socialism

We have tried to show[1] that socialism is nothing other than people's conscious self-organization of their own lives in all domains; that it signifies, therefore, the management of production by the producers themselves on the scale of the workplace as well as on that of the economy as a whole; that it implies the abolition of every ruling apparatus separated from society; that it has to bring ab

Very detailed article by French libertarian socialist group Socialisme Ou Barbarie on "the development of modern society and what has happened to the working-class movement over the last 100 years" and how they "have compelled us to make a radical revision of the ideas on which that movement has been based."

The Dawning of a New Era

War and jingoism might postpone, but could not fully suppress, the class anger that came from the realities of ordinary life. As the twentieth century opened, that anger reemerged. Emma Goldman, the anarchist and feminist, whose political consciousness was shaped by factory work, the Haymarket executions, the Homestead strike, the long prison term of her lover and comrade,

(this is a slightly re-written version of an article I wrote in 2003 in the run up to the 100th anniversary of the SPGB in 2004) -

Whinger Press

ppetard (at) hotmail.com
www.geocities.com/doodlepaul

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Socialist Substandard

100 years of the socialist party of 1904

The anarchists wrong. We admit it! Didn't Dad Vlad say the Marxist State would wither away? All we could say was that in Russia only its opponents withered away. Look at Russia now. The Marxist State did wither away in the end, didn't it?

Beyond the New Left Part 2 - Muto Ichiyo and Inoue Reiko
Presented in PDF format. (1mb)

A Provisional Overview

By Matt Seaton, The Independent on Sunday, January 1995

By global standards, 20th Century Britain has been remarkably free from political violence. Red Action hope to change all that. Angry, ruthless and close to the IRA, they preach socialism through terror.

P. Guillaume and M. Grainger

Solidarity Pamphlet 35

I. THE COMMUNE... FROM MARX TO TROTSKY.

'Each time we study the history of the Commune we see something new in it, thanks to the experiences gained, in later revolutionary struggles...' Thus wrote Trotsky in 1921, in his preface to a book by Tales[1] which was to become basic reading for a whole generation of French revolutionaries.

1.

From the Critique of Bureaucracy to the Idea of the Proletariat's Autonomy

Among thinking socialists there is a deep malaise. The purpose of this article is to explore the roots of this malaise, and to show that they lie in the transformations of class society itself. Over the last few decades - and in many different areas - established society has itself brought about the number of the things that the revolutionaries of yesterday were demanding. This has happened in relation to economic attitudes, in relation to certain forms of social organisation, and in relation to various aspects of the personal and sexual revolutions. When this adaptation in fact benefits established society, it is legitimate to refer to it as "recuperation". This article seeks to start a discussion on the limits of recuperation.

For the traditional socialist "raising the standard of living" is the main purpose of social change. Capitalism allegedly cannot any longer develop production... It seems to be of secondary importance to this kind of socialist that under modern capitalism people are brutalised at work, manipulated in consumption and in leisure, their intellectual capacity stunted or their taste corrupted by a commercial culture. One must be "soft" it is implied, if one considers the systematic destruction of human beings to be worth a big song and dance.

Subaltern Studies and its Critics: Debates over Indian History
Vinay Lal
PDF Format

Oscar Wilde's key text outlining his personal vision for a libertarian socialist society, and its implications for personal freedom and potential

[14,500 words]

Written: Between January and March of 1880 Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume 3, p. 95 -151 Publisher: Progress Publishers, 1970 First Published: March, April, and May issues of Revue Socialiste in 1880 Translated: from the French by Paul Lafargue in 1892 (authorised by Engels)

Paul Lafargue's

THE SOCIALIST IDEAL

News From Nowhere, or, An Epoch of Rest

by William Morris

Being Some Chapters From a Utopian Romance