In the public eye: Helena Sheehan
November 22, 2025
Socialist History: Issue 67, by Dianne Kirby “The cover of part two of Helena Sheehan’s autobiography, Until We Fall: Long Distance Life on the Left, is inspired by Geliy Korzhev’s... READ MOREMonthly Review Press
The making of capitalism (The War Against the Commons reviewed in ‘Against the Current’)
February 20, 2024
Protests against enclosure began as far back as 1450, when “tens of thousands of English peasants fought, and thousands died, to halt the spread of capitalist farming that was destroying their way of life.”
Fascinating blow by blow on the Cuban workers’ parliaments (Pedro Ross reviewed for ‘New West Indian Guide’)
February 20, 2024
Mass meetings took place in 80,000 workplaces, neighborhood committees, farmers’ organisations, and the Federation of Cuban Women. These acted as a two-way conduit, informing the workers and farmers of the reality of the situation while, at the same time, allowing for votes on different options, all unpalatable, but some more acceptable than others. By giving ordinary people a direct say and a stake in the solution of the crisis, the Workers’ Parliaments brought back a commitment to the social gains of the Revolution and enabled Cuban society to slowly emerge from the “Special Period.”
UAW fails to win back pensions for newer workers
February 20, 2024
The UAW strike against Big Auto succeeded in winning impressive wage gains, but it failed to obtain a little-reported demand: that the auto companies reinstate defined benefit pension plans for new employees...
Venezuelan migrants “destroying New York”? (David Wilson featured on NYU Press blog)
February 20, 2024
So why not just end the U.S. embargo on Venezuela? If Venezuelans are coming here just to escape economic problems at home, reducing the embargo should bring about a major decline in Venezuelan asylum seekers.
Listen: On 50+ years as an activist (coeditor of A Land With A People interviewed on Here4TheKids podcast)
February 20, 2024
Saira Ro recently welcomed Esther Farmer, one of the coeditors of 'A Land With A People,' to discuss her participation in recent actions demanding justice for the Palestinian People....
An indomitable anti-Zionist Jewish feminist talks about the steadfastness (sumud) of Palestinians (“A Land With A People” coeditor interviewed for ‘The Famous Feminist’)
February 20, 2024
"...a woman in Gaza, her family had been bombed out of their home. But she was determined to make bread and she had found a hot plate. She was making these breads. She said you could get killed going to the bakery, you can’t go to the bakery. They're bombing the bakeries. So I'm doing this. Her kids are in the street, sitting under a tarpaulin. And she's making bread. That's a form of heroism, you know?
...I asked them, “Do you ever feel like you should leave?” They replied, 'We stay here. We're not leaving. This is our home.' That's a form of resistance."
A professor’s fight against McCarthyism resonates today (The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis reviewed by historian Joan Scott)
February 20, 2024
'The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis' provides the historical insight that I associate with the best accounts of this kind: motives are complex, power a critical variable, timing an unpredictable factor, and rational argument not necessarily a winning strategy...
“A lasting tribute to meticulous journalism” (The Hidden History of the Korean War: New Edition reviewed in ‘Asian Affairs’)
February 20, 2024
Stone, as always working from open-source materials, condemned the continuation of the bombing of the north even though there were no viable military targets left...These days, the Stone’s 'Hidden History,' while still viewed with hostility in certain quarters, is regarded as one of his best works. But given that it appeared long before the archives were open and while the conflict in Korea continued, is there merit in republishing it? The answer is yes. Stone may not have got everything right, and occasionally lapses into conspiracy theories, but his broad picture was accurate enough at the time and remains so. It is a lasting tribute to meticulous journalism.
Offering hope to the left (Until We Fall reviewed in ‘Morning Star’)
February 20, 2024
Already in the early 1980s if not before: “It was clear to most of us that socialism couldn’t survive without radical democratisation ... it had to be based on consent.” Nevertheless, for Sheehan as for many of us on the left, the demise of the socialist bloc represented a defeat and the restoration of capitalism. It was “the most dramatic upheaval, politically and psychologically,” Sheehan says.