Berlin’s ‘Third Sex’: Magnus Hirschfeld and the first LGBT rights movement
Costume party at the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin. Magnus Hirschfeld (in glasses) holds hands with his partner, Karl Giese
Costume party at the Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin. Magnus Hirschfeld (in glasses) holds hands with his partner, Karl Giese
To understand Vladimir Putin's reign, his initial popularity, and his later repressive turn, it pays to look briefly at the country he inherited from his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin.
The May Fourth movement launched the Chinese upheavals of the 1920s - and the original, pre-Stalinist, revolutionary Chinese Communism
This article argues that a renewed socialism for the 21st century will be based on independent working class politics. It uses the “Third Camp” as a formula for summing up this essential element for Marxist history and for current intervention in the class struggle. China represents a fertile example in both these respects.
The following text is a speech given at a 2007 Workers' Liberty’s London forum on “Sixty years since Indian independence”. The other speaker was Sarbjit Johal from South Asia Solidarity Group.
Originally published in Workers' Liberty magazine, January 2001
Why should Marxists want to narrow our appeal to 'the workers', enrolling people from other classes only to the extent that they rally behind the working class? Why not seek a broader unity of 'ordinary people'?
The pivot of Marx's critique of political economy is the concept of abstract labour, or universal social labour - labour as the expenditure under standard conditions of a quotient of average labour-power. Abstract labour, according to Marx, is the substance of value.
In April 2020 49% of the UK workforce was working at home.
Some, even on Labour’s left, advocate electoral alliances or coalitions between Labour and non-labour movement “progressive” parties — mostly, in practical terms, meaning the SNP and the Lib Dems.
From a class-struggle, socialist point of view, there are many arguments to be made against such “progressive alliances”. Here I try to draw some lessons from Labour’s history, focusing on alliances with the Liberals.
Picture: 27 November 1932, Trotsky speaking in Copenhagen at the invitation of Social Democratic students. His last public speech in front of a live audience. The words of the title were uttered by Ramsay MacDonald, Labour Prime Minister at a cabinet meeting in 1929.
Leon Trotsky’s application for political asylum in Britain (1929-30)
All debate on this topic is listed here.
Chan Ying on the politics of Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997). First published in 1997 in Workers' Liberty magazine.
Deng Xiaoping, the second paramount leader of the People’s Republic of China, died on 19 February [1997] at the age of 92. He had reached an advanced stage of Parkinson’s Disease and eventually suffered respiratory and circulation failure.
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