History & Anniversaries

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