revolutions

Contrary to Bolshevik expectations, the Russian Revolution remained a national revolution. Its international repercussions involved no more than a growing demand for the ending of the war. The Bolsheviks’ call for an immediate peace without annexations and reparations found a positive response among the soldiers and workers in the Western nations.

November 12, 1979

IT IS NOT out of love for nostalgia that we are commemorating the 1956 Hungarian uprising. Hungary '56 was a prime example of the working class itself reaching for power: doubly significant, it took place in one of the mythical 'workers' states'.

Sacrificed by the Bolsheviks at the negotiating table as they agreed the Brest-Litovsk treaty with international capital ("The revolution will not be lost simply because we will be giving the Germans Finland, Latvia and Estonia" - Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp.

Details are included from Columbia University Research Project interviews with participants which are a nice complement to the information in our other Hungary '56 articles.

[11,000 words]

For a short history, we recommend our article The Hungarian Uprising, 1956 on libcom.org/history.

Gasping from out the Shallows
Reflections on revolution in the early twenty-first century

By Wayne Spencer

In reaction to the pedestrian Hungarian Social-Democratic Party, founded in 1890, which constantly appealed to the bourgeoisie, often forming alliances with its progressive elements, emerged a far more radical anarchist current. Count Ervin Batthany became friends with Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin whilst in London.

The Revolution was the period which saw the Mexican state begin its transformation from an oligarchical-landowners' government to the one-party corporatist model which survived for so long

Making Guatemala a killing field

Following the success of the revolution, the Islamists instituted a theocratic dictatorship and wiped out the workers' movement and the left.

The real revolution was in the urban workers took control of their workplaces and farm workers took control of their farms and organised production themselves while the parties of the left merely jockeyed for positions of power, eventually killing the revolution.

In cities the workers armed themselves and fraternised with the troops, but were eventually crushed by Soviet tanks.

It is not out of love for nostalgia that we are commemorating the 1956 Hungarian uprising: Hungary '56 was a prime example of the working class itself reaching for power. Doubly significant, it took place in one of the mythical 'workers' states'.

The war lasted for three years and ended with Franco's victory, aided by fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The revolution saw huge swathes of Spanish industry and agriculture socialised and run collectively by the workers and peasants.

On May 1st, 1917 a massive strike wave and demonstration led to the fall of the reactionary government of Count Tisza, on the 23rd of May.

The revolt started on January 22 when a peaceful, mildly reformist, protest march in St. Petersburg was shoot at by troops with more than 1,000 killed or injured. This day became known as "Bloody Sunday." Rather than squelch the protests, the repression fanned the flames of rebellion.

(1) IN DEFENCE OF COUNCIL COMMUNISM.

There are so many ideological views conflicting about Russia 1917-1985 that revolutionaries should almost be able to see the nature of modern ideology and non-dialectical critique without even considering what actually happened.

A short history of the Paris Commune, weak on details of the revolution and working class organisation but with good information about the makeup of the elected Communards and details of the fighting and repression at the end of the Commune

Detailed account of worker-controlled agriculture in revolutionary Spain

COLLECTIVES IN THE SPANISH REVOLUTION
by Gaston Leval
Published by Freedom Press, London, 1975

Text from anarchosyndicalism.net

On May 7, 1937, the CNT-FAl of Barcelona broadcast the following order: "The barricades must be torn down! The hours of crisis have passed. Calm must be established.

The Paris Commune of 1871
undercurrent #6

Recently, the Sussex University library dedicated part of its space for a small exhibition on the Paris Commune. At first this came with some surprise: how was it that, in the midst of the boredom of academic life and the total lack of interest in any issues of importance, the library was willing to commemorate one of the most crucial proletarian revolutions of the nineteenth century? Yet, our surprise quickly vanished when we gave this exhibition a closer look. Not only is the exhibition of a purely academic nature (looking at historical events as spectacles and thus a-historically), but it is also taking the Commune out of context, describing it by using some of the most common illusions found in the bourgeois world. This article comes as a response to the exhibition.