History & Anniversaries

This year marks the 90th anniversary of a wave of mass strikes in France, following the election of a Popular Front government. To mark the occasion, we publish an article written by PETER TAAFFE, which […]

‘The death of Trotsky: The true story of the plot to kill Stalin’s greatest enemy’, by Josh Ireland deals with Stalin’s vilification and hunting down of his most formidable political opponent, Leon Trotsky, the co-leader […]

This April is the 110th anniversary of the 1916 Easter rising in Dublin and in other parts of Ireland. The defeat of the rebellion saw the summary trial and execution by the British state of […]

Today, 7 November, marks the 108th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. It is also known as the ‘October revolution’ because the Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd on October 25, 1917, according to the Julian calendar […]

Yesterday a judge in Belfast gave a ‘not guilty’ verdict regarding ‘Soldier F’,  a former parachute regiment solider who was accused of the murder of two civilians in Derry city, on January 30th 1972, in […]

From Socialism Today, magazine of the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales). Seventy years ago on 26 June 1955 around three thousand people assembled in a field in Kliptown, just outside Johannesburg. They were gathered to […]

Hiroshima, 6 August 1945, 8:00 am. The ‘all clear’ sounded, signalling the end of an air raid by US bombers. Workers and school children left their homes, putting out fires, clearing damage and going to […]

Commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of ‘victory in Europe’ (VE) are taking place today, with establishment dignitaries saluting veteran service men and women who liberated Europe from the clutches of fascism. However, the official ceremonies […]

Today marks 80 years since VE Day – or Victory in Europe Day – when fighting against Nazi Germany in Europe came to an end. The Second World War saw modern capitalist technique guarantee death […]

The 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was marked by televised ceremonies at the mass death camp and statements from governments and politicians. People everywhere express revulsion and condemnation of the murderous actions of […]

The New Popular Front (NPF) received the most seats in the recent parliamentary elections in France, 182 out of the 577 total in the National Assembly. Standing on a programme of reducing the pension age […]

Anna Reid’s history of the ‘intervention’ in Russia after the 1917 revolution, when 180,000 troops from imperialist powers were sent to support the counter-revolutionary ‘White’ armies, is meticulously researched but politically bereft. Reid fails to […]

Fifty years ago, this week a “strike” was called by the Ulster Workers Council (UWC)  – a coalition of loyalist paramilitary groups, backed by some unionist politicians, like Ian Paisley – in Northern Ireland, in […]

From Socialism Today, No. 277 (May 2024) The signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, between the US, Canada and Western European powers in April 1949, can only be understood as one more brick being laid […]

The following article, written twenty years ago by Manny Thain for the 30th anniversary of the revolution, looks back on the lessons to be drawn from this turbulent period of Portuguese history. In addition to […]

The post-war economic upswing in the countries of ‘the West’ was an unprecedented era of capitalist development rooted in a unique combination of economic and geopolitical factors that cannot be repeated, argues  Robin Clapp, in […]

The strike wave of the last two years in Britain and in other European countries has taken levels of industrial action to a scale not seen since the 1980s. A new generation of trade union […]

The Communist Women’s Movement inspired tens of thousands of women following the Russian revolution. CHRISTINE THOMAS looks at the latest volume in an ongoing series regarding the Communist International that pulls together previously unpublished material […]

February 12th marked the 90th anniversary of a brief civil war in Austria, when workers attempted to defeat the mounting attacks of the then ‘Austrofascist’ government on the workers’ movement and democratic rights. The text […]

The Independent Socialist Group (ISG) interviewed Hugo Rodríguez, a member of Socialismo Revolucionario (then Workers Democracy), the Chilean section of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI), with which ISG stands in political solidarity. Hugo […]

September marks the 50th anniversary of the 1973 coup in Chile led by General Pinochet, which overthrew the democratically elected left-wing government of Salvador Allende, and ushered in 17 years of brutal military dictatorship. On […]

The article below appeared in Militant, issue no. 169, published on 17 August 1973, one month before Pinochet’s coup. Militant was the newspaper of the Militant Tendency, forerunner of the Socialist Party, the CWI in […]

Fifty years since it was crushed, the Chilean revolution of 1970-73 remains a reference point, not only in Chile, but internationally, for both the working class and its organisations and the capitalist classes. In Chile, […]

Rich in lessons for today One of the most important and tragic events in the history of Iraq took place on 8 February, 1963. The left-wing government led by Abd al-Karim Qasim was overthrown in […]

The Omagh bomb of 25 years ago was the end of any significant republican armed campaign in Ireland or elsewhere. The backlash ruled such out for many years. The Omagh bombing was one of the […]

Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland, available on BBC iPlayer, is one of the outstanding documentaries on the conflict in Northern Ireland that is euphemistically known as the ‘Troubles’. Rather than an overarching narrative, […]

Seventy-five years on from the arrival of the Windrush ship from Jamaica, HUGO PIERRE, a Black male members rep on the Unison trade union national executive council (writing in a personal capacity), traces the experiences […]

And why it has not overcome sectarian divisions On the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Niall Mulholland explains the origins of the ‘peace process’, and why the fundamental problems underpinning […]

The 29th January 2023 marked the 30th anniversary of the start of the historic 1993 struggle of Timex workers in Dundee. The almost 8 month-long dispute was the most significant industrial struggle in the history […]

The video link below features Carmel Gates, General Secretary of the Nothern Ireland Public Services Alliance (personal capacity) – the largest trade union in the North of Ireland – and a Militant Left (CWI Ireland) […]

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Fourth Congress of the Communist (Third) International (also known as the Comintern), held from 30 November – 5 December 1922, in Moscow. Leon Trotsky, co-leader, along with […]

To most socialists, it will come as no surprise to find that Christmas is the continuation of very ancient traditions of mid-winter festivals. However, it may be a surprise to learn just how relatively new […]

The current mass movement in Iran by women and the working class is taking place against the regime that came to power in the revolution of 1979. What lessons are there for today’s revolutionaries from […]

As workers involved in the current strike wave in Britain are increasingly supporting calls for a 24-hour general strike, Kevin Parslow looks at the general strike organised by the Chartists in 1842. In December 1842, the Chartists […]

In a seven-part production for BBC TV, ‘TraumaZone’, Adam Curtis has delved into the predominantly unseen work of hundreds of BBC film crews carried out over 35 years across what was the USSR. In an […]

 Bloody Counter-Revolution Carried Through Today, 6 December, marks the formal centenary of the creation of the ‘Free State’ in Ireland, comprising 26 of the 32 counties on the island, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty. One of […]

The 1917 ‘October Revolution’ in Russia, which took place on 5 November by the old Russian calendar, has spawned countless books and articles, many of the written from the point of view of defenders of […]

After World War Two, the civil rights movement erupted in America. Black people in the US faced enormous racism and discrimination, especially in the south, a legacy of slavery. Large numbers of Black people moved […]

On 9 April 1992, the Conservative Party won a general election with a record-breaking 14 million votes. On 2 May 1997, it lost the next general election, with its standing shattered by the events that […]

Mikhail Gorbachev, who has died at the age of 91, was the last president of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and was also general secretary of the 20 million-strong ruling Communist Party. Extensive […]

The former Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, died yesterday. Eulogies have come from many sources, including reactionary defenders of the capitalist system, like Henry Kissinger. But what did Gorbachev really stand for? What was his real […]

With the rising tide of pay strikes and ballots, there is much talk of a ‘summer and autumn of discontent’, with comparisons to the 1978-79 so-called ‘winter of discontent’ being drawn in Britain. Due to […]

Fifty years ago, the class struggle was on the rise internationally. In Britain, this was reflected by a big shift towards the left in the trade unions and Labour Party, especially in its youth wing, […]

This summer marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the ‘civil war’ in Ireland, which saw the final stages of an extraordinary decade of social and national revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements. A split among […]

As figures from the world military powers raise the threat of the use of ‘tactical’ nuclear arms, with the war in Ukraine and tensions over Taiwan in the background, the 77th anniversary of the second […]

“Arise Ye Workers” read the banner as five London dockers were carried shoulder high from Pentonville Prison in London. The date was 26 July 1972. Five days earlier, the ‘Pentonville Five’ – Con Clancy, Tony […]

Capitalism, the system we live under today, is unequal and undemocratic. It is a class society, based on the exploitation of the working class by a ruling class – the capitalists, a small minority of […]

This month marks the fortieth anniversary of the Falklands/Malvinas war. Below we republish a chapter on the war from the book, The Rise of Militant, by Peter Taaffe. Peter explains the approach taken by Marxists […]

Fifty years ago, the miners’ strike for a fairer pay system saw some of the biggest demonstrations of workers’ power in Britain since World War Two. The Tory government, led by Edward Heath, was trying […]

The Struggle for Justice Continues Half a century has passed since the British Army shot 28 peaceful civil rights demonstrators on January 30, 1972, in Derry city, Northern Ireland. Thirteen innocent people were killed in […]

To most socialists, it will come as no surprise to find that Christmas is the continuation of very ancient traditions of mid-winter festivals. However, it may be a surprise to learn just how relatively new […]

The USSR was officially dissolved thirty years ago in 1991. Clare Doyle, who was working in Russia at the time on behalf of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), looks back at a historic […]

Today, 7 November, marks the 104th anniversary of the Russian Revolution – a world-historic event. The October revolution led to a huge transformation of the former repressive Czarist Empire – politically, economically, culturally, and also […]

In October 2011, unemployment hit its highest level for 17 years, with youth unemployment on the rise and heading for one million. Tuition fees had been trebled and the public sector pensions’ dispute was raging. […]

“1991 marked a turning point…We have entered a more disturbed period in world history, marked by sharper inter-imperialist rivalries and a deepening capitalist crisis.” (The Collapse of Stalinism) In 1991, the world watched as the […]

It is thirty years since an ill-fated coup was launched against Mikhail Gorbachev, president of what was still known as the Soviet Union (USSR). It was over in three days. By the end of 1991, […]

“In the 12 weeks since the [British] Heath and [N Ireland] Faulkner governments introduced internment, the cities and towns of Northern Ireland have become battlefields. This vicious sectarian measure has mobilised huge sections of the […]

The late Terry Fields was Labour MP for Broadgreen in Liverpool, and a supporter of Militant, the forerunner of the Socialist Party (CWI England & Wales). On 11 July 1991, Terry was imprisoned for refusing […]

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the gigantic struggle by Clydeside workers to defend their jobs and the communities that were reliant on the shipyards in that part of Scotland. In the summer of […]

“Working men’s Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Its martyrs are enshrined in the great heart of the working class. Its exterminators’ history has already […]

“Every social movement, every real advance in England on behalf of the workers links itself on to the name of Robert Owen” (from ‘Socialism: Utopian and Scientific’, 1880, by Frederick Engels) Today, 14 May 2021, […]

“A carnival of reaction” Today, 3 May 2021, is officially marked as the hundredth anniversary of the creation of Northern Ireland. With sectarian tensions rising once again, the real history of the tumultuous decades leading […]

The birth of the Paris Commune marked the first time in history when the working class took political power directly into its own hands. Karl Marx at the time described it as a “new point […]

The following article by Leon Trotsky was written in 1921 on the 50th anniversary year of the Paris Commune. It is a brilliant analysis of the Commune which draws the most essential lesson from its […]

The following article on the Paris Commune by V.I. Lenin  – a “verbatim report of a speech made by Lenin” – was published in the journal Zagranichnaya Gazeta, on 2 March 23, 1908. Lenin studied […]

The Paris Commune – ‘storming heaven’ The lessons for today Sunday 28th March 2021, 15-00 (GMT) Speakers: Cécile Rimboud, Gauche Revolutionnaire, France Peter Taaffe, CWI and Socialist Party England, and Wales Steve Hollasky, Sozialistische Organisation […]

A hundred and fifty years ago, on 18 March 1871, the armed proletarians of Paris set out to “storm heaven” (as Marx put it) and created the very first embodiment of a state ‘by and […]

The following text by Pascal Grimbert was published as a short pamphlet by Gauche Révolutionnaire (CWI in France), in March 2011, to mark the 140th anniversary of the Paris Commune. socialistworld.net  Historical and political summary […]

“It is time people understood the true meaning of this Revolution, and this can be summed up in a few words. It meant the government of the people by the people. It was the first […]

Today, 18 March, is the anniversary of what is regarded as the start of “the 1871 Paris Commune as government”. An insurrection of workers took place to prevent the French army from seizing the cannons […]

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune when for a brief but heroic few weeks the working class took power for the first time. In the immortal words of Karl Marx, the […]

Bill Mullins, a former senior shop steward in the auto industry and later industrial organiser of the Socialist Party in Britain, recounts the mighty struggle of shop-floor trade unionists in Britain 50 years ago in […]

World War One – the result of capitalist nations’ rivalry – led to the slaughter, on an industrial scale, of the working classes internationally. This barbarism was answered by the Russian revolution of October 1917, […]

For a new generation of activists involved around the Black Lives Matter (BLM) mass protests of recent months, there has been an exposure to the historic and deep-rooted institutional racism that exists in the US, […]

Laura Spinney’s book, Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World (published by Cape), on the 1918 flu pandemic, was first published in 2017. Now in the midst of a […]

During the Covid-19 crisis, many commentators have talked about a ‘new Bretton Woods’ and the need for post-crisis international capitalist cooperation and reconstruction. War and global crises led to the reconstruction of global relations after […]

World War Two saw both civilians and soldiers exposed to the horrors of total war. When it was over there was a determination not to return to the horrors of poverty that had characterised the […]

Commemorations marking the 75th anniversary of  ‘Victory in Europe’ (VE) day are taking place in Britain, and throughout the world, though many public events are cancelled or downgraded due to the covid-19 pandemic. The official […]

Today, 25 April, marks the 46th anniversary of the ‘carnation’ Portuguese revolution. A half-century of brutal right-wing dictatorship rule was swept aside in a day. The revolution started at 12.25 am, on Thursday 25 April […]

Today, 22 April 2020, marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (10th April according to the Old Julian calendar used in the Russian Empire, at the time; or 22 April 1870, […]

Today marks the 102nd anniversary of the Russian Revolution, a world-historic event. The October revolution led to a huge transformation of the former repressive Czarist Empire – politically, economically, culturally, and also concerning questions of […]

Fifty years ago this month, troops were deployed on the streets of Derry and Belfast by the British Labour government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson.The capitalist establishment described it at the time as a temporary […]

This week saw two important historical anniversaries – the first conference of the Communist (Third) International, held on 6 March 1919, established to help organise Marxist revolutionary forces on an international basis and, after years […]

This week marks the 100th anniversary of the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the outstanding leaders of the German and international working class movements. They are figures who still today symbolise […]

This week – Friday 30th November – sees the 95th anniversary of the death of the outstanding Scottish Marxist John MacLean. To commemorate this event, we look at MacLean’s contribution to the socialist and working […]

 The horrific slaughter of the First World War has haunted generations. By the time it ended, it had put into question the ‘right’ of the ruling classes to rule, something that helped provoke revolutions and […]

November 9 is a momentous date in German history. On this date Robert Blum, one of the leaders of the 1848 revolution in German-speaking countries, was executed in Vienna; the Nazis instigated the infamous Reichspogromnacht […]

This week saw the 80th anniversary of the founding conference of the Fourth International, on 3 September, 1938. To mark this historic event, we republish below a brief 2013 introduction to an article by Peter […]

50 years since the greatest general strike in history Much has changed in the half century since the revolutionary events of May 1968 in France. At that time there was still a ‘cold war’ between […]

The tenth of April 2018 marks the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) in Belfast. This was the formal ending of the ‘Troubles’, the euphemism for decades of sectarian upheaval […]

Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union’s last leader, left a truly historical legacy. Aiming to reform bureaucratic rule he helped unleash forces that led to the complete collapse of Stalinism in Russia and eastern Europe. That […]

On 30 January 1968 the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the People’s Army of Vietnam launched the Tet Offensive against US and allied troops in South Vietnam. On the 50th anniversary of this key stage […]

On 15 January 1919, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the finest brains of the German working class and its most heroic figures, were brutally murdered by the bloodthirsty, defeated German military, backed to the hilt […]

Massacre by Chilean dictatorship, 21st of December 1907

With monotonous predictability the centenary of the Russian revolution has led to an outpouring of bile – not aimed in the main at the ‘acceptable’ February revolution – but at October. A cacophony of slander […]

A documentary on the BBC has heaped lies and distortions on the Russian Revolution. Socialist Party general secretary Peter Taaffe answers these attacks on the real revolutionary legacy of October 1917.        

To mark the centenary of the Russian revolution, Izquierda Revolucionaria (CWI Spain) has translated into Spanish John Reed’s classic book, Ten Days that Shook the World. In this introduction to the book, Peter Taaffe explains […]

BBC radio four is broadcasting, starting 9 October ,10 programmes (over two weeks) a dramatised version of John Reed’s classic book about the Russian Revolution, ‘Ten Days That Shook The World’.

A wooden beam will appear quite solid and unchanged as termites chew away within it. But there comes a time when one step can bring down the whole rotten house. In May of 1968 the […]

New article on 1917revolution.org. 1917revolution.org – the website launched by the CWI to analyse and commemorate the centenary of the socialist Russian Revolution – has published the latest in its series of month-by-month articles which look at […]

23 February 1917 (8 March in today’s calendar) marked the beginning of the socialist revolution in Russia, which sparked a revolutionary wave that would travel around the world. In the Socialist (paper of the Socialist Party) […]

War, hunger, hated Tsarist regime: class tensions reach breaking point. The following article from the new site, 1917revolution.org is the first of a series of articles that analyse and explain, month by month, the stormy […]

1917revolution.org brings rich lessons of 100 years ago to wide audience. For Marxists, the October 1917 revolution in Russia was the greatest single event in human history, so far. Tsarist rule ended in February 1917, and capitalism and […]

Preparing for revolution. When the Russian revolution began in February 1917, leading revolutionaries, including Leon Trotsky and Vladimir Lenin, were in exile. Commentating from afar they sought to influence events, while planning their return. In the […]

Defending the legacy in a new era. The year 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian revolution. The 1917 revolution stands out as the greatest event in history – so far – though its significance […]

November 7th anniversary of workers’ taking power. Today (7 November) on the 99th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, we republish an overview of the momentous year by Clare Doyle, which was first published on this site […]

The decline of British imperialism and rise of the colonial revolution. Sixty years ago Egyptian president Colonel Nasser’s proclamation of the nationalisation of the Suez Canal was an electrifying rallying call for the country’s working […]

When workers fought arms in hand to end Stalinist dictatorship. On October 23rd, 1956, a mass demonstration in Budapest opened up twelve days of unprecedented revolutionary struggle. To mark the 60th anniversary of these dramatic events, […]

Attempted Stalinist counter-revolution speeds up capitalist counter-revolution

50 years ago the ’Cultural Revolution’ began in China.

Establishment forced to incorporate his legend into re-writing of history

Lessons of Militant vital for anti-austerity struggles today

1956 ‘secret speech’ a devastating blow to Stalinist regimes

900 days of siege in World War Two

An important step in rebuilding the international workers’ movement during WW1

Coming mass revolts will see workers and youth look to Trotsky’s ideas

An article written by LEON TROTSKY, exposing the hypocrisy of world powers towards national minorities and oppressed peoples, translated into English for the first time

November 7th anniversary of workers taking power

The horrors of the first world war, and the economic and social turmoil it created, led to mass upheaval. In Russia alone did this lead to a successful revolution…

Before 1914, the Second International resolved to act to prevent war…

Ten million killed and more than ten million seriously injured

1984 state-organised riot against striking miners

A half-century of fascist rule was swept aside in a day.

40th anniversary of the founding of the CWI

3 September, 1938, marked the start of the Fourth International’s founding conference

On 21 August 1940 Leon Trotsky, the Marxist thinker and fighter, and co-leader of the Russian Revolution, along with Lenin, was murdered by one of Stalin’s agents.

Great event remembers the ’47’ struggle

Unfortunately Pablo Larrain’s film ’No’ tells nothing about the background to Chile’s 1988 plebiscite and the struggle against the regime

Who was Malcolm X?

The struggle for social justice continues

Contradictions of history being unravelled amid mass struggles of today

Sinking of the Titanic on 15 April 1912, with the loss of over 1,500 lives, remains one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters

Heroic few weeks when working class took power

Forty years ago, Bangladesh became an independent state, breaking away from Pakistan.

While no historical period is identical with Britain now, the tumultuous events that shook the country 80 years ago – combining the great depression, a ‘grand coalition’ government wielding the axe, and a damaging currency […]

1973 bloody coup against Popular Unity government – Lessons for today

Attempted Stalinist counter-revolution speeds up capitalist counter-revolution

140th anniversary – Heroic few weeks when working class took power

A warning for the workers’ movement

Racism and poverty – anger explodes

September marks the 90th anniversary of a mass movement of factory occupations in Italy which put the continuation of capitalism in question. Yet the September movement failed to overthrow the capitalists’ rule and its demise […]

For the Turkish and Kurdish working class and the left, September 12 is above all a day of remembrance of one of the heaviest blows against the workers in recent history.

Coming mass revolts will see workers and youth look to Trotsky’s ideas

The Chinese revolution of 1925-27 represented one of the most gigantic and splendid movements in human history.

The March 31 1990 demo and the demise of Thatcher’s rule The mighty demonstrations of March 1990 were a critical part of the mass anti-poll tax movement. But contrary to the arguments of some anarchists […]

1984-85 miners’ strike: Most of Britain’s 180,000 miners had been on strike to save their pits, their communities and trade unionism.

100 years of International Women’s Day

How 18 million people brought down Thatcher

Political Genocide in the USSR – Review of new book by Russian historian Vadim Z. Rogovin (Mehring Books)

The nightmare of capitalism’s return to the land of the October Revolution

East German revolution and counter revolution

Robert Service declines invitation to debate the life of Leon Trotsky

On the 20th anniversary of 1989…

Tragic anniversary of military coup

Extract from “Marxism and the second world war” by Peter Taaffe included in debate in Moscow news

Seventy years ago, the major powers plunged humanity into the horror of world war.

Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory

Lessons of the year-long heroic dispute

Why did counter-revolution triumph instead?

Lessons of Luxemburg’s inspirational, revolutionary legacy

Leon Trotsky’s defence of the priceless heritage of genuine Marxism

Published in Socialism Today November 2008 issue and referred to in Peter Taaffe’s ‘The Socialist’ article on the German Revolution also published on this website on November 4, 2008 The revolution begins This November marks […]

The 90th anniversary of the November 1918 German revolution comes at a particularly appropriate time.

Anniversary of the overthrow of the Kaiser and the beginning of the 1918-23 revolution

A tumultuous year when the floodtide of mass revolt swept over the narrow confines of capitalism and threatened the very foundations of the system.

Defeat of German workers’ movement led to Nazi barbarism

New pamphlet bringing together a series of four articles in The Socialist in 2007

The October Revolution – when the working class took power

“..it is not for revolutionaries to sit in their doorways of their houses waiting for the corpse of imperialism to pass by” (Second Declaration of Havana, 1962)

Revolution never develops in a straight line.

Belfast workers in revolt

Two hundred years after the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed in Britain’s Parliament.

Ninety years ago, the working class of Russia, led by the immortal workers of what is now St Petersburg, rose in a revolution that overthrew the 1,000-year dictatorial rule of the Tsar.

How the events are seen today

When workers in their millions rose against Stalinism

A recent commemorative article in Socialist Worker on the Spanish civil war says a lot about the rightward political evolution of the SWP, argues BOB LABI.

Anthony Beevor is a very popular author, shown by the huge sales of his previous books, Stalingrad and Berlin, because unlike many other capitalist historians he is largely objective in describing events.

New book by Peter Taaffe, General Secretary of the Socialist Party

Hit by corruption scandals and accused of failing to prevent genocidal wars, the United Nations (UN) has little to celebrate on its 60th anniversary.

In the late nineteenth century, British imperialism found it increasingly difficult to provide a few crumbs to the working class from its very rich table.

One million slaughtered by CIA-backed counter-revolution

Poland after 1945

Hiroshima, 6 August 1945, 8:00 am. The ‘all clear’ sounded, signalling the end of an air raid by US bombers. Workers and school children left their homes, putting out fires, clearing damage and going to […]

Origins of the war, big business and fascism, and lessons for the workers’ movement

When Mikhail Gorbachev was selected as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s general secretary 20 years ago, in March 1985, it marked the beginning of the end of Stalinist rule in the Soviet Union […]

Restored version of ‘Battleship Potemkin’ at 55th Berlin Film Festival

Who was responsible and what we should remember?

The sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz has produced a plethora of TV and radio documentaries, newspaper features and statements from leading politicians.

МОЯ РЕЧЬ ПЕРЕД СУДОМ (Заседание 4/17 октября 1907 г.) Господа судьи и господа сословные представители! Предметом судебного разбирательства, как и предметом предварительного дознания, является, главным образом, вопрос о вооруженном восстании, – вопрос, который за 50 […]

Айнур Курмано К СТОЛЕТИЮ ПЕРВОЙ РУССКОЙ РЕВОЛЮЦИИ 1905 – 1907 гг. Девятого января 2005 года исполняется сто лет со дня начала первой русской революции 1905 – 1907 годов, овеянной славой и героическим подвигом пролетариата впервые […]

The momentous events of 100 years ago, 1905, provided the working class in Russia with the understanding that it was a force capable of bringing industry to its knees, a force capable of turning railways, […]

Seventy years ago, a small mid-western city was shaken to its very foundations. The 1934 Minneapolis Teamster strike is one of the greatest labor battles in U.S. history. For two months, the working class owned […]

Che Guevara has become an iconic figure. His face can be seen in the slums of Argentina, and on countless t-shirts across the globe.

THE OVERTHROW of the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 has undoubtedly helped to fan a new wave of revolutionary struggle throughout Central America. The Sandinista victory rekindled the idea of insurrectionary struggle among the young fighters […]

JULY 1979 saw the overthrow of the hated Somoza dictatorship after 40 years of ruthless repression. It helped to fan anew the flames of the revolutionary struggles which were sweeping through Central and Latin America. […]

In the early seventies a group of working class activists forced their way among the floats of a students charity parade with a float proclaiming opposition to the proposals from the then education minister, Margaret […]

An enormous amount of literature has been published about the First World War; rightly so, because it was a momentous event in European and world history. A lot has been published about the fate of […]

A half-century of fascist rule was swept aside in a day.

An Epic Struggle

THIRTY YEARS ago, on 1 January 1974, a power-sharing government was established in Northern Ireland. Within months it had been brought down by a Loyalist stoppage and it would be 25 years before another power […]

LC: It shows what’s possible when you have a party and a leadership which wages a real fight in defence of workers’ interests. At that time, like today, local councils were carrying out a mix […]

ON 15 June 1953, about 60 building workers on the Friedrichshaim hospital building site in East Berlin stopped work to draw up a letter protesting at a 10% increase in the work norms imposed by […]

WHEN CIA experts wrote a report in September 1978 on the political health of the pro-western monarchist regime in Iran, they concluded that despite his autocratic rule, the Shah presided over a stable dynasty that […]

WHILST THERE are quite clear differences between the situation now and the situation in Lebanon following the Israeli invasion in 1982 (not least the collapse of Stalinist USSR and the Eastern Bloc countries), it indicates […]

If a shooting war starts in the Gulf it will be the first real test of the US army rebuilt after its withdrawal from Vietnam. The US interventions during the 1980s in El Salvador, Grenada […]

ON 5 November 1956 British and French paratroops occupied Egypt’s Port Said at the entrance to the Suez Canal.

ON THE 22 October 1962 the president of the United States, John F Kennedy, made a speech to the nation. Informing everyone of the build up of offensive nuclear weapons (supplied by the Soviet Union) […]

"SHOOT, COWARD, you are only going to kill a man." According to legend, these were the last words of Che Guevara, just before his execution at the hands of the Bolivian army, who were in […]

IT IS with great sadness that we have heard of the death of Jimmy Deane. When I joined in 1958, Jim was general secretary of the organisation that became Militant, Militant Labour and the Socialist […]

James Connolly (1868-1916), the Irish socialist revolutionary, Marxist thinker and working class martyr, has been included amongst ’100 Greatest Britons’ in a BBC online poll, the results of which were published recently.

THIRTY YEARS ago the ’Watergate’ political scandal rocked US capitalism, exposing the corrupt and reactionary intrigues of the Nixon presidency and its spy agencies. Today, US president George Bush is reactivating the state’s surveillance powers […]

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the "Bread and Roses" strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts that occurred in the winter of 1912.

MUCH TO THE surprise of Western capitalist governments, all Russian forces will be withdrawn from Afghanistan before 15 February. Gorbachev’s eagerness to meet the agreed deadline, however, is as one-sided as last year’s Geneva Accords. […]

With the collapse of Stalinism in the former-USSR, and the removal of the threat of Soviet-backed regimes coming to power in the colonial and ex-colonial world, Islamic fundamentalism has replaced ‘communism’ in the demonology of […]