1919 - strikes, struggles and soviets

“... The year 1919... The entire structure of European imperialism tottered under the blows of the greatest mass struggles of the proletariat in history and when we daily expected the news of the proclamation of the soviet Republic in Germany, France, England, and Italy. The word ‘soviets’ became terrifically popular. Everywhere these soviets were being organised. The bourgeoisie was at its wits’ end. The year 1919 was the most critical year in the history of the European bourgeoisie... What were the premises for the proletarian revolution? The productive forces were fully mature, so were the class relations; the objective social role of the proletariat rendered the latter fully capable of conquering power and providing the necessary leadership. What was lacking? Lacking was the political premise; i.e. cognisance of the situation by the proletariat. Lacking was an organisation at the head of the proletariat, capable of utilising the situation for nothing else but the direct organisational and technical preparation of an uprising. of the overturn, the seizure of power and so forth — this is what was lacking.”
Leon Trotsky: The first five years of the Communist International.

The real John Maclean

The Glasgow socialist John Maclean (1879-1923) devoted most of his adult life to the overthrow of capitalism. He joined the avowedly Marxist Social Democratic Federation around 1902-3, and remained a member of the SDF and its successor organisations, the Social Democratic Party and the British Socialist Party, up until 1920, the year in which the BSP provided the basis for the launch of the Communist Party of Great Britain. In contrast not only to the jingoism of H.M.Hyndman and other BSP leaders but also to the equivocal response of the centre grouping around E.C.Fairchild, Maclean...

The Communist International and Its Place in History

The imperialists of the Entente countries are blockading Russia in an effort to cut off the Soviet Republic, as a seat of infection, from the capitalist world. These people, who boast about their “democratic” institutions, are so blinded by their hatred of the Soviet Republic that they do not see how ridiculous they are making themselves. Just think of it, the advanced, most civilised and “democratic” countries, armed to the teeth and enjoying undivided military sway over the whole world, are mortally afraid of the ideological infection coming from a ruined, starving, backward, and even, they...

7. Should we Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?

It is with the utmost contempt—and the utmost levity—that the German "Left" Communists reply to this question in the negative. One: In what sense can we speak of the international significance of the Russian Revolution? Two: One of the fundamental conditions of the Bolsheviks' success Three: The principal stages in the history of Bolshevism Four: In the struggle against what enemies within the working-class movement did Bolshevism grow up and become strong and steeled? Five: "Left-wing" communism in Germany: leaders - party - class - masses Six: Should revolutionaries work in reactionary trade...

6. Should Revolutionaries Work in Reactionary Trade Unions?

The German "Lefts" consider that, as far as they are concerned, the reply to this question is an unqualified negative. One: In what sense can we speak of the international significance of the Russian Revolution? Two: One of the fundamental conditions of the Bolsheviks' success Three: The principal stages in the history of Bolshevism Four: In the struggle against what enemies within the working-class movement did Bolshevism grow up and become strong and steeled? Five: "Left-wing" communism in Germany: leaders - party - class - masses Six: Should revolutionaries work in reactionary trade unions...

1. In what sense we can speak of the international significance of the Russian Revolution?

In the first months after the proletariat in Russia had won political power (October 25 [November 7], 1917), it might have seemed that the enormous difference between backward Russia and the advanced countries of Western Europe would lead to the proletarian revolution in the latter countries bearing very little resemblance to ours. Contents One: In what sense can we speak of the international significance of the Russian Revolution? Two: One of the fundamental conditions of the Bolsheviks' success Three: The principal stages in the history of Bolshevism Four: In the struggle against what...

The life, times and ideas of Antonio Gramsci

Antonio Gramsci arrived as a student at Turin University in 1911 and joined the Socialist Party in 1914. He had had a difficult struggle to get to university — his family was poor — and while at university suffered very bad health. Turin was one of the foremost industrial cities of Italy. Its population had increased from 338,000 to 430,000 between 1901 and 1911, with the growth of the great car factories such as Fiat. Turin and a few other northern cities were, however, the exception in Italy. Overall Italy was not much more industrialised than Russia. Only about 12% of the employed...

Lenin and the Russian Revolution, part 2

Click here for part one . In May, Leon Trotsky arrived in Russia. He had spent a brief exile in the USA and, attempting to return to Russia on the outbreak of revolution, had been arrested at sea by the British navy and interned for a number of months. Trotsky had joined the Martov faction of the RSDLP in 1903. He had soon broken with the Mensheviks and stood alone between the factions for a number of years. In 1912, he had abortively attempted to resist the definitive rupture of relations within the RSDLP. Fundamentally, he had failed to appreciate the tremendous constructive work that Lenin...

Was Manny Shinwell a race rioter?

According to a recent article by Mark Smith in "Scotland on Sunday", a “controversial new history" which contains "new revelations unearthed by Stirling University historian Dr. Jacqueline Jenkinson" accuses Red Clydesider Manny Shinwell of having "encouraged Glasgow seamen to launch a series of attacks on black sailors." Shinwell, according to Smith, was one of Red Clydeside's "towering figures". When "Churchill ordered British army tanks into Glasgow's George Square to avert a Scottish revolution," he writes, Shinwell was "thrown in jail for his part in the revolt after he faced down the...

Chronology: How Mao Conquered China

1909–12: democratic upheaval. Abdication of the last Emperor, formation of the Guomindang (1912), followed by a period dominated by the rule of regional warlords. 1919: May 4th Movement — student protests at Japan’s acquisition of German rights in China under the Versailles Treaty. 1920: Formation of Chinese Communist Party. 1924: Communist Party (under pressure from Stalin and his friends in Moscow) joins Guomindang. USSR sends military advisers to help Guomindang. 1927: Guomindang, led by Chiang Kai Shek, seizes Shanghai and massacres Communist workers there. In December 1927 CP attempts an...

Siegfried Sassoon: after war, a new world?

Siegfried Sassoon is best known as a “war poet” of the First World War. But after the war he became involved in the Labour Party, and covered union issues as a journalist. He was the literary editor of the Labour newspaper Daily Herald for a brief period in 1919, and continued to write poetry. Before the end of the war Sassoon was converted to leftist and anti-war politics by H G Wells and other literary lefts. In 1917 he refused to return to the front, writing an anti-war manifesto, Declaration Against War. “I am making this statement as an act of willful defiance of military authority...

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