The events of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution demonstrated in practice that Trotsky’s prescription of a political revolution to cure the ills of Stalinism was not simply wishful thinking. Such a movement was possible – and necessary.
When Hungarian workers and students rose up in 1956, it sent shockwaves far and wide, including in neighboring Romania. In response to students’ demands for democratic and economic reforms, the Romanian bureaucracy carried out heavy repression.
Poland’s 1956 Poznań uprising saw tens of thousands of workers rise up against the Stalinist bureaucracy. Although brutally crushed, this revolt shook the Moscow and Warsaw regimes, and precipitated revolutionary struggle across the Eastern Bloc.
70 years ago, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev delivered a speech which posthumously accused Joseph Stalin of repression and murder. This repudiation reverberated around the USSR and the Eastern Bloc, sparking debate, dissent, and revolution.
In part five of our Hungarian Revolution series, Maya Khan discusses how the Hungarian masses’ struggles against national oppression and bureaucracy were inseparable. The Stalinists’ approach to the national question was the antithesis of Lenin’s.
In part four of our Hungarian Revolution series, Tasha Wilson explains how the Stalinist bureaucracy of the USSR was able to manoeuvre its way into dominating Eastern Europe, by balancing between the imperialists, the bourgeoisie, and the working class.
For the third instalment of our 12-part series marking the 70-year anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, Stan Laight analyses the achievements and shortcomings of the Soviet economy, and its distorted, top-down expansion into Eastern Europe.
As part of our fortnight series commemorating the Hungarian Revolution, we republish Peter Fryer’s retrospective, written in 1957. Fryer was an eyewitness, and the CPGB’s correspondent. He answers the lies and slanders thrown against Hungarian revolutionaries.
Here we republish an extract from the new introduction to Peter Fryer’s ‘Hungarian Tragedy’, by General Secretary of the RCP, Ben Gliniecki. This begins our series of articles to commemorate the Hungarian people’s noble and valiant struggle for genuine socialism.
For over 80 years, an entire industry distorted the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky. While Trump renews the charge against communism, the republication of Alan Woods and Ted Grant’s ‘Lenin and Trotsky: What They Really Stood For’ could not have come at a better time.
Alex Gordon, general secretary of the Stalinist ‘Communist’ Party of Britain (CPB), recently wrote a commemorative piece for the tenth anniversary of the Brexit vote – in which he argues that Brexit was a “revolutionary act”. Leading RCI member Jorge Martín responds.
There is no doubt that the Chinese Revolution, led by Mao, is one of the greatest events in human history. It freed China from the shackles of imperialism after a heroic, decades-long struggle. In this episode, Daniel Morley discusses Mao’s life, legacy, and limits.