The articles collected here tell the story of the workers’ revolt against Stalinist rule in East Germany sixty years ago, in June 1953, and the responses of the “Third Camp” Trotskyists of the Independent Socialist League. Three further articles, written between 1946 and 1954, set out the theoretical framework by which the writers understood the imposition of Stalinist rule in Eastern Europe after World War Two; and a final article, written just before the German events, sums up what socialists should learn from the experience of Stalinism.
Some articles have been abridged. Usages typical of the time, such as “working men” to mean “working people”, and (sometimes) “communist” to mean official “communist”, i.e. Stalinist, the very opposite of the communism of Marx and Engels, have not been changed.
