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
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
A review of Tariq Ali, The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution, Verso (2017), £16.99 Can we rescue Lenin for the 21st century? In this the year of the centenary of the 1917 Russian Revolution we have to… Continue Reading
Science matters to socialists.1 For one thing, it’s impossible to be an effective activist in the 21st century without having some awareness of the impact of science on society. The threat of global warming, the replacement of jobs by computers… Continue Reading
A review of S A Smith, Russia in Revolution : An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928 (Oxford University Press, 2017), £25, Neil Faulkner, A People’s History of the Russian Revolution (Pluto Press/Left Book Club, 2017), £12.99 and Mark D… Continue Reading
A review of Revolution: Russian Art 1917–1932 Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly, London, 11 February-17 April 2017 Little is more contested in art history than works from revolutionary Russia. The latest show from the Royal Academy (RA) and most of… Continue Reading
I shall never forget that thunder-like speech, which startled and amazed not only me, a heretic who had accidently dropped in, but all the true believers. I am certain that no one had expected anything of the sort. It seemed… Continue Reading
In Tony Cliff’s original four-volume series on Lenin published in the 1970s, the second volume was entitled All Power to the Soviets and the third Revolution Besieged.1 Besieged may not mean destroyed, but the civil war, which began in May… Continue Reading
A review of Simon Pirani, The Russian Revolution in Retreat, 1920–24: Soviet Workers and the New Communist Elite (Routledge, 2008), £20.00 Readers of this journal who have not had the unpleasant experience of wading through liberal studies of the Soviet… Continue Reading