History
This week in history: April 4-10
4 April 2016
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
One hundred years since Ireland’s Easter Rising—Part three
By Jordan Shilton, 29 March 2016
The Easter Rising was a seminal event in Irish history, the lessons of which the working class must assimilate.
One hundred years since Ireland’s Easter Rising—Part two
By Jordan Shilton, 28 March 2016
The Easter Rising was a seminal event in Irish history whose lessons the working class must assimilate.
This week in history: March 28-April 3
28 March 2016
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
One hundred years since Ireland’s Easter Rising—Part One
By Jordan Shilton, 26 March 2016
The Easter Rising was a seminal event in Irish history with critical political lessons for the international working class.
This week in history: March 21-27
21 March 2016
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: March 14-20
14 March 2016
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: March 7-13
7 March 2016
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: February 29-March 6
29 February 2016
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: February 22-28
22 February 2016
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: February 15-21
15 February 2016
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
New Zealand’s first Labour Party leader was no socialist: A reply to the pseudo-left ISO
By Tom Peters, 4 February 2016
The claim that NZ Labour was founded as a socialist party in 1916 is a fabrication designed to justify the pseudo-left’s support for this pro-imperialist party.
This week in history: January 18-24
18 January 2016
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: January 11-17
11 January 2016
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Twenty five years of the World Wide Web
By Bryan Dyne, 8 January 2016
The first successful connection between two computers over the Internet using the World Wide Web was created by Tim Berners-Lee twenty five years ago.
SEP (Sri Lanka) holds public meeting on 75th anniversary of Leon Trotsky’s assassination
By our correspondents, 30 December 2015
Well aware that World War II would produce revolutionary upheavals, neither Stalinism nor imperialism could tolerate Trotsky’s continued existence.
This week in history: December 28-January 3
28 December 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Notes on a visit to Łódź, Poland
By Clara Weiss, 24 December 2015
Few cities in Eastern Europe have played as great a role in the history of the working class movement as Łódź.
This week in history: December 21-27
21 December 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: December 14-20
14 December 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
100 years of General Relativity—Part Two
By Will Morrow, 8 December 2015
This is the second of a three-part series examining the history, science and lasting implications of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which remains, along with his special theory, one of the central pillars of modern physics.
100 years of General Relativity—Part One
By Don Barrett, 7 December 2015
This is the first of a three-part series examining the history, science and implications of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
This week in history: December 7-13
7 December 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Woodrow Wilson and Black Lives Matter
The political consequences of the racial evaluation of history
By Eric London, 4 December 2015
The demonstrations on racism in the US are of a typically middle class character and represent a very familiar and toxic element of bourgeois politics: the fight amongst different factions within the wealthiest ten percent.
Seventy years since the Nuremberg Trials
By Verena Nees, 3 December 2015
The post-World War II trials led to the adoption of the Nuremberg principles, forbidding aggressive war as the greatest international crime.
This week in history: November 30-December 6
30 November 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: November 23-29
23 November 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: November 16-22
16 November 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
The Political Lessons of Syriza’s Betrayal in Greece
Statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International
13 November 2015
The warnings of the ICFI and WSWS that Syriza was a pro-capitalist party, hostile to the working class, have been completely vindicated.
Forty years since the Canberra Coup
By James Cogan, 11 November 2015
The concern in ruling circles in Australia and the US was that the Whitlam Labor government had failed to stem the powerful movement of the working class that had brought it to power in 1972.
This week in history: November 9-15
9 November 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Mehring Verlag publishing house presents new book, Scholarship or War Propaganda? at Frankfurt Book Fair
By our correspondent, 27 October 2015
Scholarship or War Propaganda? deals with the political controversy at Humboldt University in Berlin over the critique of the positions of Professors Jörg Baberowski and Herfried Münkler in support of the return of German militarism.
This week in history: October 26-November 1
26 October 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Harper’s “Victims of Communism” monument and the revival of bellicose Canadian nationalism
By Felix Gauthier, 19 October 2015
Harper’s promotion of extreme Cold War anti-communism is part of the crafting of an explicitly right-wing, bellicose nationalism that better corresponds to Canadian imperialism’s current needs.
This week in history: October 19-25
19 October 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: October 12-18
12 October 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution: No lessons learned
By Clare Hurley and Fred Mazelis, 9 October 2015
Riveting video footage along with complacent commentary adds up to a misleading account.
Twenty-five years since the reunification of Germany
By Peter Schwarz, 5 October 2015
On October 3, 1990 the German Democratic Republic was disbanded 41 years after its foundation and incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany.
This week in history: October 5-11
5 October 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Fifty years since the Indonesian coup
By Peter Symonds, 1 October 2015
The 1965 CIA-backed military coup, which resulted in the slaughter of at least 500,000 people, was one of the great imperialist crimes of the 20th Century.
Seventy-five years since the assassination of Leon Trotsky
By David North, 30 September 2015
The assassination of the greatest leader of the 1917 October Revolution marked the climax of the Stalinist regime’s eradication of the socialist workers and intellectuals who had secured the victory of the Bolshevik revolution.
This week in history: September 28-October 4
28 September 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
IYSSE (Australia) lectures discuss significance of Zimmerwald anti-war conference
By our reporters, 22 September 2015
The lectures outlined the contemporary political significance of the struggle waged by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks against the carnage of World War I.
Students discuss lessons of history at IYSSE lectures
By our reporters, 22 September 2015
Students, workers and young people who attended the IYSSE’s lectures on “100 years since the Zimmerwald anti-war conference: How the Russian Revolution was prepared,” spoke to World Socialist Web Site reporters after the campus events.
This week in history: September 21-27
21 September 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
The crimes of the Nazis in Greece: Part 3
By Katerina Selin, 14 September 2015
The German-dominated EU austerity measures imposed on Greece are directly in line with the Nazis’ World War II subjugation and plundering of the country.
This week in history: September 14-20
14 September 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
The crimes of the Nazis in Greece: Part two
By Katerina Selin, 12 September 2015
The occupation of Greece by Nazi Germany was the occasion for some of the worst crimes of World War II.
The crimes of the Nazis in Greece: Part one
By Katerina Selin, 11 September 2015
The occupation of Greece by Nazi Germany was the occasion for some of the worst crimes of World War II.
This week in history: September 7-13
7 September 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Author of books on Orson Welles, film noir, Vincente Minnelli and more
An interview with film historian and critic James Naremore
By David Walsh and Joanne Laurier, 2 September 2015
James Naremore has written influential books on directors Orson Welles, Vincente Minnelli and Stanley Kubrick, on Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Alexander Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success and the film noir genre.
This week in history: August 31-September 6
31 August 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
The British Library’s Magna Carta exhibition: A vital though flawed presentation
By Joe Mount, 28 August 2015
The exhibition features a breathtaking array of documents of world-historical significance, brought together for a public audience for the first time.
This week in history: August 24-30
24 August 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
75 years since the assassination of Trotsky: 1940-2015
Leon Trotsky’s place in history
By David North, 21 August 2015
Published here is a section of a lecture delivered on the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky. The full lecture is included in David North’s book, In Defense of Leon Trotsky.
Seventy-five years since the assassination of Leon Trotsky
By Joseph Kishore, 20 August 2015
Seventy-five years after his death, Trotsky emerges ever more clearly as a world historical figure who not only influenced the course of the 20th century, but whose writings and ideas remain an essential guide for orienting the working class today.
Book review
The Devil is Here in These Hills: West Virginia’s Coal Miners and their Battle for Freedom, by James Green
By Tom Mackaman, 18 August 2015
The book’s most important—and timely—contribution is its revelation of the startling level of violence that characterized class relations in an earlier period.
This week in history: August 17-23
17 August 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
The covert “selling” of anticommunism
The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America
Part 2
By Nancy Hanover, 12 August 2015
The Mighty Wurlitzer is an examination of the CIA’s 1947-67 campaigns against anti-capitalist and socialist thought.
Protesters denounce military legislation as Japan marks anniversary of nuclear bombings
By Ben McGrath, 11 August 2015
A Nagasaki survivor recounted the horrors of the blast and denounced Prime Minister Abe’s moves to amend Japan’s post-World War II constitution.
The covert “selling” of anticommunism
The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America
Part 1
By Nancy Hanover, 11 August 2015
The Mighty Wurlitzer is an examination of the CIA’s 1947-67 campaigns against militant, anti-capitalist and particularly socialist thought.
Foreword to Scholarship or War Propaganda? The Return of German Militarism and the Dispute at Berlin's Humboldt University
By Peter Schwarz, 10 August 2015
The subject of this book goes well beyond the conflict at Berlin's Humboldt University. It is concerned with the relationship between scholarship and politics in a period of militarism, mounting international conflicts and growing social tensions.
This week in history: August 10-16
10 August 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Background to the government attack on Netzpolitik.org
German court in 1992 upheld 1931 treason conviction of Carl von Ossietzky
By Andreas Kunstmann, 8 August 2015
The BGH judges in 1992 made the decisive factor the legal opinion of judges who later became supporters of the Nazi state.
International scholars call on Japanese PM to issue apology
By Ben McGrath, 7 August 2015
The historians’ statement comes just over two weeks before Abe’s scheduled speech on the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima
By Peter Symonds, 6 August 2015
Washington’s use of the atomic weapons was aimed at terrorising not just the Japanese regime, but above all the Soviet Union, and ensuring post-war American global dominance.
This week in history: August 3-9
3 August 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: July 27-August 2
27 July 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Samuel Kassow’s Who Will Write Our History?
By Clara Weiss, 25 July 2015
Kassow’s history of the Oyneg Shabes underground archive in the Warsaw Ghetto combines remarkable objectivity with a deep compassion for the tragic fate of Warsaw’s Jewry during World War II.
Foreword to The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo-Left: A Marxist Critique
Part One
By David North, 21 July 2015
The polemical essays in this volume examine the complex interaction between history, philosophy and politics. It is vital reading for those who wish to deepen their knowledge of classical Marxism.
This week in history: July 20-26
20 July 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Release of grand jury transcript points again to frameup of the Rosenbergs
By Fred Mazelis, 18 July 2015
The new revelations undermine the post-Soviet effort to reaffirm the supposed guilt of the Rosenbergs.
Auschwitz bookkeeper Gröning sentenced to four years in prison
By Sybille Fuchs, 18 July 2015
For decades, the German judicial system showed little interest in prosecuting those who participated in the murder machinery of the Nazis.
This week in history: July 13-19
13 July 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
The Nazi past of Germany’s post-war political elite
By Verena Nees, 7 July 2015
The Brown Book continues to be a crucial source for the exposure of Nazism in German political and military circles.
This week in history: July 6-12
6 July 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: June 29-July 5
29 June 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Trotskyism and the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934
Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Truckers’ Strike of 1934, by Bryan Palmer
By Tom Mackaman and Jerry White, 24 June 2015
A recent book by historian Bryan Palmer chronicles the role of American Trotskyists in leading one of the most important strikes in US history.
This week in history: June 22-28
22 June 2015
25 years ago: US space program hit by twin debacles25 years ago:
The Magna Carta and democratic rights
By Richard Hoffman and Mike Head, 15 June 2015
Today, 800 years after the Magna Carta, the international working class confronts an historic assault on its fundamental democratic rights.
A review of Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928: Part three
By Fred Williams, 3 June 2015
Stephen Kotkin’s first volume of a projected three-volume biography of Stalin, published by Penguin Press, is a travesty of historical writing.
This week in history: June 1-7
1 June 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: May 25-31
25 May 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: May 18-24
18 May 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Germany: Auschwitz survivors testify against former SS officer
By Elisabeth Zimmermann, 12 May 2015
The prosecution of former SS officer Oskar Gröning has highlighted his role in crimes against humanity.
This week in history: May 11-17
11 May 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Seventy years since the defeat of Hitler’s Third Reich
By Fred Williams, 9 May 2015
The boycott of the May 9 celebrations in Moscow by the US and Germany is bound up with their alliance with fascistic forces and their virulently anti-Russian foreign policy.
VE Day in Germany: War commemoration and war propaganda
By Peter Schwarz, 9 May 2015
Previous commemorations of the end of the Second World War were dedicated to shared reflection on the past, now they revolve around current conflicts and future wars.
This week in history: May 4-10
4 May 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
This week in history: April 27-May 3
27 April 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
The role of Australian schools in World War I
Soldier Boys: The Militarisation of Australian and New Zealand Schools for World War I
By Margaret Rees and Linda Levin, 25 April 2015
The vast majority of recruits to the Australian military during WWI were the product of a harsh and punitive system of compulsory military training.
World War I: The breakdown of capitalism
By Nick Beams, 23 April 2015
Today we are reposting a lecture delivered by Nick Beams at the SEP (US) Summer School held August 14–20, 2005 in Ann Arbor Michigan.
This week in history: April 20-26
20 April 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Twenty years since the Oklahoma City bombing
20 April 2015
April 19 marked the twentieth anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, the bloodiest act of terrorism on US soil up to that point.
Australian World War I “celebration” buries history of mass anti-war opposition
By Richard Phillips, 18 April 2015
One of the central lies promoted by the saturation media campaign extolling WWI is that Australia was unified in backing the imperialist war.
“The world only discovered him a hero after he had fallen a martyr”
150 years since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln
By Tom Mackaman, 14 April 2015
In office, Lincoln guided the Civil War and transformed it from a struggle for the preservation of the Union into a revolutionary war for the abolition of slavery.
This week in history: April 13-19
13 April 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
Fifty years since the death of Viola Liuzzo
By Helen Hayes, 10 April 2015
The fight against Jim Crow segregation drew in white workers and youth as well as African-Americans from the North and the South. Liuzzo’s determination to participate in the civil rights struggle reflected great changes taking place in the US in the 1960s.
This week in history: April 6-12
6 April 2015
This Week in History provides brief synopses of important historical events whose anniversaries fall this week.
New York exhibition looks at “political art” of the 1930s
By Fred Mazelis, 3 April 2015
The Grey Art Gallery show presents the work of dozens of American artists who were radicalized in the period of the Depression, revolutionary struggle, the rise of fascism and the looming threat of world war.
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