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Other Historical Analysis
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When socialists today revisit past struggles and movements, we do not
do so for nostalgic or romantic reasons. There is a need to study
historical events in order to be aware of the battles of our ancestors;
to take pride in those struggles, but, most of all, to arm ourselves
with insight and examine the lessons. The Peasants Revolt of 1381-82
was a fight for social justice and the very first time that a large
section of English people fought for the idea that 'all men are equal'.
This demonstration of people power struck fear into the hearts of the
ruling class.
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle. That is all written history. For the majority of human history man did not live in a class society. The development of technique allowed for the production of a surplus of wealth over and above the means of subsistence. This produced a flourish of art, science and philosophy as part of the population was freed for the first time from the toil of everyday labour. Mick Brooks talks on the application of Marxist philosophy to the development of society.
In the autumn of 1916 the Industrial Workers of the World, better known
as the Wobblies, were trying to organise lumber workers near Everett,
Washington in the USA. A series of attempts to organise by the workers
had lead to a murderous response from the employers. Charles Ashleigh was appointed to run the Wobblies defence campaign - this article is in memory of him, a soldier of the proletariat.
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In 1944 the Labour Party held its annual conference while British
troops were being used to crush the Greek workers. The Labour leaders
scandalously supported British imperialist policy in Greece, but even
worse was the fact that the Labour left had capitulated on this issue.
Ted Grant put forward a revolutionary Marxist position on the question.
Che Guevara was a dedicated revolutionary and Communist. He was also an
internationalist and understood that to defend the Cuban revolution it
was necessary to spread it to other parts of the world. He attempted
this in Africa and Latin America. This was his strong side. His weak
side was that he saw the revolution fundamentally as a peasant
guerrilla struggle and did not fully understand the central role of the
working class in the socialist revolution.
Forty years ago this month, in a small school hut in La Higuera,
Bolivia, Ernesto ‘Che' Guevara was brutally executed by the Bolivian
army. Since Che's death, the popular media have tried to
assimilate his image and turn it into a harmless symbol. They have,
however, not succeeded in burying the memory of Che, just as they have
not managed to solve the problems of poverty and destitution in the
third world.
At the 1944 conference of the ILP there were
clear indications that a steady move to the right on the part of the leadership
was taking place. This posed the question of what the left wing of the party
should do. Here Ted Grant raises the need for the left to sharpen up its ideas
and take a firm stand.
A review of Farrell Dobbs' account of the Teamsters struggle in 1934, against bosses intent on holding down workers pay
and conditions. The Teamsters rebellion gets to the
heart of what trade unionism is all about, showing how workers' innate ability
to organise and manage their affairs on a collective basis is brought into
sharp focus by the battles to improve their lives.
On April 26th 1937 General Franco commissioned from the German High
Command, against Republican Spain, the aerial bombardment of the small
and defenceless Basque town of Guernica,
visiting a hell on earth in the form of bombs weighing up to 1000lbs
across the town of 10, 000 people. Two months later, seventy years
ago, Pablo Picasso unveiled Guernica. Despite his enormous prestige the
establishment rarely tell us that Picasso was a man of the left.
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