Revolution

Country’s bitter portraits of a sick America

11 September 2004
Steve Earle’s new album is called The Revolution Starts Now. It’s country music, recorded in Nashville.

Vladimir Lenin: how to organise for a successful revolution

04 September 2004
THERE HAVE been many revolutions over the past 100 years. Every revolution has shown the potential power of ordinary people, but most have ended in defeat, compromise or simply a replacement of personnel at the top.

The fire The Clash started still burns today

04 September 2004
The Clash first thundered onto the scene in the late summer of 1976. They were in the vanguard of the punk revolution, along with others such as The Sex Pistols and The Buzzcocks.

Venezuelan referendum: ‘The people want to deepen their revolution’

04 September 2004
Venezuela’s recall referendum took place on Sunday 15 August. Some 58 percent of people voted no when asked if Chavez should go.

Che motorcycles off the shelves

04 September 2004
THERE IS a huge desire among people to read about political ideas and political figures. The success of the new Bookmarks book, Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution, is proof of this.

Why revolutionaries oppose all oppression

28 August 2004
OVER 100 years ago, Lenin argued that the model for revolutionaries "should not be the trade union secretary, but the tribune of the people, who is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it appears, no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects".

Vladimir Lenin: Revolutionary ideas for the 21st century

21 August 2004
Eighty years after his death, Lenin is still getting a bad press.

The bridge to revolution

14 August 2004
IN BOLIVIA in October 2003 hundreds of thousands of workers and peasants surround the governmental palace in La Paz. They demanded the resignation of Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozado, the country’s hated millionaire president. Within days, he was forced to resign and flee to Miami in disgrace.

A revolutionary network at the heart of every struggle

24 July 2004
I ARGUED last week that a revolutionary party is not necessary for a revolution to begin—but it is necessary for that revolution to succeed.

Successful revolution depends on organisation

17 July 2004
REVOLUTIONS DO not break out just because of the efforts of groups of socialists, I pointed out last week. They occur because great social crises create situations in which, as the Russian revolutionary Lenin put it, "the lower classes do not want to live in the old way" and "the upper classes" are "unable to live in the old way" any longer.

How crisis can lead to revolution from below

10 July 2004
PEOPLE OFTEN talk as if revolutions are made by existing groups of socialists getting a bit bigger and suddenly changing things.

Che Guevara: his life and legacy

26 June 2004
What made Che Guevara political? How did his ideas change? How did he become a worldwide figure in his short lifetime, and why does he still inspire so many people today? A great new book out this week from Mike Gonzalez, Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution, gives answers to these and many other questions about the life and politics of Che.

The fight for reforms gives revolutionaries their muscle

26 June 2004
We can only achieve socialism by means of a revolution, in which millions of working people collectively take control of society, with new democratic institutions. Most of the time, that key revolutionary socialist idea is the property of a minority. It contradicts everyday experience. The predominant form of oppositional ideas is reformist.

Brian Manning 1927-2004

08 May 2004
History has always been a battlefield. With the tragic death of Brian Manning while on holiday in Italy, the left has lost its most formidable champion of a Marxist understanding of the English Revolution of 1640-1660.

A journey through the heart of Labour

01 May 2004
MY PARENTS worshipped the 1960s Labour leader Harold Wilson. He talked the language of the \"white-hot heat of the technological revolution\". He spoke of an end to deference and elitism. It was exciting to hear that as a youngster. Wilson unexpectedly lost in June 1970. I became a part of the great working class upsurge against Ted Heath's Tory government.

Right kind of revolution?

24 April 2004
HIP-HOP HAS always been a music with two souls. One soul rages against ghetto life, against racism, police harassment and \"the system\". The other soul reflects the divisions among those who suffer. It promotes sexism and celebrates a cash-rich lifestyle that will always be out of the reach of most of the fans. Dead Prez come from the soul of resistance. Their hip-hop is about a rebellious tradition that goes back to the Black Panther Party.

'I went to factories under workers' control'

24 April 2004
THIRTY YEARS ago this week officers in the Portuguese army overthrew the country's fascist dictator, Caetano. The coup triggered a rash of strikes, demonstrations and factory occupations, as workers began to seize the opportunity to air long-suppressed grievances. The explosion from below led commentators to begin talking of the \"Portuguese Revolution\".

How was the Russian Revolution defeated?

10 April 2004
The Russian Revolution of October 1917 was greeted across the world with enormous popular enthusiasm. In the midst of the bloody slaughter of the First World War the workers' and soldiers' councils had taken control of the country. The new soviet government took Russia out of the war, instituting far-reaching reforms. Factory committees took over enterprises. The peasants won the land. Legislation gave women the most advanced freedoms anywhere in the world.

Don't duck the politics

03 April 2004
THE HEADLINE news in France's regional elections was that there was a big swing away from the ruling right to the parties of the "plural left"-the Socialists, Communists, and Greens. But, for the revolutionary left, the story was a different one.

When Spain revolted

27 March 2004
CHRISTIAN HOGSBJERG reviews the play Homage to Catalonia, based on George Orwell's book of that name, and MIGUEL ARIAS recommends Orwell's original account of revolution in Barcelona.