Page 183 - Leon Trotsky News Today

How Stalin and Trotsky came to blows The Mount Olympus of Soviet Russia was too cramped for two egos of such colossal proportions. With Bolshevik power still hanging by a thread, they were already at each other’s throats. Among the Bolshevik leaders, it was Leon Trotsky who seemed most likely to take over the Soviet Union after Lenin’s demise. However, in the ensuing power struggle, he fell foul of his nemesis, Joseph Stalin, which led first to exile, then assassination. How...

Britain’s Socialist Workers Party and Counterfire apply political chloroform over Trump’s coup Pseudo-left groups all over the world have responded to the attempted coup led by Donald Trump with one voice. It is a position best summed up by Alex Callinicos, the theoretical leader of Britain’s Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and its sympathising groups in many countries: “No need to panic—order will be restored in Washington.” Alex Callinicos Callinicos tweeted this at 5.51pm (EST) on ...

January 14, 2021 —  Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from John Riddells Marxist Essays and Commentary — Parliaments and elections are no guarantee of democratic rights and fair treatment for working people. Capitalist forces displeased with an electoral outcome are all too likely to take direct action to impose their will, whether by financial manipulations, economic blockades, or military coups. Even apparently stable parliamentary regimes in dominant countri...

  There is a deceitful and ahistorical myth that frequently resurfaces in right-wing circles seeking to discredit socialism with lies about the Russian Revolution. No matter how many times it has been invalidated as fabrication, the reactionary mythos endures. As might be expected, the author is referring to the preposterous claim that American capitalists — or “Wall Street bankers” — secretly financed one of the most epochal political revolutions in world history which overthrew the ...

George Orwell was neither on the left nor the right The famous author despised dictators and herd mentality. Above all he advocated "common decency". George Orwell.  Share In December 1936, George Orwell arrived in Catalonia as a volunteer in the struggle to defend the Spanish republic against the violent insurgency led by General Francisco Franco and his nationalist allies. The Spanish Civil War, as with today’s long, harrowing Syrian war, was a theatre of great power rivalry. The nationali...

Read online at https://workersliberty.org/node/36619 The USA needs to be made a proper democracy Submitted by AWL on 12 January, 2021 - 10:40 Author: Thomas Carolan The woman, in her late 20s, has been maced. Recovering slowly, she looks a bit sorry for herself, and complains indignantly. “As soon as I went into the Capitol, they maced me, right in my face.” Interviewer: “Yes, but why did you go in?” “Go in? For the revolution, of course.” Not since fascists wieldi...

For decades, attending science lectures in an open New York City, I would tell people that like a gambling addict who loses a lifetime of achievement on a roll of the dice, science was sacrificing centuries of prestige on the alter of global warmism. Everything we have been told about the Wuhan virus, starting with it as a “natural” occurrence, has been a leftist political lie. Scientists have functioned as stooges for the Marxist party.   Science is not a “field”, it is ...

American fascism is a deadly threat – it must be confronted now The US could yet fall apart under the strain of its structural racism and the dysfunctionality of its capitalism.  Like grease from an old stove, the Nazis of the US are suddenly getting scoured off social media. Donald Trump’s Twitter account is gone. Parler has been scrubbed from the Amazon servers.  We can be cynical about the motives of the tech giants: they did nothing to restrain either the Trump lie machine, or ...

British film director Michael Apted, who died January 7 aged 79, was responsible for a remarkable variety of work over his long career, from action thrillers to the documentaries that will probably stand as his most enduring legacy. Fascinated by the cinema from his teens, Apted worked with facility across a surprising range of material. Michael Apted in 2013 (Photo: Peabody Awards Anders Krusberg) There was a James Bond film, The World Is Not Enough (1999), a solid biography of country singer...

Ex-UK PM Tony Blair has finished his work on the TAP, while Germany's Gerhard Schröder is helping on Nord Stream 2. What is it with 1990s Social Democrats that attracts them to authoritarian leaders and their pipelines?