History and Traditions

  • Comment: Amy Muldoon

    How workers' power was organized

    The workers' council system created in Russia in 1917 provided the platform for full democracy and liberation. May 31, 2013

  • Column: Todd Chretien

    Ready for the revolutionary wave

    Marx and Engels could sense the upheavals of 1848 ahead--and prepared by building organizations to stand for socialist ideas. May 29, 2013

  • Comment: Todd Chretien

    Lenin prepares the Bolsheviks

    By late April 1917, the Bolsheviks stood out as the one major political party committed to workers' self-emancipation. May 24, 2013

  • Comment: Kirstin Roberts

    The February Revolution

    The barbarism of war and the tyranny of Tsarist rule inspired the Russian working class to rebellion in February 1917. May 17, 2013

  • Interview: Karl Marx

    Speaking with Karl Marx

    In 1879, a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune sat down with the "cornerstone of modern socialism" for an interview. May 17, 2013

  • Comment: Alan Maass

    How the stage was set for revolution

    This first installment in a series on the Russian Revolution explains the events and factors leading up to the 1917 uprising. May 10, 2013

  • Comment: Louise Michel

    Memories of the Commune

    A leader of the Paris Commune of 1871 describes the scenes of workers seizing power and creating a new order. May 10, 2013

  • Column: Todd Chretien

    The poverty of Proudhon's anarchism

    In a short book critiquing an anarchist thinker, Marx clarified his understanding that there could be no individual or partial solution to exploitation. May 9, 2013

  • Comment: Eugene Debs

    The martyred apostles of labor

    An American working-class leader honors the legacy of the Haymarket Martyrs and the history of the celebration of May Day. May 3, 2013

  • Comment: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

    Race in the Obama era

    The election of the first Black president marked a historic blow against racism, but Black America still endures systematic oppression. May 3, 2013

  • Obituary: Sal Castro

    Their heads held high

    An inspirational teacher-activist who encouraged Chicano students to organize against education inequity died on April 15. May 2, 2013

  • Column: Todd Chretien

    Muck, filth, phantoms and revolution

    The German Ideology shows Marx and Engels' developing views on history, capitalism and working-class revolution. May 1, 2013

  • Speech: Brian Jones

    Racism in a "color-blind" society

    We're told that we live in a "post-racial" society, but racism is alive and well in the U.S.--and benefiting the capitalist system in important ways. April 26, 2013

  • Comment: Lee Sustar

    Race and politics in the post-civil rights era

    Race and racism has always been central to U.S. politics--and that didn't stop with the victories of the civil rights movement. April 19, 2013

  • Comment: Vladimir Lenin

    Strikes and the working class

    The Russian revolutionary describes the significance of strikes to the working-class movement and the fight for socialism. April 19, 2013

  • Comment: Paul Foot

    Remembering the Great Miners' Strike

    In 1984, Margaret Thatcher and her government embarked on as tough and crude a class battle as had ever been attempted. April 12, 2013

  • Comment: Lee Sustar

    Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition

    Jackson's 1980s campaigns for the Democratic presidential nomination showed the new hold of electoralism in Black politics. April 12, 2013

  • Comment: Karl Marx

    Political indifferentism

    If socialists are trying to make a revolution, does that mean they are indifferent to the bourgeois state or demands for reform? April 5, 2013

  • Comment: Todd Chretien

    Taking us to the mountaintop

    Martin Luther King's speech in Memphis before he was killed is a dissertation on history, humanity, love and revolution. April 4, 2013

  • Comment: Lee Sustar

    The struggle for busing

    Protests against school desegregation were emblematic of the racist backlash against the Black movement in the 1970s. March 29, 2013

  • Column: Todd Chretien

    Praxis makes perfect

    In Theses on Feuerbach, Marx provided a short, important sketch that points to the relationship between ideas and practice. March 26, 2013

  • Comment: Megan Behrent

    Trapped in the bell jar

    Fifty years after her death, poet and author Sylvia Plath is still a strong voice against the status of women in U.S. society. March 25, 2013

  • Comment: Lee Sustar

    The National Black Political Convention

    Electoral campaigns by Black leaders are seen as a continuation of the 1960s movement, but radicals of the time strived to build an independent voice. March 22, 2013

  • Speech: John Reed

    Don't believe Uncle Sam's promises

    An American revolutionary speaks out in 1920 on the centrality of confronting imperialism around the world. March 15, 2013

  • Comment: Lee Sustar

    Carving a niche in the system

    By opening its doors to a new layer of Black politicians, the Democratic Party channeled Black activists into electoral campaigns. March 15, 2013

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