Category: Theory
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Alan Woods on Kautsky’s ‘Foundations of Christianity’
To mark the holiday period, we republish the following introduction by Alan Woods to a German edition of Karl Kautsky’s excellent text, The Foundations of Christianity. Originally published 23 September 2011, Alan outlines the significance of this work, and gives an overview of Kautsky’s historical materialist account of the origins of the Christian faith. Religion…
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Introduction to the Brazilian edition of ‘The History of Philosophy’
“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” (Lenin, What is to be Done?) A voyage of discovery The news of the publication of my book, The History of Philosophy, in Brazil was a moment of great satisfaction for me. It shows that the Brazilian section of the Revolutionary Communist International is being built…
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Leon Trotsky on organisational problems
The following are translations of excerpts from Trois points c’est tout by Fred Zeller (1912-2003). Zeller, who, at the time, was the secretary of the Seine (Paris) Young Socialists and a sympathiser of the Trotskyist movement in the mid-1930s, visited Trotsky in Norway at the end of October 1935. This was at the time when…
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Theses on the climate crisis
This document was first drafted and published on the 22nd of June 2020. Ever since, the climate crisis has only grown in intensity and, as the recent COP30 summit has shown, the ruling class remains utterly incapable of taking action to even slow the pace of this disaster. The analysis presented below remains an essential…
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The revolutionary lessons of Lenin’s ‘What is to be Done?’
We publish Rob Sewell’s introduction to Lenin’s 1902 pamphlet, What is to be Done? Rob explains the importance of this text, in which Lenin rebuked reformist and opportunist trends in Russian Social Democracy, and argued for building a committed party of professional revolutionaries to lead the working class to power. It bears huge relevance for…
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The collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of Putin
The following article provides a timeless analysis of the process by which the world’s first workers’ state, the Soviet Union, was destroyed. This remains as essential a topic to understand for those who wish to revive the genuine Bolshevik traditions of Lenin, Trotsky, and the Russian Revolution. We bring to the readers’ attention the fact…
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What the Russian Revolution achieved and why it degenerated
108 years ago this week, the Bolsheviks led the Russian workers and peasants to power in Russia. The October Revolution of 1917 stands out as the greatest event in human history – the moment when capitalism was overthrown across one-sixth of the Earth’s surface, and millions of ordinary people took up the task of transforming…
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Shostakovich, the musical conscience of the Russian Revolution
We republish below an article written by Alan Woods about Dimitri Shostakovich, one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, a giant who gave voice to the sufferings and triumphs of the Soviet people in one of the most turbulent and revolutionary periods in history. In this article Alan Woods attempts to show Shostakovich…
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The Russian Revolution: the meaning of October
On 7 November 1917 (25 October in the Julian calendar) the Russian working class took power in their own hands and forever altered the course of human history. For Marxists, the October Revolution is the greatest event in human history. Below we republish an article by Alan Woods (written in 1992) that gives an excellent…
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James Connolly: Labour in Irish History – Foreword
The Revolutionary Communists of Ireland will be meeting this Saturday, 18 October, at the Teachers’ Club in Dublin for the Communist Day School of Anti-Imperialism. The event will centre on discussions of the Marxist understanding of imperialism and how to fight against it, alongside sessions exploring the history and current perspectives of the struggles against…