This is not the first time I have read this short book and that’s probably because it is proving to be so useful to me in my understanding of how the tsarist police (the Okhrana)…
Last Monday was Donald Trump’s first day in office as President and he raced to issue a series of “executive orders”. One would imagine that these reflected his highest priorities as well as those of…
This is a surprisingly interesting book. In just 143 pages (including extensive footnotes), the author examines many aspects of the Soviet dictator’s life through the prism of Freudian psychoanalysis. And many of his conclusions are…
The new film about the early years of Bob Dylan’s career, “A Complete Unknown,” is a brilliant, must-see film. Timothée Chalamet is outstanding as the young Dylan — not only as an actor, but as…
No, he didn’t. The author of this short book, a former Bolshevik, apparently met Stalin briefly before the 1917 revolution, and says that the man didn’t make much of an impression. The remaining 90% of…
This is how history books used to look: no index, no footnotes, no bibliography. Life for historians was easier in 1940. Eugene Lyons, a journalist, was the first Western newspaperman to interview Josef Stalin in…
Dr Michael Mosley, who sadly died last year, was one of the great communicators about science and medicine. His radio shows and podcasts taught millions of us about things we could do to improve our…
My first article to appear in Progressive Britain – click here to read it.
Twenty years ago, some the largest unions in the United States broke away from the AFL-CIO claiming that it was not doing enough to organise workers. Everyone understood that the labour movement was rapidly shrinking,…
The pro-Moscow ruling party in Georgia, billionaire Bdzina Ivanishvili’s “Georgian Dream,” is growing increasingly desperate in its attempts to hold on to power following the 26 October elections. First, they bungled the attempt to steal…