas Krassó.1 A former pupil of the great Marxist philosopher Georg Lukács, Krassó (1930-86) played an active role in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and helped to… Continue Reading
“In passing across a narrow and unreliable bridge, a small but reliable prop may prove one’s salvation. But woe to him who clutches at a rotten prop that crumbles at a touch—for, in that case, a plunge into the abyss… Continue Reading
A review of Thomas M Twiss, Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy (Brill/Haymarket, 2015), £25.99 The theory of bureaucratic state capitalism in Russia and elsewhere characterises the International Socialist Tendency and distinguishes us from most other Marxist parties worldwide.… Continue Reading
Dear friends, I very much appreciate John Rose’s thoughtful review of my book Leon Trotsky (“Half socialist? Leon Trotsky and the Soviet Union”, in International Socialism 149) including his positive comments and the gratifying endorsement: “Buy this book!” Yet his… Continue Reading
A review of Paul Le Blanc, Leon Trotsky (Reaktion Books, Critical Lives series, 2015), £11.99 Paul Le Blanc faced a daunting challenge when he agreed to write a book about Leon Trotsky and his life in exile for the Critical… Continue Reading
A review of Alan Sennett, Revolutionary Marxism in Spain, 1930-1937 (Brill, 2014/Haymarket, 2015), £98/£18 Historical debate about the outcome of the Spanish Revolution (1936-37) has often centred on the dissident communist Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM). For the… Continue Reading