In recent years there has been a intense discussion about the ideas of the Russian revolutionary Lenin. Some of this has its roots in the class struggle – the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement both threw up questions about the nature of revolutionary organisation. Others have attempted to re-examine Lenin to critique existing organisations and ideas. There have been some excellent books, articles and events debating these questions.
Tamás Krausz’s important new biography must be seen as part of this debate. His work is very much an attempt to re-examine Lenin’s ideas as part of a resolute defence of Lenin and his work. Krausz is clear that this is intended to take forward the revolutionary movement that can challenge and defeat capitalism. | more…
In 1889 nearly 3,000 workers at Silver’s, an enormous factory in East London, in Silvertown went on strike. The men and women who walked out were inspired by the New Unionism that was sweeping the city. They’d seen mass strikes by dockers in the East End that had won major victories and they wanted improvements too.
Their twelve week strike has almost been forgotten today. Perhaps because it ended in defeat. But John Tully’s important book rescues the struggle for readers today, and, perhaps surprisingly, the reader will find that we can learn much from those brave men and women. | more…
This fifty-second edition of the Socialist Register explores right-wing political forces and parties around the globe, bringing to bear the Register’s reputation for detailed scholarship and passionate engagement on some of the most troubling developments in world politics today. Contributors examine mobilizations of the right in a variety of countries by analyzing their social bases, their relationships with state institutions, and the reach of their influence on mainstream parties and opinion. This volume also addresses the historical transition from right-wing nationalism to ethnicism, the question of resurgent fascism, and how left parties should respond to challenges from the far right. | more…
According to Donald Trump, a former front-runner to be the GOP presidential nominee, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist running against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, is giving everything away, a partial truth. For a fuller treatment of what a radical break with capitalism entails, read The Socialist Imperative: From Gotha to Now by Michael A. Lebowitz (Monthly Review Press, 2015).
A retired economics professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, his two-part book doesn’t end there. That is a positive thing, as the public is open to socialism, in no small measure due to the Great Recession | more…
Named for the historian Isaac Deutscher and his wife Tamara, this prize is awarded each year for a book demonstrating “the best and most innovative new writing in or about the Marxist tradition.” Previous prize winners include Mike Davis, Robin Blackburn, Ellen Mieksins Wood, Eric Hobsbawm, and Monthly Review Press authors Michael A. Lebowitz and István Mészáros.
“Laurence H. Shoup has taught U.S. history at the university level and has been a historical consultant on California history for over 30 years, authoring or co-authoring over 200 reports for a variety of clients. His new book which we discuss is Wall Street’s Think Tank: The Council on Foreign Relations and the Empire of Neoliberal Geopolitics, 1976-2014. Among his past books is Imperial Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy….” | more…
Dr. Gerald Horne, the John J. and Rebecca Moores chair of history and African American studies at the University of Houston and frequent analyst of world affairs on Leid Stories, discusses his latest book, “Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic.” | more…
Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, Gerald Horne, recorded by Mitchel Cohen for WBAI-FM radio at New York University’s Tamiment Library, talks about why a study of the 1804 Haitian Revolution might be relevant to today:
“It’s mandatory to tease out the contemporary repercussions of historical events, and I say this particularly standing here in New York in the United States of America, where there is an ongoing crisis. We need deeper thinking, not least on of this spate of televised, almost pornographic, murders
The Haitian Revolution, the product of the first successful slave revolt, was truly world-historic in its impact. When Haiti declared independence in 1804, the leading powers—France, Great Britain, and Spain—suffered an ignominious defeat and the New World was remade. The island revolution also had a profound impact on Haiti’s mainland neighbor, the United States. Inspiring the enslaved and partisans of emancipation while striking terror throughout the Southern slaveocracy, it propelled the fledgling nation one step closer to civil war. Gerald Horne’s path breaking new work explores the complex and often fraught relationship between the United States and the island of Hispaniola…. | more…
The Socialist Imperative: From Gotha to Now is Michael Lebowitz’s latest work, a gathering of eleven ruminations on the nature of socialism in the present day. In many ways, this is a refreshing volume that helpfully adds its voice to a suddenly resurgent and more confident left….
Suffice to say, Lebowitz does not believe socialism a hopeless cause. In fact, as modern capitalism increasingly threatens not only the stability of the environment, but our very species survival, he considers it a more morally crucial objective than ever. In attempting to establish a framework for
Drawing upon a rich collection of archival and other primary source materials, Horne deftly weaves together a disparate array of voices—world leaders and diplomats, slaveholders, white abolitionists, and the freedom fighters he terms Black Jacobins. Horne at once illuminates the tangled conflicts of the colonial powers, the commercial interests and imperial ambitions of U.S. elites, and the brutality and tenacity of the American slaveholding class, while never losing sight of the
“Rosalyn Fraad Baxandall, or “Ros” to her friends, was a trailblazing second-wave feminist and a lifelong radical. Brilliant, glamorous, and spirited, she was a devoted activist and intellectual for over half a century, until kidney cancer cut short her life on October 13….
I am fifteen years younger than Ros, but as a student in the 1970s I too joined the socialist-feminist movement, and I was lucky enough to become one of her many friends when I moved to New York in the early 1980s. We worked together for years on the editorial collective for the New Feminist Library — a book series published by the
Polly Pattullo’s very important piece entitled Your Time is Done Now: Slavery, Resistance and Defeat: the Maroon Trials of Dominica (1813-1814), is an edited collection of original primary source documents with contextual commentary detailing the account of what has been known as Dominica’s Second Maroon War in 1813 and 1814. Pattullo, a British writer and creator of her own publishing company entitled Papillote Press, uses the actual court documents of the Maroon (runaway slave) trials as well as correspondences between the British colonial government officials to disclose to public the eventful conflict between the Maroons and the colonial government of Dominica in the second decade of the nineteenth century. | more…
