Workers' Liberty 12-13, August 1989

The working class in the second Chinese revolution

Click here to download the pdf Before 1989 the Chinese workers' movement had been crushed for 60 years. But in the 1920's it fought heroic battles, rich in lessons for today. Elizabeth Millward describes how a working class developed in China, how its struggles interlaced with those of the nationalist bourgeoisie, and why it was defeated.

Art and the Russian revolution

Most interested Westerners hold the idea that art is 'free', a metter for the artist expressing him or herself without restrictions. The notion that art should be 'used' for ideological purposes is presented in the media as a perversion practised mainly by Stalinists. A five part article, written in 1966/7(and republished in 1989) focuses on the role of art in the Russian revolution and working-class culture. Click here to download the pdf

The other Israeli: Adam Keller speaks to Workers' Liberty

Click here to download pdf The first Palestinian intifada, the uprising that began in December 1987, left deep marks on Israeli society. Commentators often dwell on the growth of the far-right and Jewish fundamentalism. But there has been a parallel development on the left, as Adam Keller, an Israeli socialist who visited Britain in 1989, was keep to point out.

Which class rules in the USSR? A debate on the character of the Soviet Union

Click here to download pdf . Workers' states, systems where new ruling classes exploit the workers, or societies with no ruling class at all? At Workers' Liberty 1989, Martin Thomas (Socialist Organiser), Robert Brenner (Against the Current), Oliver Macdonald (Labour Focus on Eastern Europe and Socialist Outlook), Frank Furedi (author of 'The Soviet Union Demystified'), and Torab Saleh from the Iranian Marxist group 'Socialism and Revolution' debated the nature of the Eastern Bloc.

New Times or class struggle: Debate between Socialist Organiser and Marxism Today

Click here to download pdf . Mark Perryman, from the editorial board of the Communist Party magazine Marxism Today, and Alan Johnson from Socialist Organiser, debated at the Workers' Liberty summer school in July 1989 on whether the watchwords for politics should be "modernising", "fragmentation", and "compromise" - or class struggle.

The road to Tiananmen Square: workers and students

Jack Cleary explains why the workers and students are in bloody conflict with China's 'socialist' rulers For three weeks in May and June, the Chinese government lost control of a large part of Beijing.It lost control of its capital city to the people who live there, spearheaded by the students and workers demanding radical democratic reform. They paraded with a home-made replica of the Statue of Liberty, but their anthem was the Internationale, the song of revolutionary socialism all over the world ever since the French workers took another capital city, Paris, out of the hands of the French...

In defence of the French revolution

Click here to download as a pdf . For a talk on the Haitian revolution, closely linked to the French Revolution, see here ; for an article on the French revolution and black liberation, here . The Oxford dictionary dates the word "democrat" from 1790 ("an adherent or advocate of democracy; orig. opposed to aristocrat in the French Revolution"). It dates "revolutionary", in general use, from 1794; "liberal" in the modern sense and "constituent assembly" from 1801; "radical", from 1802; "socialist", from 1833. The terms "right" and "left" in politics derive from where the factions sat in the...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.