Reading Ross’s account one is struck by the dichotomy between the popular demonology of Cuba as a totalitarian dictatorship in U.S. political discourse, and the radically democratic functioning of the workers’ parliaments. | more…
Different views on the degree to which relations between the local bourgeoisie and foreign capital were antagonistic pitted dependency writer Fernando Henrique Cardoso, ECLA economists, and various communist parties, on the one hand, against the more leftist dependency economists like Marini and Dos Santos, on the other hand… | more…
‘Dialectics’ should have been translated in the previous century. Nevertheless, Latimer’s translation comes at an appropriate time, coinciding with the revival of interest in dependency theory in the Global North and an increasing problematization of recent development experiences in the Global South. | more…
Encounters with many characters involved in left wing politics are recorded in such a way that make the reader feel more like a participant than an observer. Helena weaves anecdotes into a broader record of events, and in doing so brings them to life. She also puts on the record her many decades of involvement in politics outside of Ireland, and one would wonder how she managed to find the time to pack so much into her life and work. | more…
..Hat tip to Wallace for shining light on Darwin’s continuing importance to understanding the modern world under a social system that prioritizes the growth of wealth for a few over an equitable and sustainable life for many… | more…
In writing this book, Chris Gilbert has given the worldwide left a ray of hope. The trick now is to act upon it. | more…
“¡Brigadistas! is the best English-language comic dealing with the Spanish Civil War, and for that reason it gets my endorsement.” -Hank Kennedy, for The Comics Journal | more…
He said, well if you’re not busy, on Thursday we have a demonstration in front of the Israeli embassy. He added, “we actually do this every Thursday.” Then Natalie added, “and have done so every Thursday for the last 13 years.” Mind you, this was December. | more…
By examining the Special Period that Cuba went through, Ross gives us an example of how during periods of austerity, workers do not and should not need to pay the price of the crisis. For those who still think that Cuba is far from their ideal, I would like to paraphrase Marx. In theory, we assume that the laws of the socialist mode of production develop in their pure form. In reality, this is only an approximation; the approximation is all the more exact, the more socialism is developed and the less it is adulterated by survivals of earlier economic conditions with which it is amalgamated. | more…
As inter-imperialist rivalry now intensifies, especially between the U.S. and Russian and China, with each scrambling to secure allies and advantages against one another, the U.S. will cling to Israel and drag Jews, Palestinians and the other people of the region through a new hellish round of suffering for the sake of defending the American imperium…. | more…
In 1960, Davis was sentenced to six months in prison for refusing to answer questions about his membership in the Communist Party. Davis’s lawyers defended him with the innovative legal argument that the First Amendment barred such questioning. While Davis lost in the courts, his legal battles were still an important effort in a larger battle to extend the parameters on political speech. | more…
When world war erupted in 1914 Chamberlain extolled the German war effort. Germany’s defeat in 1918 devastated Chamberlain and may have negatively affected his health. After the war Chamberlain embraced the theory promoted by militarists, monarchists, and rising fascists that Germany had not lost the war but were betrayed by the liberals, Social Democrats and Jews…. | more…
For Gilbert the commune represents a recovery of Marx, in particular the romantic Marx who saw revolutionary potential among the Iroquois Confederacy, Algerian peasants and Russian peasant communes… | more…