The Political Independence of the Working Class: A lesson from the early years of the Chinese Communist Party
At the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party it is doubtful that its leaders of today will be drawing any lessons from the party’s early history. Two great revolutions of the twentieth century reinforce the principle that the working class must maintain its political independence in relation to other classes. In 1917 […]
What Karl Marx learned from the Paris Commune
Well before the Paris Commune, in the German Ideology and “Theses on Feuerbach”, both written in the mid-1840s, Karl Marx and his collaborator Frederick Engels argued that it was only through struggle that the mass of workers and oppressed could come to see their own power, throw off the ideas of capitalism and become capable of founding […]
Celebrating the Paris Commune of 1871
“The workers of Paris, amidst the failures and treasons of the ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to save the situation by taking into their own hands the direction of public affairs … They have understood that it is their imperious duty, and their absolute right, to render themselves masters […]
Rosa Luxemburg at 150: a revolutionary legacy
Rosa Luxemburg, one of the great leaders in the history of the socialist movement, was born in Poland (then a province of the Russian empire) 150 years ago this month, on 5 March 1871. Luxemburg cut her teeth in the Polish revolutionary underground, but as an immensely talented political leader, she was drawn to the […]
Black communism in the Great Depression
Angelo Herndon joined the Communist Party in 1930 in the depths of the Depression and Jim Crow segregation. The Black son of a coalminer, he had left home at 13 to work in the coalmines of Kentucky. Four years later, he was a Communist union organiser. After organising a desegregated protest against unemployment, he was […]
Rebel Lives: Eleanor Marx
There have been plenty of women socialists whose records of activity are too little known but from whom we can draw inspiration and guidance for the struggles of today. One such whose record deserves celebrating is Eleanor Marx (1855-1898). This article will, hopefully, help revive knowledge of her contribution to the socialist movement for a […]
India Today: Fault Lines
The twenty-third and twenty-fourth of February remain etched in the Delhi residents’ memories. The spirit of secularism and acceptance, the vibrant ethos of the nation’s most politically active city, the site of numerous progressive struggles of the working class, students, women and the like was violated and destroyed by a politically motivated fanatical violence against […]
We need solidarity and socialism to confront this disaster
The COVID-19 pandemic is running out of control and wreaking havoc all around the world. It is clear now that we are facing not just thousands of deaths, but hundreds of thousands or more. Elderly people are being found dead in their homes, unable to reach medical care. Young people are turning up to hospital […]
The politics of the virus
Socialist Alternative is an Australian socialist organisation. This speech was given at a video conference of Socialist Alternative’s national committee on 22 March. Mick Armstrong is a founding member of Socialist Alternative and is a member of the organisation’s national executive. There can be no overstating the significance of this horrific crisis for humanity. The death […]
Why We Need Revolution
Revolution is a necessary part of social change. During the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution and the European revolutions of 1848 rising capitalist classes wrested power from the feudal aristocracies that had dominated Europe for a thousand years. Elsewhere in the globe, as in Latin America, China and Africa, revolution has been […]
