The Neil Davidson Lecture 2023: Uneven and combined development in Neil Davidson’s work
Raquel Valera on Neil Davidson’s contribution to the theory of uneven and combined development and revolution.
Revolutionary Reflections | Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution
A new book by Brendan McGeever casts new light on the role of antisemitism in the 1917 Russian Revolution and illuminates the struggle against the rise of antisemitism today.
Global fever
The Covid-19 pandemic is a foretaste of the approaching climate catastrophe. Andreas Malm’s electrifying new book looks at both these crises and asks what we’ll need to do to face them down.
What’s left of Lenin?
150 years after the birth of V.I. Lenin, Leninism offers us urgent and fundamental lessons about what it means to practise politics in capitalist society.
Hope and tragedy in April 1919
The Limerick Soviet (13 – 27 April 1919) was one manifestation of a wave of revolutionary crises that confronted British imperialism in the aftermath of WWI.
Queer emancipation in early Soviet Russia
A long letter from a gay man highlights the emancipation which touched LGBT people across Russia after October 1917.
Images of Russia from liberation to oppression
Steve Eason reviews Red Star Over Russia and Not Everyone will be Taken into the Future by Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, both at Tate Modern.
There is no revolution without love
The film Reds tells the story of John Reed and Louise Bryant’s experiences of the Russian Revolution.
Workers and the Soviet state: lessons from the 1920s
The centenary of the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia provides an opportunity to open up debates on the nature of revolutions and post-revolutionary politics.
A statement on the centenary of the October Revolution
rs21 celebrates the Revolution as a high-water mark in human history.
Six Red Months in Russia: Louise Bryant’s view of the revolution
Louise Bryant’s Six Red Months in Russia, with its nuanced and enlightening discussion of women’s lives, is a vital eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution.
Reviewing BBC Radio 4’s coverage of the Russian revolution
Martin Crook analyses the presentation of the Russian revolution by the BBC, questioning the accuracy of a review that blames the revolution for the sins of Stalinism.
After 1917: Civil war and ‘modernising counter-revolution’
The Russian Revolution not only provides the most far reaching example of a socialist revolution in history, it also changes our understanding of counter-revolution.
Video: Mike Haynes – dreams, utopias and messy realities of Russia in 1917
Watch Mike Haynes’ humorous and enlightening talk for Leicester rs21 on the dreams, utopias and messy realities of the Russian revolution.
Harmonies and dissonances: Russia in revolution
In a piece originally published in the rs21 magazine, Mike Haynes illuminates the contested histories of the Russian revolution The bookshelves creak. But does it matter? No-one who remembers the Russia Revolution is still alive. You would have to be at least in your 40s to even have much of a memory of what the USSR was. […]
Review: China Miéville’s October
Charlie Burton reviews China Miéville’s retelling of the story of the tumultuous months 100 years ago leading up to the October revolution. October is published by Verso and available now. In July 1914, deputies of the largely ineffective parliamentary body, the Russian Duma, voted in favour of war credits and confirmed Russia’s entry into the arena […]
Social histories of 1917
Estelle Cooch, a history teacher in South London, reflects on an unusual series of history lectures that have drawn a new generation into exploring the Russian Revolution. This article was first published in the summer 2017 edition of the rs21 magazine. ‘The percentage of freaks among people in general is very considerable, but it is […]
Interview: Women in the Revolution
Estelle Cooch interviews Katy Turton author of Forgotten Lives – the role of Lenin’s sisters in the Russian Revolution The role of women in the February Revolution is relatively well known about, but how involved were women in the events of October? As you would expect, women were participants in the October revolution, but they […]
Fidelity to February: The People’s revolution
In days where revolution can seem more remote than ever, Dan Swain explores the height of the February revolution and reflects on its relevance to revolutionary politics today In 1917 Russia was a vast empire covering much of modern day Poland in the west, Armenia and Azerbaijan in the south, and Kazakhstan and Siberia in […]
Re-reading Reed: Ten Days that Shook the World
Lisa Leak considers John Reed’s classic book on the Russian revolution, Ten Days That Shook the World. The centennial of the October Revolution later this year will be a windfall for booksellers. Possibly no other event in history has been written on so extensively, or from such a vast variety of ideological perspectives: there’ll be […]
Uneven and Combined Development: Modernity, Modernism, Revolution (2): Causes, Consequences, Constraints
In this second part to his series of five pieces for revolutionary reflections Neil Davidson explores the aesthetic and political dimensions of the theory of Uneven and Combined Development.
Uneven and Combined Development: Modernity, Modernism, Revolution (1): The Classic Forms of Uneven and Combined Development
In this first of five pieces, Neil Davidson explores Trotsky’s history of combined and uneven development and how it helps us understand capitalist modernity.
The story of a Bolshevik worker-intellectual: a review of Barbara Allen’s ‘Alexander Shlyapnikov’
Ian Birchall reviews Barbara C Allen’s Alexander Shlyapnikov 1885-1937: Life of an Old Bolshevik, published by Haymarket Books.
Ten Days That Shook The World
In celebration of the 98th anniversary of the Russian Revolution we are publishing this short extract from John Reed’s brilliant eye witness account, Ten Days That Shook The World. Reed was a socialist journalist from the USA, who described the revolution as: “Adventure it was, and one of the most marvellous mankind ever embarked upon.” […]
As Middle East goes nuclear, climate change goes critical. Part 3: Imperialism and climate
In the final part of Brian Parkin’s article, he shows that imperialist wars, arrested development and impending climate catastrophe are all linked through industrial capitalism’s continuing dependence on oil. He argues we need to replace capitalism before it causes any more irreparable damage to our societies and our world. (See parts 1 and 2. See […]
Leninism?
Charlie Post, a supporter of Solidarity, a US revolutionary socialist organisation, continues a discussion on what is meant by ‘Leninism’ today Two developments have sparked a renewed debate on revolutionary socialist organisation. On the one hand, the emergence of “new left parties” and the continued crisis of the self-identified revolutionary left, of which the recent […]
How to learn from Lenin
Barnaby Raine examines the relevance of one of Lenin’s key works ‘The State and Revolution’. Originally published in the Autumn 2014 issue of the rs21 magazine. Just months before stunning the world with its first socialist revolution on a national scale, a rebel leader returned from exile in Switzerland to the upheavals of Russia in […]
Malevich: new art for a new world
Lois JC (Brixton) reviews the Tate Modern’s new show Malevich: Revolutionary of Russian Art at the Tate Modern is the first retrospective of the Russian avant garde artist Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) in 25 years. The exhibition illustrates, beautifully yet subtly, the contours of a time of revolutionary upheaval: from his early influences and the formation of […]