revolutionary organisation
Mangling the party: Tony Cliff’s Lenin
[For more discussion on how socialists organise, click HERE.]
By Pham Binh
January 24, 2012 – Submitted to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Tony Cliff's Lenin: Building the Party published in 1975 was the first book-length political biography of Lenin written by a Marxist. As a result, it shaped the approach of subsequent investigations by academics like Lars T. Lih as well as the thinking of thousands of socialists in groups like the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP, founded by Cliff), the US International Socialist Organization and Paul Le Blanc, author of Lenin and the Revolutionary Party and former member of the US SWP (no relation to Cliff's group).
Cliff begins his biography by debunking the USSR’s official state religion of Lenin-worship that “endowed [Lenin] with superhuman attributes”. Yet throughout the book Cliff refers to these “superhuman attributes”:
Lenin adapted himself perfectly to the needs of industrial agitation.
Workers’ governments and socialist strategy — a discussion
"The FSLN government in Nicaragua immediately after the fall of the Somoza dictatorship may qualify as a workers' gove
'Leaps Leaps Leaps': Lenin and politics
By Daniel Bensaid
United States: #Occupy activists and the Democratic Party -- a debate
For more on the #Occupy movement, click here.
By Dave Duhalde and Dan La Botz
December 4, 2011 -- Against the Current -- Below is a debate between David Duhalde of the Democratic Socialists of America and Dan La Botz of Solidarity that was first published on the website Talking Union.
Where is the beef? An open letter to Dan La Botz on DSA and the Democrats
Dear Dan,
Occupy and the tasks of socialists
"Out of clouds of pepper spray and phalanxes of riot cops a new generation of revolutionaries is being forged, and it would be a shame if the Peter Camejos, Max Elbaums, Angela Davises, Dave Clines and Huey Newtons of this generation end up in separate “competing” socialist groups ... Now is the time to begin seriously discussing the prospect of regroupment, of liquidating outdated boundaries we have inherited, of finding ways to work closely together for our common ends. "
For more on the #Occupy movement, click here.
By Pham Binh
Lenin and revolutionary organisation today: An exchange
Introduction
Anyone familiar with the socialist movement in the industrialized countries today must be struck by the huge gap between what’s needed — mass socialist parties with deep roots in the working class — and the reality — small groups of socialists with little influence. The following exchange contains a searching discussion of these issues between the noted Marxist scholar Paul Le Blanc and John Riddell.
The exchange opens with an article by Le Blanc and continues with an exchange between Riddell and Le Blanc. The discussion was first published in Socialist Voice in June 2008 and later appeared on John Riddell's website (with more comments).
About the authors
Paul Le Blanc, a former member of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party, has been a long-time anti-war, anti-racist, activist in Pittsburgh. He teaches History at La Roche College. He is author of Marx, Lenin, and the Revolutionary Experience (Routledge 2006).
Paul Le Blanc: Marxism and organisation
By Paul Le Blanc
Lenin and us: Into the past, back to the future
Cover of Lars Lih's latest book, Lenin (London: Reaktion Books, 2011).
Making sense of Trotskyism in the United States: Two memoirs
[This review-essay was written for and is scheduled to appear in the British journal Revolutionary History, which has granted permission to circulate it on-line. Please include this acknowledgement when sharing it.