The politics of land: ZANU vs. the MDC
An article from 2000 by Samuel Kariuki and Lucien van der Walt on the issue of land in Zimbabwean politics and the potential lessons from neighbouring South Africa.
The voice from below: Zambian workers speak out
A 1997 article in which Sakhela Buhlungu and Lucien van der Walt talk with Zambian workers about the country's economic liberalisation and its effects on their conditions and militancy.
The anarchist movement in North Africa: 1877-1951
Submitted by wojtek on Aug 26 2013 00:17
Normally eurocentric, Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt sketch out the anarchist movement in North Arica until the mid-twentieth century.
Rethinking welfare: A radical critique - Lucien van der Walt
In 2006, Cosatu called for the introduction of a universal basic incomes grant in response to the ANC introducing various welfare measures to alleviate poverty. Lucien van der Walt argued that that unions had been sidestracked by technocratic demands and that the demand for welfare should instead be linked to the struggle of the working class to reinvent society.
Anarchism and syndicalism in the colonial and postcolonial world, 1870-1940: The praxis of national liberation, internationalism, and social revolution
Submitted by wojtek on Aug 25 2013 22:39
A book edited by Steven Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt examining social anarchist, anarchist communist, anarcho-syndicalist, and revolutionary syndicalist movements in Africa, Asia, East Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Ireland, in the period of classic imperialism.
The Good Soldier Švejk - Jaroslav Hašek
Satirical anti-war novel in which the absurdity and hypocrisy of the military, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the church are repeatedly revealed through the main character's enthusiasm for obeying authority.
Birth of Our Power - Victor Serge
Pan-European novel, taking us from the workers' stronghold of Barcelona at the end of the First World War where hopes for revolution are fueled by the news of revolution in Russia.
The Case of Comrade Tulayev - Victor Serge
Masterful fictionalisation of the purges and how they affected the various character types in the political upheaval of Stalinist Russia.
Czechoslovakia 1968: What socialism? What human face? - Petr Cerny
Submitted by Steven. on Aug 22 2013 22:52
Excellent pamphlet from Solidarity with a critique of the myth of the Prague Spring. It recounts the internal struggles in the Czech Communist Party as the technocrats outmanoeuvre the dogmatists, and the working class do not show their potential until the Soviet invasion. Contains a postscript on the anti-intellectual ideas of Jan Machajski by Paul Avrich.
First published as pamphlet number 55 by Solidarity (London)
Workers' councils and the economics of self-managed society - Cornelius Castoriadis
Cornelius Castoriadis/Paul Cardan's proposals for the workings of a society based on the principle of self-management by workers' councils, originally published in English by Solidarity in 1972. We have significant disagreements with it as it retains the key features of capitalism, but we reproduce it for reference.
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