'Lenin wake up, Brezhnev has gone mad.' This was one of the slogans chanted on the street of Prague 30 years ago as Russian and Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia. The upheavals in Czechoslovakia had began with a stormy session of the Writers Union which passed a resolution supporting Soviet author Solzhenitsyn's protest against censorship. Edited version of an Alan Woods article published in 1968, as part of the 1968: year of revolution feature
On June 17th the Indonesian rupiah hit a new low of 16,800 to the dollar - a fall of 10% in one day, a collapse of 30% in one week. Economists are now predicting that inflation will hit 100% and the economy will contract by 20%. The rupiah has now devalued by a staggering 66% this year and more than 80% since the economic crisis began to unfold in mid-1997. Phil Mitchinson analyses the effects on the labour movement
Konstatin Simitis--the Greek Tony Blair--is a worried man. Elected after the death of Andreas Papandreu less than two years ago as leader of the Greek socialist party (PASOK) under the banner of "modernisation" he had 70% of public opinion behind him. Now it has dropped to 18%. The streets of Athens (congested at the best of times) are regularly blocked with demonstrations of angry bankworkers, airline employees and teachers. The premises of the Ionian bank, which the government wants to privatise, are occupied by the workers and covered with black flags. Alan Woods reports from Greece. June 1998
The roar of hundreds of coal miners drumming their helmets on the pavement rolls like thunder up the glass and granite face of Russia's White House, the seat of government. Even more ominous is the repeated mass chant: "Resign! Resign!". Fred Weir reports from Moscow on the latest wave of militancy of Russian miners. June 1998
Here's a prediction. The US economy is heading for slump. By the end of this year, that reality will start to emerge behind the smoke and mirrors of stock market exuberance and big business bluster. Since 1945, all world slumps have started in the US. This time will be no exception. Europe is just beginning to pick up steam. Its budding boom will be cut off by the frost of the American recession. Japan and Asia are already freezing. Before the millennium is reached, the world will be ice. By Michael Roberts. June 1998
"False Dawn", by LSE professor John Gray, takes us on a world tour of the social devastation being left in capitalism's wake. Fascinating for its factual and statistical data alone, it is perhaps Gray's conclusions which make the deepest impression. The free market he argues will cause disaster, war, ethnic conflict, environmental destruction and impoverish millions. Yet throughout a lucid and empirically remarkable work, Gray offers no hope, proposes no reform and predicts the gloomiest of futures. In essence he argues that the global market economy is fatally flawed and incapable of reform.
New web page of the Italian marxist journal Falce Martello at: http://members.tripod.com/~falcemartello/
In August 1931 the Labour prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, crossed the floor of the Commons with a handful of supporters to join with the Tories and Liberals in forming a National Government. This event was considered one of the greatest betrayals in the history of the Labour Party. More than sixty-five years later, voices have once again been raised about the need for a radical realignment of British politics and the formation of some kind of coalition. "If Blair is the Ramsay MacDonald of the Nineties," warns the Observer, "he could be getting his National Government in early as well." (24/9/95). Tony Benn has also recently drawn parallells between today and the period of 1929-31 and the formation of the National Government. Rob Sewell analyses the implications. June 1998
This is supposed to be, as the media are forever telling us, the people's game, our World Cup, etc., etc. But we have little or no say in it. We generate the passion but all the officials see are the buckets of cash. The governing bodies of football, both national and international, are remote, out of touch and above all travesties of democracy. So long as big business and the multi-nationals control the game and shape it in their interests, this will continue to be the reality of things. The fightback should start now, starting with the grassroots supporters groups, to ensure that fans have a say in the game, alongside the players and coaches, and that big business is given the red card. June 1998
The news of Suharto's resignation hit the world like a bombshell. For thirty-two years, this bloody tyrant ruled Indonesia with a rod of iron, having come to power over the corpses of over a million people. Now he has been blown away like a dead leaf in the wind. The magnificent mass movement of the students and workers has won a great victory. To the very last minute, Suharto clung to power, threatening a bloodbath if the masses continued to defy him. But in the moment of truth the whole edifice of repression collapsed like a house of cards in the face of a popular uprising. This is the beginning of a revolution. It is like 1931, when the Spanish monarchy was deposed and the Republic proclaimed. This opened the flood-gates of revolution. Indonesia has now entered the same road. Ted Grant and Alan Woods, May 22nd, 1998
On Monday, April 27th nearly 500,000 Danish private sector workers went on an all-out strike demanding an extra week paid holdaiys a year and the 35 hour week. The strike, which lasted for nearly eleven days was the biggest movement since 1985 when 1 million workers paralysed Denmark for ten days. This article traces the development of the strike day by day and draws conclusions. May 1998
New web site for the Belgium marxist magazine
Events in Greece are especially relevant to the British Labour Movement because right wing PASOK (Socialist Party) leader Simitis is pursuing similar policies to those of Tony Blair and so-called "New Labour." This has led to an explosion of anger, not only on the streets, but in the trade unions and in PASOK itself. The PASOK union leaders were pro-Simitis one year ago, but now they have been forced into semi-opposition. Under pressure from below, they called a one-day general strike on April the 8th.. Alan Woods reports. May 1998
The proposals that have emerged from the Northern Ireland peace process have been hailed as an historic breakthrough. Tony Blair has been lauded with praise for his 'peacemaking' role. Characters like David Trimble, who led the Orangemen at Drumcree, have received praise upon praise for their bravery. But what does any of this mean for the working class people of Ireland who have been subjected to decades of sectarian rule, violence, intimidation and ruined lives? Can it really bring peace? May 1998
On the surface it would seem that the Mexican economy has fully recovered from the currency collapse of 1994/95, and some international analysts are even saying Mexico is the example the Asian economies should use to get out of their recession as quick as possible. Reality, however is slightly different. And the regime is increasingly using repression to try and keep people quiet. May 1998.
"Flat on its back for years and showing few signs of life, Japan's economy was nonetheless still in the world of the living. When we last checked, that is. Reports of its imminent demise are now coming thick and fast. A world that had grown bored with the 'Japan isn't growing' story is suddenly paying attention to the new 'Japan will collapse and take the rest of us with it' story." The Economist, 11/4/98. Phil Mitchinson analyses the reasons behind. May 1998.
On Friday 3rd May a meeting was called in Paris's Sorbonne University to protest against the closure of Nanterre University the day before. The Sorbonne meeting had been attended by only about three hundred student activists. But by evening a pitched battle raged up and down the Boulevard St Michel, and by the end of it 72 policemen and untold number of young people had been injured, 600 had been arrested and what has now gone down in history as France's May events had begun. Millions of workers were to occupy the factories in what became a revolution.
FOR OVER 60 years, TED GRANT has been the foremost figure of Trotskyism in Britain and internationally. In the post-war period, the effects of world boom, the policies of right wing Labour Party reformism and the degeneracy of Stalinism combined to make a massive onslaught against the ideas of Marxism. While Grant's contemporaries now stand on the right of the movement, in dusty academic circles or have sunk into obscurity, the articles in this collection show the clarity of Grant's understanding and his ability to deepen and expand the ideas of Leon Trotsky. No one involved in the struggle to change society and end the rule of capitalism and Stalinism can afford to be without this book. Nor can any serious student of the past 60 years, or of current affairs, afford to ignore its contents. This book, nearly out of print, is now available on-line.
Marx explained that in the long run capitalist society would either be replaced by Socialism or it would degenerate into Barbarism. The situation in Afghanistan is a living example of what Barbarism means. In this interview, held on March 22, 1998, Afghan socialists explain the situation in their country after the victory of the Taliban.
"No-one, it seems, has learned anything on the Balkans since 1991." (Financial Times, editorial, 9/3/98.) The scenes of massacre of men, women and children in Kosovo have disturbed the conscience of civilised people everywhere. What is the meaning of this? What is the solution? And how should the labour movement react? Alan Woods analyses the situation and puts forward, as the only solution, the Socialist Federation of the Balkans with full autonomy for all people's. March 12, 1998.
This text was originally written by Alan Woods as a part of the book Reason in Revolt: marxist philosophy and modern science, but eventually the book became too long and this part had to left out. Therefore this history of philosophy is published here for the first time. With chapters on: Do we Need Philosophy?, The First Dialecticians, Aristotle and the End of Classical Greek Philosophy, The Renaissance, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, and Philosophy in the 20th Century
February 24, 1998. New chapters of Ted Grant's new book analysing the situation in Russia from the October Revolution to the present day now available on line are:
US and British imperialism are preparing their war and propaganda machines for a bombing of Iraq. This article exposes the real reasons behind the threat of force and all the lies and double standards of imperialism in relation to chemical weapons, UN resolutions and "defence of democracy". It also analyses the possible consequences of an intervention in the fate of the Middle Eastern reactionary regimes. Ted Grant and Alan Woods, January 13, 1998.
February 1998 marks the 150 anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto. This is one of the most modern books around and describes brilliantly many of the phenomena we are witnessing today. Therefore we have decided to mark this anniversary by publishing this commemorative web site with the Communist Manifesto itself, links to the Manifesto in different languages, links to Marx and Engels biographies and picture archives, links to other marxist sites, a section to advertise meetings and activities around this 150 anniversary, a section of articles about the Communist Manifesto open to contributions, a comments page, etc. February 1998
In a follow up on his previous article Renfrey Clarke describes the real reasons behind the recent coal mine "accidents" in Russia. Early on January 18 an explosion and fire in the Tsentralnaya mine in Vorkuta, in the Arctic north of European Russia, claimed 27 lives. This followed a similar catastrophe on December 2, when 67 miners died in one of the pits of the Kuzbass coal region in Western Siberia. January 1998.
The decision by Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson to send British troops into Northern Ireland in 1969 reflected that government's abandonment of any semblance of socialist policies. It was a squandered opportunity that tied the Labour leadership to the blind alley of 'bipartisanship' for the next three decades. Labour government sends in troops. Another article in Cain O'Mahoney's series about the labour movement in Ireland. January 1998
In 1968 the world turned upside down. The long years of the post war economic upswing had led many to declare that class struggle was obsolete, revolution outdated, the working class bourgeoisified, capitalism invincible. Within a few short months, though, they were all proved wrong. Thirty years on, many of the lessons are crucial. That's why, over the course of this year, we will be publishing a series of articles looking at many of these events. The first one:
The recent rebellion against the Lbour government's decission to cut single parent benefit and the growing disquiet about proposals to cut benefits for the sick and disabled have brought the welfare to work programme into sharp focus. Mick Brooks looks at what is all about, adn asks the important question: can it create real jobs or is just another way of massaging the statistics and reducing the social security budget? January 1998
Recent events in Northern Ireland have shown the volatility and underlying weakness inherent in the 'peace process.' The assasination of loyalist Billy Wright, leader of the the UVF breakaway group the LVF, seemed to throw the whole process into reverse. Loyalist prisoners in the Maze prison withdrew their support for the 'talks'. This article by Socialist Appeal's editorial board analyses the situation. January 15, 1998
Alan Woods writes an obituary of Olwyn Hughes, a Welsh miner whose political life went back to the period during and just after the War, when he first got active in politics, first in the Young Communist League, and then in the Trotskyist Revolutionary Communist Party. January 1998
In this article, Renfrey Clarke describes how the Yeltsin administration is preparing an all-out offensive against the miners, one of the best organised sections of the Russian working class. It also explains the steps being taken by the miners to defend themselves and the perspective of a generalised movement as other sections of the workers are also under attack. January 1998
This long article by Alan Woods reviews the events since the stock exchange crash of October 1997, and how the crisis has spread to the once powerfull economies of South Korea and Japan despite the reassuring comments of most bourgeois economist in the aftermath of the crash. An update to the ideas developed in Ted Grant's article The First Tremors. January 2, 1998.
The German language Marxist magazine has opened a web site, starting by publishing a series of articles on the recent student strikes, the biggest ones in 20 years.
This month marks the eightieth anniversary of the Russian revolution. To conmemorate that magnificent event we republish an edited version of a speech Leon Trotsky gave in Copenhagen in 1932. It outlines and defends both the methods and the ideals of the Bolshevik Party and the role of revolutionary Marxism in the events of 1917. We also publish another two chapters of Ted Grant's book Russia from Revolution to counter-revolution:
The coming world financial Crash31st October, 1997. In this special feature about the recent events in the stock exchanges all over the world we provide three articles which give an in-depth analysis of the present situation of the economy and its perspectives: First tremors of the
coming slump Tiger economies in crisis The First tremors |
We publish this article by Renfrey Clarke, the Moscow-based left wing journalist, about the present situation of the labour movement. We think the article not only provides us with a lot of information supressed in the Western press about the current wave of strikes in Russia but also contributes to the debate about the challenges facing the Russian working class. October 1997
An eyewitness report on the effects of the attemps of capitalist restoration in Russia, the situation in the CP and perspectives for the labour movement based on Alan Wood's recent trip to Russia. October 1997
On October 16, the troops of the former president of Congo Brazzaville, M. Sassou Nguesso, took control of the capital Brazzaville, thus ousting the current president Pascal Lissouba, after a five month long civil war. It would be very difficult to understand the reasons for this conflict without taking into account the background struggle for influence between French and US imperialism in Africa, and the interests of the different oil companies in the rich oil fields in Congo Brazzaville's Atlantic coast. October 27, 1997
September 29, 1997. New chapters of Ted Grant's new book analysing the situation in Russia from the October Revolution to the present day now available on line are:
Another article in Cain O'Mahoney's series about the labour movement in Ireland
3 Labour and the troubles The background to the troubles and labour's role in them
Thirty years after his brutal death at the hands of the Bolivian, CIA backed, armed forces, Che Guevara's face remains one of the most recognised in the world. The Bolivian hatchetmen were so afraid of him that, after he had been shot, they cut off his hands so that they could prove that he was really dead and buried him in an unmarked grave under a motorway. They feared that even in death Che could be a focal point for revolution. September 1997.
The dramatic events of the first week of September 1997 mark a sea-change in British society. The sudden death of the Princess of Wales was the signal of an outburst of popular feeling which was without precedent in recent British history. Of course, Britain has seen more than a few royal births, deaths and marriages, duly attended by large crowds of cheering or silently respectful people. But such a spontaneous eruption as this, such an overflowing of emotion, such a movement of the masses, unorganised, uncalled-for, uncontrollable - such a thing has never been seen. It is an entirely new phenomenon, reflecting an entirely new situation in Britain. Alan Woods analyises. September 10, 1997.
September 9, 1997. The new book by Ted Grant analysing the situation in Russia from the October Revolution to the present day is now published and we have also started its publication on-line. The following parts are already available:
- Foreword by Vsievolod
Volkov (Trotsky's grandson),
Introduction by Alan Woods
Part One: The Balance Sheet of October
August 1997. The election of a Labour Government in Britain has raised enormous expectations, not least by workers in Northern Ireland who are looking for a way out of the impasse they have faced for nearly a century. Yet the Labour leadership remain tied to a "bi-partisan" approach that has solved nothing in the past, and looks set to present more of the same for the future. In a short series of articles, Cain O'Mahoney examines labour's role in Northern Ireland and the lessons that must be learnt. Here there are the first two ones:
- 1 Workers unity: the only
solution. From 1907 to the Partition
2 Irish Labour's missed opportunities. From the Partition to the Troubles
New web page of the Spanish Socialist Studies
Foundation Frederich Engels, the Spanish publisher of Alan Woods
and Ted Grant's works, of the marxist journal Marxismo Hoy and
reprints of Marxist classics like the Communist Manifesto, State
and Revolution, etc. If you read Spanish and want to know more
about the Spanish Civil War, the struggle against Franco's
dictatorship, etc. this site is a must. (In Spanish)This article, from Mexican Marxist paper Militante, analyses the July 6, 1997 elections in Mexico, explains the importance of the PRD victory in Mexico and the fact that the PRI lost control of the Congress. July 9, 1997. Also available in Spanish version
This article, written by Alan Woods just before the June elections, reviews the election campaign and the several incidents which happened during this, an interview with the leader of the Vlora Committee, Shyti, and draws the lessons for the Albanian revolution from previous revolutionary movements which only went half way. 23rd of June 1997.
We have added a link to the Web site of Vonk, the
Marxist paper in the trade union and socialist movement in
Belgium. The movement of the Renault workers, of the Clabecq steel
workers, the White March, etc. show us that Belgium is a country
in turmoil, to get a Marxist analysis of what is happening there,
check this site (in Flemish)This long document by Alan Woods provides a comprehensive answer to many key questions for the European labour movement. What is Maastricht? Why are they introducing all these cuts? Would it be better without Maastricht? Will it succeed? and most important of all, how do we fight it and what is our alternative. June 1997
An analysis of the current situation in Russia, based on Alan Woods' discussions with trade unionists, left wingers, Communist Party members, and others during his recent trip to Russia. A first hand account of the debates in the Russian left and the beginning of the recovery of the labour movement. June 1, 1997
On May 17 the forces of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL) took Zaire's capital Kinshasa and changed the name of the country to Democratic Republic of Congo putting an end to 31 years of dictatorship by Mobutu Sese Seko. This article analyses the different forces behind the conflict and outlines a socialist perspective for the masses of the Central Africa region. June 1997. An earlier article by Ted Grant dealing with the refugee crisis in Central Africa can be found at: Crisis in Central Africa
We have added two articles which analyse this unprecedented election victory. One, Labour's historic victory analyses the election results and puts them in context and compares them with previous election results and the other one, Now fight for Socialist policies explains the policies we will need to fight for under this Labour government. May 1997
The web site of Militante, the marxist journal of the labour movement in Mexico has changed location and has also a new improved lay out. Worth having a look at even if you Spanish is not that good.
An update on the situation in Albania written by Alan Woods on April 27, after the arrival of the international intervention force. An interesting site on the current developments in Albania (in Italian language) is Albania in Rivolta. It also offers a mailing list service.
Written by Alan Woods on March 16, 1997, this is a complete analysis of the events in Albania. Includes a historical background section and a detailed explanation of the meaning of the Albanian revolution and lessons for socialists internationally.
The new book by Ted Grant, with a foreword by Vsievolod Volkov, Trotsky's grandson is going to be published in early May. Here we give the table of contents and a special pre publication price offer. Volkov's foreword also available now!
This is just a first analysis article writen by Alan Woods on March 7, 1997 for the Spanish marxist paper El Militante (contact El Militante at: elmilit@arrakis.es) more information on Albania can be found at the Albania in Revolt web site. A full, larger statement will be published latter on.