Trotskyism
Review: Paul Le Blanc and Kunal Chattopadhyay’s Trotsky selection ‘a missed opportunity’
Review by Michael Fisher
Britain: Socialist Workers Party members debate 'Leninism', party democracy (updated Feb. 3)
The first document below was produced by opposition members of British Socialist Workers Party (SWP) (authors listed at its conclusion, the best known include Richard Seymour, Neil Davidson and China Miéville). The SWP is the dominant party within the International Socialist Tendency, with affiliates around the world. The SWP is presently in the midst of a major dispute over inner-party democracy. The article is a reply to SWP leader Alex Callinicos' recent article, "Is Leninism finished?"
Following that are two articles by Tom Walker, a former Socialist Worker journalist who resigned from the SWP during the current dispute.
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Forgotten legacies of Bolshevism on revolutionary organisation
"Iskra. It is often argued that the early period of the organisation of Iskra resembled the small, highly homogenous and monolithic cadre grouping that today is promoted as the sine qua non of revolutionary organisation, but if one looks at the original concept of the Iskra editorial board, we can see it promoted debate among a plurality of tendencies."
[Click HERE for more discussion on revolutionary organisation.]
A state of affairs worth fighting for: historiography of the Spanish Civil War
By Doug Enaa Greene
Communist International's Fourth Congress: revolutionary fulcrum of the modern world
Toward the United Front, Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, 192
The debate about the nature of the former Soviet Union: Who was right?
Moscow 2008.
[For more discussion on the nature of the Soviet Union click HERE. See also the related discussion on Stalinism HERE.]
By Chris Slee
July 30, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The nature of the former Soviet Union was an issue which divided the left for many decades. Now that the Soviet Union no longer exists, differing analyses of its class nature should no longer be a reason for maintaining separate socialist organisations.
Nevertheless, this historical debate has relevance to current politics, since the theories developed to explain the nature of the Soviet Union were subsequently applied to other countries, including Cuba. In particular, the theory of state capitalism, of which British Socialist Workers Party leader Tony Cliff was a leading exponent, is applied to Cuba by many groups today, including Solidarity and Socialist Alternative in Australia.
Tony Cliff: biography of a devoted and enthusiastic socialist
Tony Cliff: A Marxist for His Time
by Ian Birchall
John Riddell on the US SWP: Part 2, causes of a socialist collapse (1976–83)
The Party, The Socialist Workers Part
John Riddell on the US SWP: Part 1, SWP attempts an outward turn (1976–83)
Review: Invaluable history, important lessons from Barry Sheppard
The Party, The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988, Volume I: The Sixties, a Political Memoir by Barry Sheppard, Resistance Books (Sydney), 2005, 354 pages.
The Party, The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988, Volume II: Interregnum, Decline and Collapse, 1973-1988, a Political Memoir by Barry Sheppard, Resistance Books (London), 2012, 345 pages.
[For more discussion of the US SWP, click HERE.]
By Malik Miah
Who or what killed the US SWP?
The Party, The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988, Volume I: The Sixties, a Political Memoir by Barry Sheppard, Resistance Books (Sydney), 2005, 354 pages.
The Party, The Socialist Workers Party 1960-1988, Volume II: Interregnum, Decline and Collapse, 1973-1988, a Political Memoir by Barry Sheppard, Resistance Books (London), 2012, 345 pages.
[For more discussion of the US SWP, click HERE.]
Review by Peter Boyle