2020 is the birthday year of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, whom most of us know as Lenin. If still alive, he would be 150 years old.

To marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Lenin we’re sharing the latest installment of Paul LeBlanc’s series Revolutionaries Reviewed, on Vladimir Lenin – a central leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917, which overthrew tsarist rule and attempted to bring about a new socialist society.

SDS, along with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), had been in the vanguard of the new left in the 1960s, and some of these oldsters now want to challenge a position taken by Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), currently the foremost organization on the left today. They tell us “this is an all hands on deck moment,” and that supporting Joe Biden in order to defeat Donald Trump “is our high moral and political responsibility.”

The potential mass appeal of the Freedom Budget failed to materialize in part because “realistic” compromises were made by its supporters: partisans of the Green New Deal should not make the same mistake.

Luxemburg was born in 1871, in a Poland divided under German and Russian domination, and she played a role in the working-class socialist movement of each country.

In this period of global crises and ferment, radical and revolutionary activists are reaching for modes of organization and political practice that can help advance their struggle for human liberation. For growing numbers, the political and organizational perspectives of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin are becoming a pole of attraction–providing an increasingly desired coherence and revolutionary edge.

Cyril Lionel Robert James (1901-1989) has begun to enjoy a revival among U.S. and European intellectuals which promises to spread his influence more widely in the present and future than was the case at any time during his life. He is best known for his magnificent history of the Haitian revolution, entitled Black Jacobins (first published in 1938 and reprinted often since then), but a growing number of people are becoming increasingly familiar with many other facets of his work.

On July 21st Paul Le Blanc sat down at his Pittsburgh home with Vaios Triantafyllou for an interview on issues related to a radicalization process that he sees unfolding in the United States today, and possible revolutionary strategies for the future. Le Blanc is uniquely qualified to address these themes, with more than half a […]

Many prominent civil rights figures were socialists — believing there was a link between racial justice and economic justice.  As socialists they wanted decent jobs for all, an end to poverty, decent housing for all, decent education for all, human rights for all, rule by the people (democracy) over our political and economic life. Such […]

“Rosa Luxemburg, imprisoned in the Breslau penitentiary, is able to continue working on her herbarium. Her secretary Mathilde Jacob, the only one able to visit her in prison, brings along the plants. ‘I can botanize once again, this is my favourite occupation and best way to relax. Since May 1913 I have pasted in about […]

Alexander Bloom and Wini Breines, eds. “Takin’ It to the Streets”: A Sixties Reader, Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 533 pages. Max Elbaum. Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. London: Verso, 2002. 370 pages, including index. Barry Sheppard. The Party, A Political Memoir, The Socialist Workers […]