To commemorate the centenary of the Russian Revolution, Alan Woods, editor of In Defence of Marxism, provides a timeline analysis of 1917.
To begin this series, Alan examines the events of the February Revolution, when the masses entered onto the scene of history to overthrow the hated Tsarist monarchy.
In the space of days, a seemingly omnipotent regime was swept aside, and the workers and peasants of Russia began to form their own democratic organs in the shape of the soviets.
The First World War was becoming a catastrophe for Russia. From the front line there was news of defeat after defeat. The breakdown of the economy produced a shortage of bread. Crowds of half-starved and desperate women queued outside shops for bread that never arrived. But at the top of Russian society things were very different
With the New Zealand Labour Party policy moving toward introducing an Universal basic income we reproduce this UK article for our readers.
Universal basic income (or UBI), an unconditional payment to all citizens, has become part of the economic zeitgeist in recent times, embraced by advocates on both the Left and the Right as a solution to the symptoms and sores of the crisis-ridden capitalist system.
To watch the In Defence of the Russian Revolution - Part one please click the link below
Shakespeare transformed English literature, reaching heights that before were unheard-of and which have not been reached subsequently. Like a blazing meteorite he shot across the firmament and cast a glorious light on an entire period in our history. His impact on world literature was arguably greater than any other writer. His works have been translated into every language. For centuries after his death his star has not dimmed but shines as brightly as on the first day.
What is money? Where does it come from? and what does it represent?
Photo: Pictures of Money/Flickr
This year, Wellred Books has been working on the completion of a historic project. Stalin: An Appraisal of the Man and His Influence is the final unfinished masterpiece of the great Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Painstakingly restored over a ten-year period, this version will be the first to include all of Trotsky’s own words in full, 100,000 of them previously unpublished, with the distortions of previous editor Charles Malamuth removed. In consultation with the Harvard archives and the English, French and Russian editions, we have produced the most complete version ever published in any language.
The whole of human history consists precisely in the struggle of humankind to raise itself above the animal level. This long struggle began seven million years ago, when our remote humanoid ancestors first stood upright and were able to free their hands for manual labour. Ever since then, successive phases of social development have arisen on the basis of changes in the development of the productive force of labour – that is to say, of our power over nature.
Today we begin the serialisation of a new work by Alan Woods, which provides a comprehensive explanation of the Marxist method of analysing history. This first article establishes the scientific basis of historical materialism. The ultimate cause of all social change is to be found, not in the human brain, but in changes in the mode of production.
Marxists do not see history as a mere series of isolated facts but rather, they seek to discover the general processes and laws that govern nature and society. The first condition for science in general is that we are able to look beyond the particular and arrive at the general. The idea that human history is not governed by any laws is contrary to all science.
“It is, therefore, from the history of nature and human society that the laws of dialectics are abstracted. For they are nothing but the most general laws of these two aspects of historical development, as well as of thought itself.” (Engels)
Many people do not realise that Marxism began as a philosophy, and Marx and Engels adhered to a definite philosophical standpoint all their lives – the standpoint of dialectical materialism. And although it may seem unlikely to some, it is impossible to understand Marxism without a thorough understanding of this subject.
Many people regard philosophy with a certain distain. It appears as something abstract, academic, dry and utterly remote from real life. This attitude is quite understandable. The “official” bourgeois philosophy that is taught in the universities is of interest only to a handful of academics who have nothing better to do than waste their time in endless and arid discussions on the meaning of words. But Marxist philosophy is not like that. It is a very powerful tool for understanding reality. And in order to change the world, it is first of all necessary to understand it.
This is the first chapter of the biography of Ted Grant, written by his friend and collaborator for more than 50 years, Alan Woods. It describes Ted Grant's childhood and early life in South Africa, how he came into contact with the Trotskyists and the background to his emigration to Britain. The book is available for sale from Wellred Books, PO Box 417, Kaikohe for $20 + $2P&P (Cheques payable to Well Red Books or internet banking 38-9007-0527121-00 ref TED Grant please email your delivery address to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )
The childhood shows the man,as morning shows the day. (John Milton)
As the New Year dawns, memories are reawakening of another New Year, exactly a century ago, the dawn of 1914 when millions of people were drifting towards the abyss as if in a dream.
On that New Year’s Day few people imagined what lay in store. One hundred years had passed since the Battle of Waterloo and the memory of war had faded – at least in Britain. The war in South Africa had been a mere skirmish and had ended in victory. The British Empire upon which the sun never set seemed assured in its worldwide supremacy.
In France, it is true, things were not quite the same. Memories of the Franco-Prussian war and the German occupation of Alsace-Lorraine still remained. The General Staff longed for revenge, but on the streets of Montmartre the cafes were bustling and war did not seem an imminent prospect.
The world economy has been mired in a deep crisis since 2007. The bourgeois have tried everything to climb out of the crisis, from quantitative easing, to zero interest rates, to the socialisation of banking losses, but all to no avail. Why is it that a modern-day version of Keynesianism cannot work?
