Marxism and the Fundamental Problems of the 20th Century

A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony 1990–2016

Mon, 11 Jul 2016 05:00:00 GMT

We publish here the preface to A Quarter Century of War: The US Drive for Global Hegemony, 1990-2016 by David North, the chairman of the international editorial board of the World Socialist Web Site. The book is available for preorder today at Mehring Books.

German court sentences former SS Auschwitz guard to five years imprisonment

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 05:00:00 GMT

A court in Detmold found 94-year-old Reinhold Hanning guilty of complicity in the murders of 170,000 people.

The Strategy of the Intermarium—Part 4

Fri, 03 Jun 2016 05:00:00 GMT

This is the final part of a series reviewing the history of the Intermarium, which was developed as a bourgeois nationalist antipode to the United Socialist States of Europe as proposed by Leon Trotsky.

The Strategy of the Intermarium—Part 3

Thu, 02 Jun 2016 05:00:00 GMT

This is the third part of a series reviewing the history of the Intermarium, which was developed as a bourgeois nationalist antipode to the United Socialist States of Europe as proposed by Leon Trotsky.

May Day 2016: Introductory report by David North

Mon, 02 May 2016 05:00:00 GMT

We are publishing here the introductory remarks to the International Online May Day Rally by David North, chairman of the WSWS International Editorial Board and national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party (US).

A comment on demoralized opportunists

Tue, 19 Apr 2016 05:00:00 GMT

The anti-Trotskyist blog site of Alex Steiner and Frank Brenner recently reported on a meeting that they hosted in Brooklyn, New York, on April 12.

Behind the designation of Russia and China as “imperialist”: A case study in theoretical charlatanry

Thu, 14 Apr 2016 05:00:00 GMT

The politically reactionary implications of the definition of Russia and China as imperialist powers are exposed by the positions of the German-based Revolutionary Communist International Tendency.

Marxism and the pseudo-left: David North interviewed at Leipzig Book Fair

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 05:00:00 GMT

Following a presentation of the new German edition of The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo-Left, North was interviewed by the newspaper Schattenblick on the theoretical and political issues addressed in his book.

The political economy of endless austerity

Thu, 31 Mar 2016 05:00:00 GMT

The imposition of austerity is determined not by a lack of economic resources, but by the relentless logic of the profit system.

David North addresses Sri Lankan SEP launch of Sinhala edition of The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century

Tue, 22 Mar 2016 05:00:00 GMT

Publication of this new translation of David North’s The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century will contribute significantly to the education of workers and youth in Sri Lanka.

Colombo meeting launches Sinhala translation of The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century

Tue, 22 Mar 2016 05:00:00 GMT

SEP general secretary Wije Dias stressed that the book’s exposure of historical falsifications was “a weapon in the revolutionary struggles of the future.”

Who would celebrate Hitler today?: The German satirical film Look Who’s Back

Wed, 16 Dec 2015 05:00:00 GMT

The satirical film, based on the novel of the same title by Timur Vermes, has been seen by over two million people, making it one of the most watched in Germany this year.

Seventy years since the Nuremberg Trials

Thu, 03 Dec 2015 05:00:00 GMT

The post-World War II trials led to the adoption of the Nuremberg principles, forbidding aggressive war as the greatest international crime.

Meetings in Germany mark the 75th anniversary of the death of Leon Trotsky

Mon, 23 Nov 2015 05:00:00 GMT

Over 200 people participated in meetings organised by the International Youth and Students for Social Equality in the cities of Berlin, Frankfurt and Bochum.

Security and the Fourth International, the Gelfand Case and the deposition of Mark Zborowski

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 05:00:00 GMT

Netanyahu’s apology for Hitler

Fri, 23 Oct 2015 05:00:00 GMT

The Israeli prime minister has foully slandered the Palestinian people by attributing to them the responsibility for the Holocaust.

A world convulsed by crises

Sat, 12 Sep 2015 05:00:00 GMT

Crisis is not the exception, but the rule. The very speed of events, with virtually no intervals of calm between the storms, denotes an intensifying general crisis.

IYSSE, SEP (Australia) lectures: 100 years since the Zimmerwald conference

Thu, 06 Aug 2015 05:00:00 GMT

The issues that erupted at Zimmerwald a century ago have the most decisive contemporary significance.

What is the pseudo-left?

Thu, 30 Jul 2015 05:00:00 GMT

Political developments in Greece in recent months are a striking confirmation of the WSWS's analysis of “pseudo-left” tendencies.

Foreword to The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism and the Politics of the Pseudo-Left: A Marxist Critique

Thu, 23 Jul 2015 05:00:00 GMT

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.

A review of Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928: Part one

Mon, 01 Jun 2015 05:00:00 GMT

Stephen Kotkin’s first volume of a projected three-volume biography of Stalin, published by Penguin Press, is a travesty of historical writing.

Germany: Auschwitz survivors testify against former SS officer

Tue, 12 May 2015 05:00:00 GMT

The prosecution of former SS officer Oskar Gröning has highlighted his role in crimes against humanity.

The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century published in German

Mon, 02 Mar 2015 05:00:00 GMT

David North’s book is essential in providing a political orientation and formulating a socialist response to the global crisis of capitalism.

The 100th anniversary of the World War I Christmas truce

Wed, 24 Dec 2014 05:00:00 GMT

The enduring lesson of the Christmas truce, which has burning relevance today, is that the spontaneous international solidarity of the working class soldiers had been betrayed months before by the collapse of the Second International.

Wide audience for online interview with David North, author of The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century

Mon, 15 Dec 2014 05:00:00 GMT

Many hundreds of people from over thirty countries listened to the interview held December 13.

The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century now available in eBook format

Wed, 03 Dec 2014 05:00:00 GMT

This book by David North is an essential addition to every Marxist library.

Small audiences mark Remembrance Day in Australia

Thu, 13 Nov 2014 05:00:00 GMT

The “Eleventh of the Eleventh” is considered of secondary importance by the Australian ruling elite in promoting patriotism.

German intellectuals in World War I

Mon, 20 Oct 2014 05:00:00 GMT

In 1914, German intellectuals launched an “Appeal to the Civilized World” to justify imperialist war. Today, their heirs hypocritically invoke “human rights” to build popular support for war.

Australian government “celebrates” first WWI military action

Tue, 19 Aug 2014 05:00:00 GMT

The seizure of Germany’s Pacific colonies underlined the real character of World War I as an imperialist war.

One hundred years since the outbreak of World War I

Tue, 05 Aug 2014 05:00:00 GMT

The only progressive solution was not the victory of one or another imperialist power, but the overthrow of the capitalist system.

The lessons of August 4, 1914

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 05:00:00 GMT

One hundred years ago, the social democracy’s vote for war credits in World War I sounded the death knell of the epoch of national programs for the working class.

One hundred years since Sarajevo

Sat, 28 Jun 2014 05:00:00 GMT

Today marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the event that triggered the outbreak of World War I.

The diary of Lena Mukhina: An important document on the Leningrad blockade

Wed, 11 Jun 2014 05:00:00 GMT

Lena’s Diary is an important historical document relating to one of most horrific, although often forgotten, war crimes of German imperialism.

Nationalism and fascism in Ukraine: A historical overview

Tue, 10 Jun 2014 05:00:00 GMT

The collaboration of Germany and the US with Ukrainian fascists has historical precedents reaching back 100 years.

Nationalism and fascism in Ukraine: A historical overview

Mon, 09 Jun 2014 05:00:00 GMT

The collaboration of Germany and the US with Ukrainian fascists has historical precedents reaching back 100 years.

D-Day anniversary: Commemorating the Second World War and preparing the Third

Sat, 07 Jun 2014 05:00:00 GMT

The presence of a dwindling band of survivors of World War II—the greatest exercise in mass killing in the history of the planet—only underscored the boundless hypocrisy of the official ceremonies.

Financial Times’ attack on Piketty under fire

Fri, 30 May 2014 05:00:00 GMT

The Financial Times’ scurrilous attack on Thomas Piketty has been opposed by those working in the field of economic and social inequality.

Australian columnist lauds World War I as a “just war”

Mon, 12 May 2014 05:00:00 GMT

The language used by Sheridan resonates with his portrayal of US and Australian foreign policy as a justified response to China’s “military build-up.”

French TV documentary: “Shoah by Shooting—SS Death Squads in Ukraine”

Tue, 22 Apr 2014 05:00:00 GMT

Earlier this year, the French television documentary “Shoah by Shooting—Death Squads in Ukraine” was released on DVD in Germany.

Paul Keating’s Remembrance Day address: Nationalist myth-making to glorify World War I

Thu, 28 Nov 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Keating’s speech was an attempt to explain away any concerns about commemorating the war and glorify Australia’s involvement.

Eighty years since Hitler’s coming to power

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Leon Trotsky drew far-reaching conclusions from the disastrous defeat of the German working class in 1933.

A reader reviews Tsar to Lenin

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 05:00:00 GMT

A WSWS reader has written in with a comment on the unique documentary film Tsar to Lenin, available from Mehring Books.

British historian Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012)

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 05:00:00 GMT

On October 1, noted British historian Eric Hobsbawm died at the Royal Free Hospital in London. He was 95.

The historical significance and enduring political relevance of the 1917 Russian Revolution

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 05:00:00 GMT

In this series of meetings in the US, Socialist Equality Party National Chairman David North will introduce showings of Tsar to Lenin with a lecture on the Russian Revolution.

75 years since the Flint sit-down strike

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Today marks the 75th anniversary of a momentous chapter in the history of the American and international working class—the beginning of the Flint sit-down strike.

Arthur Ransome and the Bolshevik Revolution

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 05:00:00 GMT

This is the first in a three-part consideration of the English author Arthur Ransome, particularly as regards his relationship to the October 1917 revolution in Russia.

Revolution and Counterrevolution in Spain by Felix Morrow

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Mehring Books is making available for online purchase Felix Morrow’s Revolution and Counterrevolution in Spain.

The historical falsification of Rosa Luxemburg's heritage by the German Left Party

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 05:00:00 GMT

In a vulgar attempt to distort Rosa Luxemburg’s writings, the German Left Party resorts to interpreting passages out of context in order to justify their own opportunism.

Marxism and the Holocaust

Sat, 15 May 2010 05:00:00 GMT

The following is an addendum to the lecture “Imperialism and the political economy of the Holocaust,” delivered by Nick Beams at San Diego State University on April 29.

Imperialism and the political economy of the Holocaust

Wed, 12 May 2010 05:00:00 GMT

This lecture was delivered at San Diego State University on April 29. It was the eighth in a series entitled "Killing for a higher cause: Political violence in a world in crisis" sponsored by the Institute on World Affairs within the Political Science Department of the San Diego State University.

World War Two: Lessons and Warnings

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Nick Beams, national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia) and a member of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site, delivered a lecture on “World War Two: Lessons and Warnings” to audiences in Sydney and Melbourne in November, 2009.

Myths and legends about World War II exposed at Australian SEP public meetings

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The Socialist Equality Party in Australia held public meetings in Sydney and Melbourne this month on “Seventy years since World War II: lessons and warnings”.

The fall of the Berlin Wall

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The contradiction between the official celebrations and the lack of public enthusiasm over the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall speaks volumes about the real significance of the events of November 1989.

Statement of the Bund Sozialistischer Arbeiter, October 18, 1989—Part 2

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

This statement by the Central Committee of the Bund Sozialistischer Arbeiter, the predecessor of the Partei für Soziale Gleichheit (Socialist Equality Party of Germany), was issued on October 18, 1989. Today we are posting the second of three parts of the statement.

European Trotskyists mark seventieth anniversary of World War II

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

On October 11 in London, the European sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International held a joint meeting on the lessons of the Second World War. We publish here the remarks made by Françoise Thull, a member of the Socialist Equality Party in Germany (Partei Partei für Soziale Gleichheit, PSG), who spoke on the experiences of her family in France during that period.

“It was industrialised slaughter on an unimaginable scale”

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:00:00 GMT

On October 11 in London, the European sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International held a joint meeting on the lessons of the Second World War. We publish here the remarks made by veteran Trotskyist and SEP (UK) Central Committee member Barbara Slaughter.

European Trotskyists mark 70th anniversary of World War II

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The following is a contribution by WSWS Editorial Board member Julie Hyland to an October 11 meeting convened by the European sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International to consider the lessons of the Second World War.

“Socialism in One Country” and the Soviet economic debates of the 1920s

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The lectures deal with some of the crucial conflicts over economic policy in the Soviet Union during the 1920s. One of the motivations for the lectures was to answer the distortions advanced by the British academic Geoffrey Swain in his book Trotsky published in 2006.

World War II: The essential lessons

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

World War II engulfed the entire European continent, pitting all of the continental powers in the bloodiest slaughter in world history.

Seventy years since World War II

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:00:00 GMT

World War II was the bloodiest and most tragic event in world history. Up to 70 million people lost their lives during the six year conflict. It witnessed unimaginable barbarism, including above all the mass murder of 6 million European Jews by the Nazis. The war ended with the dropping of the atomic bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

75th anniversary of the Minneapolis truck drivers’ strike—Part four

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The final part of a four-part series on the 1934 Minneapolis general truck drivers’ strike.

75th anniversary of the Minneapolis truck drivers’ strike—Part three

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The third part of a four-part series on the 1934 Minneapolis general truck drivers’ strike.

75th anniversary of the Minneapolis truck drivers’ strike–Part one

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The first part of a four-part series on the 1934 Minneapolis general truck drivers’ strike.

70 years since the Hitler-Stalin Pact

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Seventy years ago, Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov met in Moscow to sign a hastily-negotiated Non-Aggression Pact between Hitlerite Germany and the USSR.

“Socialism in One Country” and the Soviet economic debates of the 1920s—Part 2

Thu, 07 May 2009 05:00:00 GMT

This is the second of two lectures delivered at an SEP summer school in August 2007 that deal with some of the crucial conflicts over economic policy in the Soviet Union during the 1920s.

The struggle against centrism and the founding of the Fourth International

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The five years between Trotsky’s call for the Fourth International in 1933 and the holding of a founding conference in 1938 were marked by a continuous struggle against a wide range of centrist political organizations active during this period, particularly in Europe , many of which professed sympathy with Trotsky’s perspective and some of which declared themselves for the Fourth International.

The Revolution Betrayed and the fate of the Soviet Union

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:00:00 GMT

An understanding the Russian Revolution and the Soviet state—their rise and subsequent degeneration—is critical in politically arming the working class by learning the lessons of the twentieth century in order to prepare for the struggles of the twenty-first.

The tragedy of the 1925-1927 Chinese Revolution

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The rise and fall of the 1925-1927 Second Chinese Revolution was one of the most significant political events of the twentieth century. One cannot understand modern Chinese history without examining its lessons.

The tragedy of the 1925-1927 Chinese Revolution

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

The tragedy of the 1925-1927 Chinese Revolution

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Stalin, Trotsky and the 1926 British general strike

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Bereft of any revolutionary guidance from the Communist Party of Great Britain, the working class had no possibility of arming itself against the role of the lefts who were being continually boosted under the Comintern’s orders.

Letters from our readers

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

A selection of recent letters sent to the World Socialist Web Site.

The Communist Manifesto

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 05:00:00 GMT

The manifesto, written in the months prior to the revolutionary wave of 1848 and distributed throughout Europe, is the first definitive statement of the methods and aims of the Communist movement. It introduces the materialist conception of history and of the class struggle, explaining how bourgeois society, having sprung up amid the formation of a world market, simplifies and intensifies class antagonisms by creating the proletariat, a class which has no property aside from its own ability to labor. It explains and refutes objections to the basic demands of the Communist movement, and offers remarkably concise yet profound statements of many of the fundamental tenets of Marxism -- for instance, the state as a "committee for managing the affairs of the entire bourgeoisie," internationalism ("workingmen have no fatherland"), and the role of the political party: "Every class struggle is a political struggle." It closes with an analysis and criticism of other parties, socialist ideologies, and oppositional tendencies.

Declassified grand jury transcripts confirm frame-up of Ethel Rosenberg

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 05:00:00 GMT

The recent release of previously secret grand jury transcripts has revealed that crucial testimony was perjured in the conviction and 1953 execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union.

1968: The general strike and the student revolt in France

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 05:00:00 GMT

This is the eighth and final part in a series of articles dealing with the events of May/June 1968 in France.

1968: The general strike and the student revolt in France

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:00:00 GMT

This is the sixth in series of articles dealing with the events of May/June 1968 in France.

1968: The general strike and the student revolt in France

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:00:00 GMT

The Organization Communiste Internationaliste (OCI) officially broke with the International Committee of the Fourth International in 1971, but the political course it pursued in 1968 was already far removed from the revolutionary perspective it had defended, along with other ICFI sections, against Pabloite revisionism at the beginning of the 1950s.

Hegel, Marx, Engels, and the Origins of Marxism

Wed, 03 May 2006 05:00:00 GMT

The following is second of a two-part series. The first part can be read here.

Hegel, Marx, Engels, and the Origins of Marxism

Tue, 02 May 2006 05:00:00 GMT

The following is the first of a two-part series. The second part will be posted tomorrow.

International school examines the century’s central problems of history, politics and culture

Sat, 31 Oct 1998 05:00:00 GMT

The International Summer School held in early January by the International Committee of the Fourth International and the Socialist Equality Party of Australia represented a milestone in the revival of classical Marxism. Entitled "Marxism and the Fundamental Problems of the Twentieth Century," the school, held in Sydney from January 3 to 10, was the first such international symposium organized by the world Trotskyist movement.

International school examines the century's central problems of history, politics and culture

Sat, 31 Jan 1998 05:00:00 GMT

Castroism and the Politics of Petty-Bourgeois Nationalism

Wed, 07 Jan 1998 05:00:00 GMT

This lecture was delivered on January 7, 1998 to the International Summer School on Marxism and the Fundamental Problems of the 20th Century, organised by the Socialist Equality Party (Australia) in Sydney, from January 3-10, 1998.

Stalinism in Eastern Europe: the Rise and Fall of the GDR

Tue, 06 Jan 1998 05:00:00 GMT

ICFI Secretary Peter Schwarz explains the historical origins of the East German state and demonstrates that Stalinism, not socialism, existed there.

The Significance and Implications of Globalisation

Sun, 04 Jan 1998 05:00:00 GMT

The globalisation of production has prepared a new period of social revolution. This is the inevitable outcome of the vast changes in the structure of world capitalist economy over the past two decades -- the culmination of processes stretching back over 200 years.

The Aesthetic Component of Socialism

Sat, 03 Jan 1998 05:00:00 GMT

Art expresses things about life, about people and about oneself that are not revealed in political or scientific thought. To become whole, human beings require the truth about the world, and themselves, that art offers.