Marxists must study the history of the class struggle, so that we can apply the lessons in the struggle for communism today. Here, you can find our most recent historical articles. For theoretical articles, click here.
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Niklas Albin Svensson of the International Marxist Tendency discusses the events of the 1917 Russian Revolution: from its opening scenes in February; through the return of Lenin in April; to the suppression in July.
Alan Woods, author of “Bolshevism – the Road to Revolution”, discusses the “July Days” of the 1917 Russian Revolution. These events marked a turning point in the revolution. From this moment on, dual power had ended. Only two options remained: either the forces of reaction would crush the revolution, or the Bolsheviks would lead the masses to take power.
The “July Days” of 1917 (3-7th July, or 16-20th July in the new calendar) marked a turning point in the Russian Revolution. A series of spontaneous armed demonstrations alarmed the Provisional Government leaders, who acted to repress the Bolsheviks and drive Lenin into hiding. After this point, it was a question of revolution or counter-revolution.
Alan Woods, author of “Bolshevism: the Road to Revolution”, discusses the “June Days” of the 1917 Russian Revolution, when tensions in Petrograd began to rise and the masses turned towards the Bolsheviks and their slogan of “All Power to the Soviets!”
As a result of Tory austerity, local public services are being cut to the bone. But it is Labour councils that are implementing these cuts, hiding behind the failed strategy of the so-called “dented shield”. Rather than passing on the cuts, Labour councillors should learn from the militant example of Liverpool and fight back.
In the second of his four-part series about the horrific crimes committed by the capitalist class throughout history, Fred Weston discusses the monstrous fascist regimes of Hitler’s Germany and Franco’s Spain – and how the “democratic” bourgeois Establishment in Britain preferred these brutal dictatorships to the possibility of a workers’ government.
R.H. Bruce Lockhart was a British Government agent in Russia before and after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. His first-hand experiences and lucid observations, published in 1932 as a book entitled Memoirs of a British Agent, provide a fascinating account of the Russian Revolution and its key characters.
In this year of the centenary of the 1917 Russian Revolution, we are witnessing a barrage of propaganda against Lenin and the Bolsheviks. The same critics, however, as Fred Weston explains, conveniently put to one side the long history of brutal suppression of workers’ revolutions carried out by the class they themselves serve.
On the centenary of the Russian Revolution, for those interested in understanding the causes, events and consequences of October 1917, there are dozens of books and articles to get stuck into. The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution by Robert Service, according to Ben Gliniecki, is not one of them.
On 16th April 1917, Lenin returned to Russia in the midst of the Revolution. Lenin’s return marked a turning point for the Bolshevik Party – the beginning of a process of politically preparing the party for the seizure of power by the working class. We republish here an extract from Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution about the political rearming of the Bolsheviks.
Alan Woods discusses the events surrounding Lenin’s return to Russia on 16th April 1917.
Hamid Alizadeh continues his series looking at the developments taking place in Russian in the lead-up to the outbreak of the February Revolution, which began 100 years ago. The war and deteriorating living standards were having a radicalising effect on the workers, peasants and soldiers of Russia, preparing the ground for the revolutionary events of 1917.