The Political Odyssey of Arthur Rosenberg, Germany’s Forgotten Marxist
Arthur Rosenberg was a leading figure in Germany’s Communist movement and a brilliant Marxist historian. Rosenberg’s penetrating analysis of far-right movements, produced in exile after the Nazis seized power, is as relevant as ever today.
4-01-2021
Madoc Cairns
R. H. Tawney’s Christian Socialism Was a Moral Crusade Against Capitalism
One of Britain's most influential twentieth-century socialists, R. H. Tawney, is often presented as a moralist opposed to Marxist notions of social change. In fact, his Christian socialism was deeply committed to political transformation — marrying a critique of "devilish" capitalism with the burning desire to create a new Jerusalem.
The Marxism of Leo Panitch
Leo Panitch emphasized three core themes throughout his career: the process of class formation, the key role of political parties in facilitating this process, and the need to transform the state instead of wielding it in its current form. In doing so, he gave the democratic-socialist movement an invaluable trove of resources to change the world with.
The Enduring Lessons of Red Vienna
For almost two decades at the start of the twentieth century, Austria's Social Democrats pursued a radical agenda of social progress in the country's capital – even as dark clouds gathered around them.
The Rise and Fall of French Socialism
France was once the heartland of revolution. Today, its left is battered, and its far right is rising. To understand why, we have to look at François Mitterrand’s socialist government’s turn from radical reform to neoliberal austerity in the 1980s.
14-02-2021
Harrison Fluss
Jenny Marx’s Life of Love and Revolution
This Valentine's Day, we remember the revolutionary life of Jenny Marx – a socialist and feminist whose own activity, no less than her relationship with Karl, helped to shape the struggles of her time.
15-02-2021
Eric Blanc
The Birth of the Labour Party Has Many Lessons for Socialists Today
American leftists are constantly wrestling with the question of how to relate to the Democratic Party. The history of the UK Labour Party’s formation through a break with the Liberals a century ago is full of lessons for socialists today.
15-02-2021
Madoc Cairns
R. H. Tawney’s Ethical Socialism
R. H. Tawney was one of the most influential radicals of 20th century Britain. Today, his ethical socialism is often claimed by moderates – but, unlike them, he was committed to deep social transformation.
The Socialism of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde is known today for his satirical wit and literary accomplishments. But he was also a socialist committed to the fight against oppression and exploitation.
23-02-2021
Jonah Birch
The Rise and Fall of the French Left
France was once the heartland of socialism, but today its left is on the retreat and its far-right emboldened. The roots of this malaise lie in François Mitterrand’s turn from radical reform to neoliberal austerity in the 1980s.
Tony Benn’s Plan to Democratise Britain – and Abolish the Monarchy
Thirty years ago, Tony Benn's Commonwealth of Britain Bill proposed to transform our democracy by devolving power, guaranteeing social rights and abolishing the monarchy – it's time for today's Left to take up its mantle.
27-02-2021
Geoffrey Robinson
The Rise and Fall of Jack Lang, Australia’s Renegade Labor Premier
Jack Lang enjoys a reputation as Australia’s most radical Labor leader. Lang didn’t start off on the party’s left, but he refused to impose austerity measures as New South Wales premier during the Great Depression, leading to a bitter confrontation and Lang’s dismissal from office.
The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was born 150 years ago today. Her letters reveal a revolutionary intellectual who was deeply committed to socialism and defiantly humane.
5-03-2021
Dana Mills
The Young Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was born on this day in 1871. Her socialism was shaped by a deep internationalism – much of which she imbibed from her Jewish upbringing in what was then known as 'Russian Poland.'
5-03-2021
Marcello Musto
Happy 150th Birthday, Rosa Luxemburg
One hundred and fifty years ago today, the Polish Marxist thinker and organizer Rosa Luxemburg was born. She is, without question, one of the towering figures in the entire history of the socialist movement.
The Internationalism of Rosa Luxemburg
Throughout her political life, Rosa Luxemburg remained committed to an internationalist version of socialism – one which fought for the working-class beyond national boundaries and against imperialism.
5-03-2021
Julia Damphouse
How Rosa Luxemburg Taught Worker-Militants to Think Differently
150 years since her birth, Rosa Luxemburg is often remembered more as a martyr than a theorist. But as a teacher at a socialist party school she taught worker-militants to see the world like a Marxist — nurturing the intellectual tools that would let them master their own fate.
8-03-2021
Owen Hatherley
When Paris Was Red
In the twentieth century, socialists and communists used municipal power in Paris to build some of Europe's most ambitious social housing projects — housing that was not only beautiful but made for and by the city's working class.
8-03-2021
Chiara Giorgi
Lelio Basso and the Missed Opportunities of Italian Socialism
Lelio Basso was a major figure of the postwar Italian left who urged its parties to follow through on their revolutionary programs and avoid subordinating themselves to the ruling Christian Democrats. Italy’s Socialists and Communists should have heeded his advice.
8-03-2021
Melissa Benn
Sylvia Pankhurst: The great agitator
We should all be grateful to this doughty, irrepressible woman who battled so hard and sacrificed so much to make the world a tangibly better place.
The Cold War Is Over. It’s Time to Appreciate That Eugene Debs Was a Marxist.
For decades, many of Eugene Debs’s admirers have claimed that the socialist leader was a good, patriotic American unsullied by a foreign doctrine like Marxism. But the Cold War is over, and there’s no need to be defensive: Debs was a Marxist who rightly opposed American nationalism.
How Socialist Women Built Feminism for All
In the late 1800s, working-class German women challenged the common sexism in the early socialist movement to assert autonomy – proving that they didn't need fathers, husbands, or rich women to speak for them.
18-03-2021
Sheila Rowbotham
The Paris Commune at 150
150 years ago today, in the jaws of defeat in war, a revolutionary militia took over the city of Paris and began an experiment in democratic government – the Commune they built continues to inspire radicals today.
The Communards Were More Than Just Beautiful Martyrs
150 years since the Paris Commune, the militants who built the world's first working-class government are often commemorated as martyrs rather than taken seriously as revolutionaries. Yet in the years after 1871, socialists sought to draw practical lessons from this experience — and build the organizations that could turn the Commune's promise into lasting social change.
William Morris: Why We Celebrate the Paris Commune
Pioneering socialist William Morris on the Paris Commune and its legacy as a "great tragedy which definitely and irrevocably elevated the cause of Socialism."
Eugene Debs: “How I Became a Socialist”
In a 1902 article, Eugene V. Debs described his journey from young labor organizer to militant socialist. We reprint it here in full.
Fire and Blood: Walter Benjamin’s Paris Commune
Walter Benjamin's 'Arcades Project' provides a counter-history of Paris in the 19th century – and offers a vivid portrait of the revolutionary chaos and bloody demise of the Paris Commune.
10-04-2021
Andreas Møller Mulvad
Denmark’s Frederik Borgbjerg Wanted to Win Democratic Socialism, Not Just the Welfare State
The Nordic social democracies are rightly praised for their robust welfare states and worker protections. But the aspirations of early Social Democrats like Denmark’s Frederik Borgbjerg went far beyond the welfare state: they wanted to liberate humanity from the shackles of capitalist domination.
Kwame Nkrumah’s Pan-African Socialism
Kwame Nkrumah, who died on this day in 1972, was a leader in the fight against colonialism. But he knew that independence wasn't enough – only a unified, socialist Africa could truly free itself from its former masters.
On His Birthday, Let’s Celebrate the Old Man Karl Marx
Karl Marx’s final years of life are often overlooked as a period of intellectual and physical decline. But his thought remained vibrant to the end, as he addressed political questions that are still relevant to us today.
Why the Paris Commune Still Resonates, 150 Years Later
The Paris Commune ended on this day in 1871, after just two months in power. How do we explain, Enzo Traverso asks, the longevity and freshness of the memory of a fleeting revolutionary government?
30-05-2021
Matt McManus
Was John Stuart Mill a Socialist?
John Stuart Mill might have lots of libertarian fans, but his idiosyncratic ideas, despite their limitations, had more in common with democratic socialism than pro-capitalist ideologies.
10-06-2021
Socialismo riformista e socialismo liberale. Come ripensarli senza mistificazioni
Intervengono: Alberto Benzoni, Rosa Fioravante, Simona Maggiorelli, Mario Ricciardi e Valdo Spini.
Presiede: Francesco Somaini
When America’s Red States Were Red
This month marks 120 years since the founding of the Socialist Party of America. The party was especially strong in rural areas like Oklahoma — success that the socialist movement could actually replicate today.
12-07-2021
Liza Featherstone
Socialism Has a History — and a Future — in New York City
The three socialists who effectively won election to New York City Council this month have achieved something many would have thought impossible just a few years ago. But they won’t be the first socialists elected to that body.
Socialists Should Take the Right Lessons From the Russian Revolution
Socialists have rightly taken inspiration from the Russian Revolution for generations, but many of the lessons drawn from it are wrong for our own time. To make change today, we need to take democratic socialism seriously as a theory and practice.
22-07-2021
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek: Last Exit to Socialism
Slavoj Žižek writes in Jacobin that today's exploding ecological crises open up a realistic prospect of the final exit of humanity itself. Might socialism be our off-ramp, or is it already too late?
22-07-2021
Mark Engler
André Gorz’s Non-Reformist Reforms Show How We Can Transform the World Today
In the 1960s, radical thinker André Gorz developed a novel concept that went beyond the tired reform versus revolution debate. With non-reformist reforms, popular movements can win immediate gains that shift power away from elites — and clear the way for more radical transformations.
25-07-2021
Richard Johnson
Before Jeremy Corbyn, There Was Michael Foot
Michael Foot was a giant of Labour Party politics. The attempts by Labour centrists to diminish his legacy after his death only reveal the extent to which his socialism, like that of Jeremy Corbyn, threatened the British establishment.
Friedrich Engels on Social Murder
Revolutionary socialist Friedrich Engels died on this day in 1895, after spending much of his life in England – and writing on the suffering inherent in its capitalist system.
Remembering Mikis Theodorakis
Legendary Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis died last week aged 96. He spent a lifetime struggling against fascism and dictatorship – and for a socialist future that would give full expression to human creativity.
The ‘Kinnock Moment’ Myth
In the run-up to party conference, Labour right-wingers are salivating at the prospect of another public war on the Left – but Neil Kinnock's actual record as leader demonstrates why that is a dead end.
13-09-2021
Leonard Harrison
The Radical Internationalism of Konni Zilliacus
Labour MP Konni Zilliacus, who was born on this day in 1894, was an impassioned fighter for socialism and liberation across the world – a fight he believed was necessary to end the scourge of war.
The Feminist Vision of Friedrich Engels
In his book The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, Friedrich Engels linked the “world-historical defeat of the female sex” to the rise of class exploitation. Engels helped lay the foundations for a Marxist understanding of women's oppression.
16-09-2021
Shawn Gude
What Eugene Debs and the Socialist Party Can Teach Us About Freedom
Jeff Bezos wants us to believe that allowing billionaires to wield enormous power makes us all better off. Eugene Debs and the Socialist Party, founded 120 years ago this summer, had a very different vision for society: one of empowered workers and freedom from domination.
