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.
You can also visit our education hub to find a selection of articles, books, talks and reading guides.
30 years ago, miners across Britain were facing a bleak Christmas after months of being on strike. The Thatcher government tried to starve the miners back to work. But working class communities came together – with solidarity across the labour movement – to ensure that the Tories could not be the Grinch that ruined Christmas.
Following Rememberance Day this year, 11th November, we publish this letter from Owen Walsh of the Leeds Marxists, who outlines his objections to the Poppy Appeal and the way in which the First World War is remembered by the bourgeois media and politicians. As well as remembering those who died, we must remember who sent them to their death: the capitalist and imperialist governments across the world.
Lal Khan, a leading member of the Pakistani Marxists The Struggle, looks back a week of anniversaries – at events that changed the course of history for the world and Pakistan, from the Russian Revolution of 1917, to the 1968 Pakistan Revolution, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of Stalinism.
Twenty-five years ago as the Berlin Wall came tumbling down the bourgeoisie in the west was euphoric, rejoicing at the “fall of communism”. Twenty-five years later, things look very different as capitalism faces its most severe crisis since 1929. To mark the 25th anniversary since the fall of the Berlin Wall, we publish here an article written by Alan Woods in 2009, who analyses the events surrounding this turning point in history.
Adam Booth provides an analysis of 1917, outlining the key processes during the Revolution, and drawing out the main lessons for Marxists today.
Eighty years ago in the US, a branch of the Teamsters union, Local 574 lead a magnificent struggle against ruthless bosses and their backers in government. Critically, the branch had within its ranks a revolutionary leadership able to organise the fight at every stage. Bob Faulkes looks back at a strike that has inspired union militants over the decades.
As the world marks the centenary of the Great Slaughter, our television screens are full of programmes dedicated to the systematic trivialisation of the lives of those involved in the First World War. Alan Woods looks at the way in which the bourgeois media and politicians commemorate a war that swept away four empires, killed 18 million people and left tens of millions of others with their lives shattered?
This weekend, on Sunday 6th September, the labour movement celebrates the centenary of the longest strike in British history, the Burston School strike, which ran from 1914 to 1939 in Norfolk. John Pickard of the Mid-Essex NUT looks back at this historic struggle and what it means for today.
The events of the Russian Revolution1917 are the greatest in all of human history. For the first time in history, the exploited masses fought back and won. And yet within 10 years, the Soviet Union had degenerated into a bureaucratic and totalitarian regime, with Stalin at its head. How did this process occur? And what is Stalinism?
The tensions between the major European Powers, which were ultimately rooted in the struggle for markets, colonies and spheres of interest, were increasing steadily in the decades before 1914. They found their expression in a series of “incidents”, each of which contained the potential for the outbreak of war. If they did not reach this logical conclusion that was because the objective conditions were not yet sufficiently mature. In August 1914 came the “tipping point” and the Great Slaughter began.
In the third part of his series commemorating the 100th anniversary of the First World War – The Great Slaughter – Alan Woods looks at the relationship between Germany and Russia, and in particular, the relationship between the Tsar and the Kaiser.
14th July marks Bastille Day in France – the celebration of the 1789 French Revolution. This year’s celebrations mark the 225th anniversary of the Revolution. To commemorate this anniversary, we republish here an article by Alan Woods on the fall of the Bastille, originally written in 1989 on the 200th anniversary as part of a series on the history of the French Revolution.