1919 - strikes, struggles and soviets

“... The year 1919... The entire structure of European imperialism tottered under the blows of the greatest mass struggles of the proletariat in history and when we daily expected the news of the proclamation of the soviet Republic in Germany, France, England, and Italy. The word ‘soviets’ became terrifically popular. Everywhere these soviets were being organised. The bourgeoisie was at its wits’ end. The year 1919 was the most critical year in the history of the European bourgeoisie... What were the premises for the proletarian revolution? The productive forces were fully mature, so were the class relations; the objective social role of the proletariat rendered the latter fully capable of conquering power and providing the necessary leadership. What was lacking? Lacking was the political premise; i.e. cognisance of the situation by the proletariat. Lacking was an organisation at the head of the proletariat, capable of utilising the situation for nothing else but the direct organisational and technical preparation of an uprising. of the overturn, the seizure of power and so forth — this is what was lacking.”
Leon Trotsky: The first five years of the Communist International.

1919: strikes, struggles and soviets

In 1919, inspired by revolution in Russia, British workers struck more than ever. Yet communists in Britain were not united. Labour's Parliamentary representation was weak. Similar struggles worldwide were, in the end, crushed. This short book considers workers' revolution, consequences of settling for less, and the missing link: revolutionary organisation.

A workers' guide to Ireland

This pamphlet is dedicated to all the victims of the crime the British Empire and the divided Irish bourgeoisie - Orange, Green, and Green-White-and-Orange alike - did by partitioning Ireland in 1922. It is dedicated too to the Irish labour movement on both sides of the border, which must fight its way out of the blood-soaked mess capitalism has made in Ireland and build the only republic that is not a grim and cynical mockery of the long struggles of the Irish people for freedom - the workers' republic. First published 1993. This e-book edition 2016. Download as a laid up PDF here . Table of...

Revolutions, socialist and other

Mahalla textile strikers, in the Egyptian revolution of 2011 How can the working class becoming politically aware, organised, cohesive and self-confident enough to become society’s new ruling class, overthrowing the capitalists in favour of collective ownership with democratic self-rule? That is the decisive question about socialist revolution. But Socialist Worker ’s explanation of “revolution” ( by Isabel Ringrose, 4 December ) ducks it in favour of advocating more militancy in general, plus the presence, in the wings, of a fiercely-organised “revolutionary party”. Ringrose deserves credit...

More on our half-price book offer

The coming weeks of fewer labour-movement meetings and activities are a good time to read our longer books, and within our general half-price offer we’re doing a special deal on The Fate of the Russian Revolution volume 1 and The Two Trotskyisms Confront Stalinism : both large books for £10 post free. If you’ve already read those, or want something easier, the half-price offer also makes many shorter texts more available. Socialism Makes Sense is an attempt to allow anti-socialist ideas full voice and then refute them in favour of the idea of socialism which was advocated by the mass socialist...

Before Maoism: why we must reclaim the early history of the Chinese Communist Party

New Youth , journal of the Chinese revolutionary youth movement after the First World War, helped found the original, pre-Stalinist, revolutionary Chinese Communist Party • This is taken from a longer article about Chinese history and class struggle, 'China and independent working-class politics' , published in 2001 How did the independent working class movement develop? China in 1919 was ripe for revolution. For two thousand years it was ruled by successive dynasties organised around a state bureaucracy. Still overwhelmingly a peasant country, it had stagnated for centuries until its last...

The Bavarian Soviet Republics of 1919

The Jewish community in Germany has been advised by their government not to wear the kippah in public in case they become targets of antisemitic attacks. Antisemitic hate crimes have risen 20% in the last year and nine out of ten cases have been blamed on the extreme right. Concerns have also been raised about the growth in support for the far right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) within the ranks of the German army and police force - traditional breeding grounds for right wing authoritarianism. Numerous Germans with Jewish backgrounds have made vital contributions to the cultural heritage...

Amritsar, a hundred years on

On 13 April 1919, in Amritsar in the Punjab, India, 50 soldiers under the command of the British General Dyer opened fire on a crowd gathering in the Jallainwala Bagh – a garden-cum-open area popular for meetings and social or religious gatherings. Many of the crowd were there to celebrate Vaisakhi, the Sikh New Year. No one was armed, there were no disturbances, it was peaceful. The British authorities put the number of dead at 379, with more than a thousand injured. The actual number of fatalities will never be known. After the shootings Dyer returned to British Military Headquarters in...

1919 - Ready for Rebellion

As 1919 began, working-class people in Britain and many other countries looked forward to leaving the Great War behind them and rebuilding their lives. They expected and demanded a better society than the one they had endured before the war had started four-and-a-half years previously. Their Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, had promised them a ‘land fit for heroes to live in’ and told them that by defeating Germany and its allies they had defended freedom and democracy. Liberal Lloyd George had just led his Tory-dominated coalition to a landslide victory in a general election called at very...

1919 - Militarists and Mutineers

The ‘Great War’ was finally over. When it had begun in August 1914, the British government predicted that it would be won by Christmas, but it had dragged on for four more years, with dreadful suffering and loss of life. In 1916, Britain began conscripting its men to fight. Now that the fighting was done, the soldiers expected to go home to their civilian lives. Lloyd George had induced then to vote for him by pledging rapid demobilisation. But the army needed troops to defend Britain’s imperial possessions; and the war was not officially over yet. Lloyd George back-pedalled on his promises...

1919 - Whose Peace?

11 November 1918 had been merely an armistice. The war would not be officially over until peace terms had been negotiated. The victorious Allied countries began six months of talks in Paris in January 1919, before compelling Germany to sign the treaty that ended the war at Versailles on 28 June. The treaty required Germany to accept all responsibility for the war, to disarm, to concede territory, and to pay reparations later assessed at 132 billion marks, equivalent to around £284bn in 2018. The economist John Maynard Keynes, a British delegate to the Paris Peace Conference, criticised the...

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