27 March
The far right in Ukraine: An interview with Taras Bilous
27 March
Ukraine: 'Russia is giving carte blanche to the far right'
27 March
Solidarity, decency, socialism: In memory of Marko Bojcun
27 March
Turkey: Labour and Freedom Alliance will not field a presidential candidate
27 March
Kurdistan Democratic Communities Union: Time to overthrow the fascist government in Turkey!
27 March
Banks on the brink? The origins, nature, and trajectory of the crisis — Interview with Michael Roberts
21 March
The left is fighting fascism in India
18 March
‘This war is taking place for the same reason as all of Moscow’s wars of colonisation — the former colony does not want to remain a colony’: An interview with Feminist Anti-War Resistance (Russian Federation)
18 March
March 8 in the second year of war: Experiences and visions of Ukrainian feminists
18 March
Brazil: Neither forgive nor forget — In memory of the struggle of Marielle and Anderson!
17 March
Putin's war: A tragedy for Ukraine and Russia, a gift to US imperialism
17 March
Malaysia: Stop the war in Ukraine! Give peace a chance!

review

Marxism or Bauerite nationalism?

By Doug Lorimer

Fatherland or Mother Earth? Essays on the National Question is a collection of essays written over the last 24 years by Michael Löwy, director of research in sociology at the National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris. The book was published under the auspices of the Amsterdam-based International Institute for Research and Education, founded by Ernest Mandel and other leaders of the Trotskyist Fourth International.

Issue
Issue 13
Topics
Marxist theory
DSP
national question
review
Doug Lorimer

Orwell’s Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four: Critiques of Stalinism `from the left’?

Review by Alex Miller

This essay is the result of a re-reading of George Orwell’s two most famous novels. Both Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four have acquired the status of textbooks, and are routinely used in schools to demonstrate to children the inherent dangers of social revolution. It is time for a reappraisal.

The ``Centenary Edition’’ of George Orwell’s Animal Farm contains a preface written by Orwell for the first edition (Secker and Warburg, 1945) but never published, together with a preface that he wrote specially for a translation for displaced Ukrainians living under British and US administration after World War II.

* * *

Topics
Marxist theory
Russian Revolution
Stalinism
review

The transformation of South Africa's communists

12 February 1997

Raising the Red Flag: The International Socialist League and the Communist Party of South Africa 1914-1932
By Sheridan Johns
Mayibuye Books, Bellville, South Africa
1995, 309pp.

Review by Norm Dixon

Mayibuye Books specialise in publishing works relating to South Africa's liberation struggle, most by participants in the movement. Under apartheid many valuable works were suppressed. Now free to publish anything, it may seem strange that Mayibuye would decide to publish a book that began as an unpublished thesis by an obscure US academic 30 years ago. Strange or not, it is a decision to be welcomed.

Topics
South Africa
SACP
national question
review

Myths answered: How the workers and peasants made the Cuban revolution

Review by Graham Matthews

Cuba: How the Workers & Peasants Made the Revolution

By Chris Slee

Resistance Books, 2008

55 pages, $6 (pb)

Available from <http://www.resistancebooks.com>

May 10, 2008 -- There is a myth perpetrated by some on the left, that there never really was a revolution in Cuba. The Cuban “revolution”, they claim, was just the result of the collapse of the brutal, US-backed Batista regime, followed by the filling of the political vacuum by the few hundred guerrillas that made up the July 26 Movement (J26M). These fighters simply marched down from the mountains to take power in Havana, installing the Castro brothers as virtual dictators.

Topics
cuba
latin america
DSP
Communist Party of Cuba
review

Che Guevara's final verdict on the Soviet economy

By John Riddell

June 8, 2008 -- One of the most important developments in Cuban Marxism in recent years has been increased attention to the writings of Ernesto Che Guevara on the economics and politics of the transition to socialism.

Topics
cuba
socialism
latin america
Marxist theory
Socialist Voice (Canada)
Stalinism
economics
review
Soviet Union
John Riddell

Taking stock of the Bolivarian Revolution: Changing Venezuela by Taking Power

Review by Derrick O'Keefe - Rabble.ca

Changing Venezuela by Taking Power, by Gregory Wilpert (Verso, 2007)

June 26, 2008 -- Gregory Wilpert has pulled off a triumph on two fronts with his new book on the Bolivarian Revolution, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power. Most obviously, Wilpert's book — in both its scope and (sometimes almost maddening) objectivity — is the most detailed and credible analysis yet published of the Venezuelan revolution, which itself represents, arguably, the single most significant challenge today to the hegemony of global capitalism.

Topics
latin america
Venezuela
review
Zapatistas
Special coverage: Understanding Putin's war on Ukraine

[Updated and with new section on one year anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion.]

Since Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February, LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal has sought to carry a range of views from the socialist left to help understand the significance of this event. Particular attention has been paid to the voices of Ukrainian and Russian leftists who are at the forefront of resisting this invasion.

Read more