Philosophy

Communism and Islam – the Bolsheviks attempt an alliance

Communism and Islam moved closer together in the former Russian empire in the period after 1917 but the alliance didn’t last

Are Islamism and Marxism reconcilable or are they aiming for very different and contradictory outcomes? Tony McMahon investigates

Ramon Mercader assassinated the Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky but the key role of Ramon’s mother Caridad is often overlooked

Brexit and Marxism may seem to be incompatible but back in the 1970s, most socialists opposed European unity on a capitalist basis

Eric Hobsbawm became more pessimistic about the possibility of the working class transforming society from 1978 onwards

The Falklands War presented a dilemma for the political Left in the UK in 1982 including those on the Marxist left

In 1973, 46 years of democracy ended in Chile with a coup d’etat and a military dictatorship installed under General Pinochet

The Iran revolution in 1979 was taken over by Ayatollah Khomeini and the mullahs which most on the Left saw as a reactionary development

Marxism Explained looks at what this strand of political thought is all about through the eyes of a former Marxist