Ninety years ago, the working class of Russia, led by the immortal workers of what is now St Petersburg, rose in a revolution that overthrew the 1,000-year dictatorial rule of the Tsar.

Peter Taaffe, general secretary of the Socialist Party, Friday 16 March 2007

History: Hungary 1956 – the dreams and the distortions

How the events are seen today

Clare Doyle, cwi, Friday 10 November 2006

History: Hungary - Fiftieth anniversary of 1956 revolution

When workers in their millions rose against Stalinism

Clare Doyle, Saturday 21 October 2006

History: Britain's 1926 General Strike - workers taste power

New book by Peter Taaffe, General Secretary of the Socialist Party

socialistworld.net, Tuesday 25 April 2006

theory: Marx & Engels - the role of the unions

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels on the Trade Unions. Edited by Kenneth Lapides.

Peter Taaffe, General Secretary, Socialist Party, England and Wales, Wednesday 1 February 2006

United Nations: 60 years of failure

Hit by corruption scandals and accused of failing to prevent genocidal wars, the UN has little to celebrate.

Paula Mitchell, Socialist Party, Monday 14 November 2005

History: How the British Labour Party was formed

The flexible way in which the Labour Party was created is a warning to those who wish to impose rigid structures on any new formation.

Peter Taaffe, Socialist Party, Friday 4 November 2005

History: Fortieth anniversary of massacre of Indonesian left

One million slaughtered by CIA-backed counter-revolution

Niall Mulholland, cwi, Monday 10 October 2005

History: Sixty years after the end of World War Two

Origins of the war, big business and fascism, and lessons for the workers’ movement

Holger Dröge, SAV (CWI), Berlin, Saturday 7 May 2005

History: How Gorbachev failed to save the Soviet Union

Stalinism, socialism and capitalism

Dave Reid, Socialist Party, England and Wales, Sunday 01 May 2005

Socialist theory: Building a mass socialist international

A reply to the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP), Australia

Peter Taaffe, cwi, Friday 25 March 2005

Malcolm X - "They called me the angriest Negro in America"

Malcolm X was assassinated forty years ago, on 21 February 1965.

Hugh Caffrey, Socialist Party, 28 February 2005

History: Holocaust week

Who was responsible and what we should remember

Robert Bechert, cwi statement, 9 February 2005

The Holocaust - who was to blame?

The sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz has produced a plethora of TV and radio documentaries, newspaper features and statements from leading politicians.

Tony Mulhearn, Merseyside, 8 February 2005

Teamster Rebellion: 70th anniversary of Labor’s historic victory in Minneapolis

One of the greatest labor battles in US history

Canyon Lalama, Minneapolis, 23 January 2005

Is it time for new workers' parties?

Leaders of the labour and social democratic parties embrace neo-liberalism

Michael Murphy, Socialist Party, Ireland, 22 November 2004

Che Guevara: A legacy of struggle

Che Guevara has become an iconic figure. His face can be seen in the slums of Argentina, and on countless t-shirts across the globe.

Daniel Waldron, Socialist Party, Ireland, 18 November 2004

Why you should be a socialist

Can we reign in corporate power within capitalism? Or is socialism necessary?

Ty Moore, Socialist Alternative, United States, 14 October 2004

Islam & socialism

Discrimination against Muslims in Britain has increased markedly over the last few years.

Hannah Sell. From Socialism Today. Tuesday 12 October 2004

Perspectives for the Nicaraguan revolution

Historical reprint from 1986 to mark the 25th anniversary of the Sandinista’s coming to power.

socialistworld.net, 25 July 2004

Marxism and the Nicaraguan revolution

Historical reprint from 1984 to mark the 25th anniversary of the Sandinista’s coming to power.

socialistworld.net, Sunday 25 July 2004

Remembering Tiananmen Square, eye witness in China

Fifteen years after the massacre we remember what the workers and students were fighting for.

Steve Jolly, Socialist Party, Australia, 29 June 2004

‘Not for God and not for Fatherland’

Left-wing troops during the 1914-1918 Dutch ‘mobilisation’

Review by Pieter Brans, 28 May 2004

How abortion rights were won in the US

The women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and ’70s reached its peak when women won the right to choose an abortion

Ramy Khalil, 26 April 2004

1974, revolution in Portugal

Half-century of fascist rule swept aside in a day.

Manny Thain, 25 April 2004

Bayard Rustin and the civil rights movement

Capitalist system the root cause of racism

Eljeer Hawkins, Harlem, NY, 14 April 2004

Britain: 1984 -85 Miners' strike

An Epic Struggle

Ciaran Mulholland, 9 April 2004

Socialist theory: Lenin - the original dictator?

A reply to the lies and slanders directed against Lenin and the Russian revolution.

Per Åke Westerlund, 7 February 2004

Irish civil war fears revealed

1973 government papers shed light on ruling class thinking

Ciaran Mulholland, 25 January 2004

Britain: 20 years ago - When Liverpool beat Thatcher

During the Spring of 1984 the Liverpool City Council took on Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government and won a famous victory.

Laurence Coates, cwi Sweden, 9 January 2003

What is socialism?

An extract from Socialism in the 21st Century by Hannah Sell.

cwi online, 25 November 2003

W.E.B. Dubois: The Souls of Black Folk revisited

In 1903, W.E.B. Dubois’ book The Souls of Black Folk, made a vital contribution to the struggle of African Americans in the post-Civil War and Reconstruction era.

Eljeer Hawkins Harlem, New York, 14 September 2003

Chile: 30 years after the 11 September military coup

ON 11 September 1973 the Popular Unity government was overthrown in a bloody military coup.

John Reid, Socialist Party, CWI England and Wales, 13 September 2003

100th anniversary of division between Lenin’s Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks

Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.

Per-Åke Westerlund, Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (CWI Sweden), 21 August 2003

"There's a woman out there asking questions!"

Cecilia Payne's work on the physics of stars went against the orthodoxy of the male hierarchy and was ignored.

Roy Farrar, from The Socialist

The general strike today

The European capitalists' offensive has provoked working class fury. 4,800 words.

Peter Taaffe, from Socialism Today, 26 June 2003

East Germany 1953

When the workers rose up against Stalinism

Roger Shrives, from The Socialist, 23 June 2003

Iran 1978-79

A revolution stolen from the working class. 3000 words.

Robin Clapp. From The Socialist, 12 June 2003

When Israel occupied Lebanon

The occupation of Lebanon in 1982 indicates what could develop in US-occupied Iraq.

From The Socialist, 27 May 2003

"People say to me, you (the Iraqis) are not the Vietnamese. You have no jungles and swamps to hide in. I reply, ‘Let our cities be our swamps and our buildings our jungles’." (Tariq Aziz, Iraqi deputy prime minister.)

Peter Taaffe, CWI, 4 April 2003

120th Anniversary of the death of Karl Marx

This week marks the 120th anniversary of the death of Karl Marx.

CWI Online, 10 March 2003

50 years since the death of Stalin: Only the ideas of genuine socialism can explain the nature of Stalinism

The death of Josef Stalin took place half a century ago this month.

Niall Mulholland, CWI Online. Introduction written, 4 March 2003

Lessons of the US defeat in Vietnam

This article concerning the lessons of the US defeat in Vietnam was written in 1990 in the run up to the first Gulf war in 1991 and published in Voran, now Solidarität, the paper published by CWI members in Germany. The author represented the Militant (now the Socialist Party) in the Mobilising Committees for the 1967 and 1968 anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in London.

Robert Bechert, Committee for a Workers' International

Suez 1956: When British impearialism hit the rocks

SECTIONS OF the media have been raising the possibility that a war with Iraq could become Blair's 'Suez'. What happened when British imperialism invaded Egypt in 1956?

Dave Carr. From The Socialist. 18 January 2003.

1962 Cuban missile crisis: On the brink of nuclear war

EARLIER THIS year Pakistan and India came to the brink of war over their occupation of Kashmir. The possibility of nuclear weapons being used, killing millions, loomed large. Comparisons were made with the 'Cuban missile crisis' of 40 years ago. JANE JAMES looks at what happened in October 1962 and how close the United States and the Soviet Union then came to a nuclear war.

Special feature from The Socialist, paper of the Socialist Party, England and Wales section of the CWI. 17 October 2002.

Who really fought Stalin's dictatorship?

A NEW book by the novelist Martin Amis entitled Koba the Dread: Laughter and the twenty million has created a stir in the world of politics as well as literature.

Jim Hensman, special feature from The Socialist, 10 October 2002.

Che Guevara: Revolutionary fighter

THIRTY-FIVE years ago the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara was murdered in the Bolivian jungle by his CIA interrogators. PAUL HUNT and DAVE CARR review the life and times of this icon of anti-capitalism and social liberation.

From The Socialist, 5 October 2002

The power of protest. Lessons from the anti-Vietnam war movement

Thirty years ago in Vietnam, the US government was defeated for the first time in a major war. With the revival of the anti-war movement, and a possible new US war on Iraq, what can we learn from the anti-Vietnam War movement?

Tony Wilsdon and Philip Locker from Justice (Issue 31, September/October), paper of Socialist Alternative (CWI section in the US)

James Connolly voted onto 100 'Greatest' people list

James Connolly (1868-1916), the Irish socialist revolutionary, Marxist thinker and working class martyr, has been included amongst '100 Greatest Britons' in a BBC online poll, the results of which were published recently.

Niall Mulholland, CWI, 31 August 2002

Socialist theory: Socialism - the alternative

Our society has an obscene gulf between rich and poor. The private assets of the 200 richest people are more than the combined incomes of the poorest 2.4 billion people - almost half the world's population.

This article first appeared in Justice (Issue 31, September/October), paper of Socialist Alternative (CWI section in the US).

Ramy Khali, Socialist Alternative, 30 August 2002

Watergate, rotten apples in a mouldy barrel

THIRTY YEARS ago the 'Watergate' political scandal rocked US capitalism, exposing the corrupt and reactionary intrigues of the Nixon presidency and its spy agencies. Today, US president George Bush is reactivating the state's surveillance powers - a threat to socialists and the organised working class.

Jim Horton. This article first appeared in The Socialist.

The Fight for Bread and Roses

Anniversary of the 1912 Lawrence Strike. This year marks the 90th anniversary of the "Bread and Roses" strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts that occurred in the winter of 1912.

Greg Beiter, Socialist Alternative (CWI section in the US), June 2002

Trotsky's transitional programme. Winning support for socialism

LEON TROTSKY'S Transitional Programme is more than just a political programme. It is in essence a whole method for socialists to use in the struggle to abolish capitalism and replace it with socialism.

Dave Reid, 30 June 2002.

What about Russia?

Did the fall of the USSR prove that socialism will inevitably fail? Millions of people have joined anti-capitalist and anti-globalisation protests internationally; angry at the economic crisis that's wrecking countless lives; at the wars waged by the USA and its imperialist partners, at the oppression, exploitation and environmental destruction of modern-day capitalist society.

Pete Dickenson, 19 June 2002

Trotsky

To commemorate the contribution of Leon Trotsky in building the workers' movement internationally, we print here three articles which look at different aspects of his political work. Their publication mark the sixtieth anniversary of the murder of Leon Trotsky by an assassin hired by Stalin in Mexico in August 1940. All three articles are reprinted from Socialism Today the theoretical journal of the Socialist Party, the CWI's section in Britain.

CWI online, 2000

home –

committee for a workers' international
PO Box 3688, London, Britain, E11 1YE
Tel: ++ 44 20 8988 8760
Fax: ++ 44 20 8988 8793
cwi@worldsoc.co.uk

socialist theory socialist history

Clare Doyle, cwi, Wednesday 7 May 2008

Peter Taaffe, General Secretary, Socialist Party, cwi in England and Wales, Thursday 17 April 2008

Brett Hoven, Socialist Alternative, CWI USA, Monday 31 March 2008

Will Soto, Socialist Alternative, CWI USA, Monday 31 March 2008

Ben Robinson, Socialist Party (England and Wales), Wednesday 30 January 2008

Peter Taaffe, General Secretary, Socialist Party, Thursday 11 October 2007

Tony Saunois, CWI, Thursday 27 September 2007

Peter Taaffe, Socialist Party general secretary, London, Thursday 12 July 2007

Peter Hadden, Socialist Party, Belfast, Northern Ireland, Friday 11 May 2007

Hugo Pierre, Socialist Party, England and Wales, Friday 30 March 2007