The roots of American racism
Why is America so racist? In the first of four articles, American socialist Bill Crane explains how today’s struggles around Ferguson and police racism have their roots in a history of slavery and dispossession. It’s often difficult for me, as an American socialist, to explain many things about my homeland to comrades and friends in […]
The roots of Israeli apartheid
What does it mean to say that Israel is an apartheid state? Sølvi Goard unpacks a history of vicious segregation and ethnic cleansing
A critical engagement with the young Bensaïd
This piece was first presented by Jonas Liston at the recent Historical Materialism Conference in London. On first reading Daniel Bensaïd’s memoirs, An Impatient Life, two things stood out to me: a heterodox politics with an absolute confidence in the key tenets of revolutionary Marxism, combined with a willingness to engage with new and old ideas and modes […]
Village by village, town by town – how Zionists tried to destroy Palestine in 1948
In the sixth and final part of his series on Zionism, imperialism and the Palestinians, Neil Rogall describes the Nakba – the establishment of the Israeli state and catastrophe for Palestine. 1948 was a year of horror. The majority of the Palestinian people were violently evicted from their homes and their communities. Families were broken […]
East Germany, 1989: when power was in the street
Within a few weeks in the autumn of 1989 a regime fell which had seemed invulnerable. While Reagan and Thatcher seek to take credit for these events, the truth is that millions of East German people took their destiny into their own hands.
Condemning the slaughter of the ‘Great War’
2014 marks the 100th centenary of the beginning of the First World War. Britain’s rulers want us to commemorate it as a ‘just war’. Matthew Cookson argues that cultural representations of the war, often from soldiers’ perspectives, are an explicit condemnation of our rulers’ justifications for the slaughter. Before he was so cruelly defenestrated as the […]
Making the Palestinians the scapegoats for Nazi crimes
In part five of his series on Zionism, imperialism and the Palestinians Neil Rogall looks at the lead up to the Nakba and how the west used the establishment of the state of Israel to absolve themselves of Nazi crimes. Read part 1 of this series, The Origins of Zionism, here. The defeat of the 1936-39 […]
Dear Love of Comrades: The politics of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners
The film Pride tells the story of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners. It’s an extraordinary and inspiring achievement for a mainstream movie. For almost a year in 1984-5, over 100,000 miners were on all-out strike. The strike was the major political issue of the day, and Thatcher’s final defeat of the miners one of […]
The birth of Palestinian Resistance and the 1936 uprising
In the fourth installment of Neil Rogall’s series on the history of Palestine he looks at a long history of Palestinian resistance to occupation that culminated in the Arab revolt of 1936 Read part 1 of this series, The Origins of Zionism, here. 1936 witnessed the beginning of the largest and longest Palestinian revolt against […]
On being comrades
On a night out drinking and suffering from the resulting inebriated disposition, Karl Marx and his friends Edgar Bauer and Wilhelm Liebkneckt started smashing up a number of street lanterns using a pile of paving stones. Bauer in his drunken state had, prior to this act of wanton hooliganism, tripped over them. They were then […]
The origins of the Iron Wall: Zionist settlers during the mandate
In the third part of his series on Palestine Neil Rogall looks at the influx of the Zionist settlers and the politics that they developed. Read part 1 of this series, The Origins of Zionism, here. In 1922 the British received a ‘mandate’ to govern Palestine from the newly created League of Nations. This was […]
Palestine, the Great War and British Imperialism
In part two of his series on Israel and the occupation of Palestine Neil Rogall moves on to look at how Britain’s strong relationship with Israel goes back to the Balfour Declaration which paved the way for the Zionist state. Read part 1 of this series, The Origins of Zionism, here. A well-loved chant on […]
The origins of Zionism
In part one of our new series on the roots of Israeli terror former lecturer on the subject, Neil Rogall, looks at the origins of Zionism.
Nein, Nyet, No: a brief history of jazz, rock & roll, race and repression
Mitch Mitchell takes a look at the music that made racists and rulers come out in hives.
The hanging of Derek Bentley: a miscarriage we shouldn’t forget
It took decades to win some sort of justice for Derek Bentley – but the fight eventually won.
Pop-ups through history – the NASD
Brian Parkin looks at the history of the dockworkers’ NASD union and its rivalry with the TGWU – and considers the lessons for revolutionaries today.