state socialism
Articles about forms of statist socialism, such as social democracy, Trotskyism, Marxism Leninism, Maoism and Stalinism.
Italy 1977-8: Living with an earthquake - Red Notes
A superb pamphlet from a time when a very high level of class struggle dominated Italian society. Despite their differences - the state, church, fascists, Communist Party and unions were all united in opposition to the the radical social movement. In text and PDF format.
Link to PDF of pamphlet.
Published by Red Notes, London, UK, late 1970s
Text version from www.classagainstclass.com, lightly edited by libcom.org
Oil workers struggles in Venezuela under Chavez, 2007
Article with information about recent struggles of the oil workers as well as some information and analysis about the proposed constitutional amendments which were defeated on December 2.
We are publishing our response to a letter sent by a reader from Brazil (T), who asks our opinion about an article he received, from which we are publishing some extracts, and which covers the struggles and mobilizations of the workers against the state oil company "Petroleos de Venezuela" (PDVSA) last September, demanding better wages and contractual benefits.
Hungary '56 - Nick Heath
A history of the Hungarian uprising of 1956, published as a special supplement of Anarchist Worker on the 20th anniversary in 1976
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'.
Strange Defeat: The Chilean Revolution, 1973 - Pointblank!
An article by Situationist group Pointblank! written in October 1973 about the coup in Chile which deposed elected left-wing leader Salvador Allende.
Instead of blaming the right and the CIA for the coup like most commentators on the left, Pointblank! point out the role that Allende and the parties of the left played in demobilising the powerful working class, undermining their strength and eventually signing their own death warrants by refusing to arm them
1921: Kronstadt: Proletarian spin-off of the Russian Revolution - Cajo Brendel
Cajo Brendel's pamphlet on the Kronstadt rebellion
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The state and counter-revolution - Negation
A 1972 article by Negation, in the United States debunking the myths of Leninism and the New Left in particular.
They confront the fact that state-capitalism, the state-management of production and society, the rule over society by the class of the state, the bureaucracy, is still almost universally confused with "communism" as Marx defined it, due in part to the conspiracy of silence and distortion which unites the capitalists of both "East" and "West".
Stalinism’s loyal opposition - The counter-revolutionary politics of Trotsky
This article was originally written to refute lies about the history of 20th century revolutionary movements peddled by the Trotskyists of the Spartacus League.
This article was originally written to refute lies about the history of 20th century revolutionary movements peddled by the comically obnoxious Trotskyoids of the Spartacus League, in their newspaper Workers Vanguard (sic).
Review: What’s Left? How Liberals Lost Their Way by Nick Cohen
Nick Cohen’s new book is a rebuke to liberal intellectuals who have drowned in their own jargon and Leninist apparatchiks who have become apologists for Islamic fundamentalism. It sounds like a timely and salient contribution to debate, right?
Wayne Foster explores the silences of social democracy.
Ever been on an internet forum when someone’s posted an article about plans to shut the local hospital, or the German workers-council movement, and someone else has replied, ‘so you’re basically defending paedophilia? Well you haven’t explicitly condemned it ;-)’ ?
Re-visiting the east ... and popping in at Marx's - Gilles Dauvé
Apart from North Korea and Cuba, no country calls itself socialist any more. So why bother about old debates on the nature of the USSR? Since capitalism rules the world, what else is there to know?! A great deal.
It’s crucial to understand why Russia was capitalist in 1980, or 1930, or 1920, if we wish to understand what capitalism really is, and what can and must be revolutionized in Russia as well as in Britain in the XXIst century.
1920-1934: The death of the Austrian left
An account of the rapid decline of one of the world's most powerful workers' and left-wing movements in the face of fascism.
In the history of the working class some things are certain, and one of these things is the suicidally ‘moderate’ attitude of social democrats. No matter the gravity of the threat, European Centre-Left leaders have always had one gear - reverse. In 1920s and 30s Austria they developed this tendency into an art form under Social Democrat Party (SPO) chairman Otto Bauer and his executive.
