In recent days, tensions between Russia and Georgia have escalated enormously – a fact largely ignored by the British Left. Most of us would be hard-pressed to remember the most basic details about this tiny independent republic now under possible threat of Russian aggression.
Continue reading "Independent Georgia Under Russian Threat: Echoes of 1921" »
Sacha Ismail's response to my article on Menshevism confirms my belief that even in the very best Trotskyist organizations, members remain ill-informed about the very foundations of their politics.
Continue reading "Menshevism in Iraq - Response to Sacha Ismail" »
Having now completed reading the third in Sean Matgamna's series on Iraq, I want to return to a point he makes several times in the first of the series, the one published in early December in Solidarity.
In attempting to distinguish the views of the AWL from those of Labour Friends of Iraq (LFIQ), Sean makes use on several occasions of the word "Menshevik”.
He accuses Alan Johnson of "adopting the 'stages' approch of Menshevism and Stalinism" regarding Iraq. He adds:
"Think of those poor, benighted political 'idiots', the Bolsheviks, who in 1917 would not listen to the Mensheviks and SRs, or their own Bolshevik right wing, arguing that they needed to rally politically to the Provisional Government in order to prevent the victory of reaction."
Earlier in the article, he summarizes Menshevik strategy as "the working class should avoid doing anything that would frighten the bourgeoisie".
Though the logic of all this might not be clear to everyone, the obvious message is that to be a Bolshevik is a good thing and to be a Menshevik is a bad thing.
The TUC has launched a new website and, to come right to the point, it's a huge improvement over the previous one. And it's about time.
Is there such a thing as politically-correct computer software?
One sees the slogan 'globalise resistance' more and more these days, and yet the reality is that the labour movement and left continues to use many of the old techniques and technologies which so colosally failed to 'globalize resistance' in the previous century.
Continue reading "How do you say 'globalise resistance' in Urdu?" »
Perhaps the greatest tragedy ever to befall the socialist movement occurred in August 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War.
Continue reading "After the terror: Net helps world's unions speak in a single voice" »