Marxists

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...

A continental revolution

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly James Connolly started World War One as a partisan of the socialist movement’s Basle Manifesto of 1912, against war and against all the rival imperialisms. He then switched to backing Germany. This is one of the most eloquent of his “Basle” articles. The outbreak of war on the continent of Europe makes it impossible this week to write to Forward upon any other question. I have no doubt that to most of my readers Ireland has ere now ceased to be, in colloquial phraseology, the most important place on the map, and that their...

James Connolly, German warmonger (1)

German soldiers in WW1 Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly At first James Connolly responded to World War One in line with the international socialist movement’s Basle Manifesto of 1912, as we saw in the last instalments of our series on Connolly, in Solidarity 652 and 653 . From late August 1914 he shifted to a pro-German stance in line with the previous writings of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The war upon the German nation Now that the first drunkenness of the war fever is over, and the contending forces are locked in deadly combat upon the battlefield...

Connolly, the socialists and August 1914

The German Social Democratic Party's paper Vorwärts announces that its deputies in the Reichstag have voted to support the government's war effort Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly There were no major European wars between the wars of Bonaparte and the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914, not for 99 years. There were important wars. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 Paris was occupied and the Prussian king proclaimed at Versailles to be Emperor of Germany, with sovereignty over such other German states as Bavaria. During the German occupation of...

Connolly and World War One

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly These two articles convey Connolly’s first response to the outbreak of World War One in August 1914. His attitude would later change. Our duty in this crisis , Irish Worker 8 August 1914 A martyr for conscience sake , Forward 22 August 1914

Shoulder to shoulder for the strike

"Bevan Boys" during the Second World War In May 1944, four Trotskyists, Ann Keen, Heaton Lee, Roy Tearse, and Jock Haston, were jailed for “inciting and furthering” an illegal strike, after a prolonged press campaign, led by the Daily Mail and the Communist Party’s Daily Worker , against their efforts around an apprentices’ strike on Tyneside. This is Ann Keen’s speech for the court. Consistently throughout the trial the prosecution has attempted to separate me from my comrades. He has pictured me as a dupe of Lee and the others. I do not ask for any special consideration. The part I played in...

Thakin Soe: Burmese Trotskyist?

Thakin Soe (on right) Thakin Soe (1906-1989) is known as one of the founders of the Communist Party of Burma. He was also the leader of the Red Flag Communist Party of Burma, a radical split from the CPB. Since Thakin Soe was critical of Stalinism, Mao Zedong’s thought, and the CPB’s leadership, he was called a Trotskyist dissident by most Stalinists, Maoists, and so-called Burmese communists of his time. In the 1930s, Thakin Soe became a member of the nationalist Dobama Asiayone (Our Burma Association). In 1939, he founded the Communist Party of Burma with some other left-wing activists. At...

The British Marxists, Ireland and Ulster

Part of a series of articles on Connolly: workersliberty.org/connolly The article below by Harry Quelch is part four of the subsection on “Connolly and the Protestant workers” of our series on “Connolly, politically unexpurgated”. See the list of articles at the link above for all the parts. Until the outbreak of World War One in 1914, there was a powerful, or seemingly powerful, Marxist international movement. Its most eminent party by far was the German SPD. It had a national newspaper, Vorwärts ( Forward ), and dozens of papers dotted throughout Germany. Its vote steadily grew. The trade...

Diary of a steel worker

It took Terry O’Day quite a while to die, in fact, it took him several years. I suppose you’ll say, “Why, Terry isn’t dead — I saw him in the union hall yesterday. What do you mean?” Well, a man can die and still leave his body walking around the streets. That’s what happened in Terry’s case. It’s just his body that’s left. You couldn’t even say it’s Terry’s ghost that’s around, because the ghost, the spirit of Terry O’Day, is gone. There’s just a body with certain well-remembered ways going down to the union hall every day and sitting at the International Rep’s desk. But it’s not our old...

Song not slogan

My short article on the Kinder Mass Trespass in Solidarity 633, thanks to some bizarre editing, claims that the words “I may be a wage slave on a Monday, but I am a free man on Sunday” were a slogan adopted by the trespassers. In fact they are a line from the song The Manchester Rambler , written by folk singer Ewan McColl shortly after the Trespass. I originally intended the words to form a sub-title to the article, but the editor shifted them to the main text and attributed them to a slogan. I’m too old to go clambering up Kinder Scout any more, but I hope the fine tradition of rambling. and...

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