History

‘Justice can make but one reply’ - how Sylvia Pankhurst helped expose the repression of the Easter Rising

22 March 2016
Sylvia Pankhurst, the militant anti-war socialist and suffragette, was in Newcastle when she first heard news of the Easter Rising in Dublin in April 1916.

Labour's right is learning from the last civil war

22 March 2016
As the Labour left fights to defend leader Jeremy Corbyn, Nick Clark argues that the early 1980s show how focusing on internal party battles ends in giving way to the right

James Connolly fought for a workers’ republic

15 March 2016
As Sean Mitchell’s new Rebel’s Guide to James Connolly puts it, “Connolly was an activist, a lifelong Marxist and a revolutionary socialist committed to the destruction of capitalism, both in Ireland and the world over.”

Marxism shows how we can uproot racism

15 March 2016
Fighting racism today involves understanding racism as one of the ways in which capitalism divides people.

Slaughter of Verdun haunted France

09 February 2016
The First World War’s longest battle began 100 years ago this month in Verdun, northern France. By the time it ended in December more than 300,000 had died and many more were missing or wounded.

‘Marxism insists we can have a society without women's oppression’

01 September 2015
Socialist Worker editor Judith Orr spoke about her new book Marxism and Women’s Liberation

Offensive Jack the Ripper museum opens to protest

11 August 2015
Up to 200 hundred protesters demonstrated outside the new Jack the Ripper museum when it opened in Cable Street, east London last week.

How ‘age-old’ national identities were invented

11 August 2015
The ideas of nationalism and borders have only developed with the growth of capitalism in the past 400 years, writes Dave Sherry

The nuclear bomb took capitalist logic to its obscene conclusion

04 August 2015
On the anniversary of the US dropping a nuclear bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Simon Basketter argues the destruction was a tool in the battle for strategic control.

Postcapitalism - Will the system die a natural death?

04 August 2015
Journalist Paul Mason's new book claims that a “post-capitalist” world can emerge without the need for a workers’ revolution—but his arguments don’t stack up, argues Dave Sewell

Greece's royal coup - lessons of the July Days

21 July 2015
The current battle against unelected institutions in Greece isn’t the first. Dave Sewell looks at the July Days in 1965—and how that movement could have won

Britain’s crimes in India - the truth behind the drama

10 February 2015
As a new television drama looks at British rule in India, Nick Clark looks at the exploitation, famines and massacres that were the brutal reality of the Empire

Out for freedom - socialists and the fight for LGBT liberation

06 January 2015
Laura Miles argues that we won’t win LGBT liberation until we get rid of capitalism—and to do that we have to look towards workers’ solidarity and struggle

Who are the lords of the land?

09 December 2014
As Toffs and Tories panic about land reform, Raymie Kiernan says their vast estates are stolen goods that we must take back

Black history month: They want us to forget the history we fought to make

14 October 2014
Brian Richardson argues that the history of black workers’ struggles from the past can arm militants fighting today

The Black Chronicles II: Photographs bear witness to Britain’s colonial history

30 September 2014
With over 200 photographs on show the Black Chronicles II exhibtion reveals a piece of Britain’s past that’s long been hidden, argues Michelle Adhémar

The soldiers that Empire forgot

30 September 2014
Troops from Europe’s empires who fought in the First World War were quickly erased from official histories. They are remembered by John Siblon

An empire bathed in blood: when Britannia ruled the waves

23 September 2014
In a desperate bid to head off a Scottish Yes vote, David Cameron evoked a mythical British Empire that had given democracy to the poor and freedom to the slaves. Here Ken Olende looks back at what life was really like when Britannia ruled the waves

Motley mutinies, popular pirates and slave revolts at sea

16 September 2014
Historian Marcus Rediker spoke to Ken Olende about the struggles that took place aboard the ships of early capitalism

When the war comes home - the US National Guard

26 August 2014
The National Guard is on the streets of the US once again. Ken Olende looks at four key moments when troops were used to combat struggle at home—and how they reveal our rulers’ fear of resistance