Today is the 80th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War Two. This bloody catastrophe, which claimed the lives of almost 5m Soviet troops and saw the Nazis plunge deep into Soviet territory, was facilitated by the wrecking behaviour of Stalin and the bureaucracy. 

In this talk from last year’s Revolution Festival, Daniel Morley (writer for Socialist Appeal) looks back at the events leading up to the 1949 Chinese Revolution, explaining why the revolution played out as it did, and discussing the process that has unfolded since: from revolution to Tiananmen to capitalism.

In this talk from the recent Revolution Festival, Marie Frederiksen – editor of the Danish Marxist paper ‘Revolution’ – discusses the impact of the Berlin Wall, which was broken apart 30 years ago, on 9th November 1989.