revolutions

The Chinese revolution 1925-1927

Strikers during the 1925 Hong Kong general strike

A short account of the mass struggles in China from 1925 up to the Shanghai insurrection of 1927 and its crushing by the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek, who was supported by the Chinese Communist Party.

Maps of revolutions

Map showing the sites of workers councils established during the revolution

An archive of maps showing the extent of various revolutionary periods and general strikes. For reference purposes.

Workers' control in Latin America, 1930-1979 - Jonathan C Brown

Peruvian miners on strike, 2008

A series of essays investigating the everyday acts through which Latin American workers attempted to assert more control over work processes and thereby add dignity to their lives, during the mass working class struggles in the mid-20th century. We do not agree with the leftist nationalist perspective of some of the essays but reproduce them all for the historical information therein.

When insurrections die - Gilles Dauvé

This is a reconceived version of 'Fascism and Anti-Fascism'. In this text, Dauvé shows how the wave of proletarian revolts in the first half of the twentieth century failed: either because they were crushed by the vicissitudes of war and ideology, or because their “victories” took the form of counter-revolutions themselves, setting up social systems which, in their reliance on monetary exchange and wage-labour, failed to transcend capitalism.

Fear the everyday state

"The nation is not a hotel we desert when the service worsens. We remain here."

On the fifth anniversary of the fall of Egypt's president Mubarak, this is an account of the uprising, and the ebb and flow of the Egyptian revolution, by Wahid, an activist in Cairo.

Ancient utopia and peasant revolts in China - Ngo Van Xuyet

The last essay completed by the veteran Vietnamese council communist, written in 2004 when he was 91 years old, is a brief introduction to the history of peasant revolts in China, with special emphasis on their Taoist origins and utopian and libertarian inspirations, and features many interesting quotations from historical and religious texts.

The Finnish Class War 1918

A brief piece explaining that the Finnish Civil War of 1918 was, contrary to rightist claims, in fact, a class war.

The great French revolution, 1789-1793 - Peter Kropotkin

"Liberty leading the People" by Eugène Delacroix

Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin's extensive history and analysis of the French Revolution of 1789.

Revolutionary government - Peter Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin, the founding father of collectivist anarchism, on why "revolutionary government" is a contradiction in terms.

Anti-capitalism or anti-imperialism? Interwar authoritarian and fascist sources of a reactionary ideology: The case of the Bolivian MNR

Loren Goldner's detailed account and analysis of the Bolivian Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR) which was the key player in the 1952 national revolution, and which was supported by the left despite its pro-fascist, corporatist tendencies.