state socialism
Articles about forms of statist socialism, such as social democracy, Trotskyism, Marxism Leninism, Maoism and Stalinism.
"The Barricades Must Be Torn Down": Moscow-Fascism in Spain - Paul Mattick
Mattick ponders the then-recent events of May 1937 - when the counter-revolutionary consequences of the CNT and POUM's compromises with bourgeois democracy and Stalinism became deadly reality.
Listen, Marxist! - Murray Bookchin
Murray Bookchin's best-known leaflet, Listen, Marxist! was aimed predominantly at students influenced by the Maoist Progressive Labor Party which was heavily (and highly destructive) active in the mass Students for a Democratic Society movement in 1960s and 70s America. His criticisms of "Marxism" and Marxist terminology are not applicable to Marxism as a whole, but some do apply to the crude politics of the PLP. Despite this significant shortcoming, we reproduce the document here due to its importance in terms of the left and libertarian left in the US
Lenin's Terror within the Bolshevik Party - Maximov
Anarchist Gregori Maximov's analysis of Lenin's repression of opposition factions within the Bolshevik Party during 1920-1921.
Taking as point of departure the Marxian theory of centralization, of the "dictatorship of the proletariat," of the state and its role in the period of transition from Capitalism to Communism, during which the state is supposed to be not a free institution but the organ of repression and annihilation of the enemies and adversaries of the Proletariat, Lenin inescapably and logically arrived at the
The strategy and nature of Bolshevism
The final chapters of Gabriel and Dany Cohn-Bendit's book Obsolete Communism, the Left-Wing Alternative, which deal with the theory and practise of Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolshevik Party during the Russian Revolution
The Tragic Week in May: the May Days Barcelona 1937 - Augustin Souchy
An account of the fighting in Barcelona in May 1937 when the Communists consolidated their hold on power and turned decisively against the anarchists and revolutionary workers
Murder of the Dead
Bordiga explains Marx's economics and argues that state monopoly over the economy (i.e. nationalisation) is no more socialist than private monopoly.
In Italy, we have long experience of "catastrophes that strike the country" and we also have a certain specialisation in "staging" them. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, rainstorms, epidemics...
Why Leninism is not Red Fascism - Appendix to Contra State and Revolution
Chris Wright discusses the roots of Leninism in Social Democracy and attempts to deal with some of the more simplistic criticisms levelled against it.
APPENDIX: Why Leninism is Not 'Red Fascism
Contra State and Revolution
Contra State and Revolution
Review of "What Is To Be Done? New Times and the Anniversary of a Question"
Review of:
What is to be Done? New Times and the Anniversary of a Question
Werner Bonefeld and Sergio Tischler, Eds.
The malaise on the left - Maurice Brinton
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.
