It’s a massively neglected historical topic and one that will fascinate anybody with an interest in Marxism. How Trotskyism grew in the United States, intervening in trade union disputes, falling out with pro-Stalin communists, fighting fascism, and having many run-ins… Read More ›
Forty years ago, I was engulfed in the heady politics of Liverpool as the city fought a vigorous campaign against the Thatcher Tory government. Spearheading that campaign, adding ideological rigour, was the Militant tendency, a Marxist-Leninist organisation of which I… Read More ›
How did one of the greatest civilisations in history – the Roman Empire – rise and fall? It’s a question that has vexed historians for centuries. The majestic ruins of ancient Rome are visible across Europe and the Middle East… Read More ›
How has society moved on from the slave states of the ancient world to medieval feudalism and then on to industrial capitalism and where we are today? Well, Karl Marx described the process through his theory of historical materialism. Don’t… Read More ›
The simple answer to the headline is – brutally. For barely two months in 1871, a radical socialist government took control of Paris determined to set up a working-class republic. Hardly surprising, the French ruling class decided that was a… Read More ›
How did communism collapse in East Germany at the end of the 1980s? For anybody growing up in the post-war era, the division of Germany into capitalist West Germany and communist East Germany seemed set in stone. But the Soviet-backed… Read More ›
What lay behind the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s increasingly hostile attitude towards Jews? Was he always anti-semitic or did his anti-Jewish policies result from increasing paranoia? Let’s investigate why the head of the USSR victimised and murdered Jewish communists and… Read More ›
If you think the far Right is tough on migrants today, it’s worth looking back at how British communists talked about Polish exiles at the end of the Second World War. The language was hostile and uncompromising. But why were… Read More ›
When communism collapsed, most of the former communist leaders from East Germany to Bulgaria slid into disgraced retirement or short spells in prison. Some went into the private sector, using their detailed knowledge to get rich. But one leader faced… Read More ›
At the height of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and United States, in the 1950s, a communist state tried to throw off the Soviet yoke. Workers and students in Hungary began a revolution, hoping that the Kremlin would… Read More ›
Marxism Explained 