Subjects Archives: Socialism

IN The Junius Pamphlet written from jail in 1915, Rosa Luxemburg had said that the choice before mankind was between barbarism and socialism.

What does Lenin say to us in today’s post-Soviet world and what is his legacy, asks VIJAY PRASHAD. VLADIMIR ILYICH ULANOV

One hundred years since Lenin’s death, Nigerian socialist Abiodun Olamosu describes of the revolutionary on his own political development. As the preeminent organiser of the Russian revolution, Lenin helped to determine the course of Olamosu’s life in Nigeria. Olamosu explores the development of Lenin’s work and legacy. He regards Stalin’s rise to power, and the Soviet Union, as an abomination to the body of ideas of Marxism and socialist internationalism.

This is an extract from the introduction to Alex Snowdon’s forthcoming book on Lenin, to be published by Counterfire, where he outlines the key stages of Lenin’s life as a revolutionary.

Since 2020, there has been a gradual realization about the limitations of various strategies, ideologies, and political approaches, particularly in the context of using “abolition” as a catch-all umbrella.

I have tried not only to provide some facts to guide our discussion but also to thread them into the theory of socialism that I believe is most attractive.

With global capitalism’s worsening poverty and environmental crises, sustainable human development comes to the fore as the primary question that must be engaged by all twenty-first century socialists in core and periphery alike. It is in this human developmental connection, I will argue, that Marx’s vision of communism or socialism (two terms that he used interchangeably) can be most helpful.

Joy and suffering in the Left Party: Wagenknecht aims to found a new party

A new book exploring the theory, practice and history of socialist commune building in Venezuela.

The recent article Socialism and Ecological Survival in Monthly Review by John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clarke makes three essential points about the past and future of the climate movement, is well worth reading in full and poses some crucial strategic questions that we have to confront and work through in praxis.

The title of this week’s episode is taken from an article to be published in September’s Monthly Review. The author, Jason Hickel, talks to Steve about the topic in his third visit to the podcast.

‘Left Feminisms’ offers an inspiring and accessible overview of feminism from a diverse array of left-wing thinkers, writes Marin Scarlett.

Isabel was, and will remain, an inspiration to us and to everyone else who was privileged to know her. We extend our deepest condolences and sympathies to her sons, Michael, Carl and Paul, and to her whole extended family, and many comrades and friends.

200 delegates from 40 organizations are gathering in South Africa for the “Dilemmas of Humanity: Pan African Dialogues to Build Socialism” conference. For the next four days, progressive movements and organizations will discuss the challenges posed by capitalism, and articulate the socialist way forward.

The Ecosocialist idea you’ve never heard of and might need.

Ursula Huws reflects on the history of ‘prefigurative’ approaches and community ownership models in the UK – and how these can be used to rethink public ownership amid the current cost-of-living crisis.

In 2017, the World Bank determined that the income threshold for poverty, which had been set at $1.90 per day, was far too low. They set the new poverty line at $2.15 per day, which accounted for over 700 million people.

Across the world, evidence of human misery is increasingly easy to find. The data collected and reported by international agencies is stunning. Billions of people around the planet lack access to adequate education, healthcare, food, and shelter, as well as information and culture.

In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx highlighted that “constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones”.

The sheer scale of China’s development has been a world-shaping event.