Julius Martov and the Anti-Bolshevik Approach To Revolution

Final talk from the 'Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made' lecture series and, aptly enough, the lecture dates from 25 years to the day.

Socialist meetings on a Boxing Day? Those were the days.

The sound quality of the recording is not the greatest but, remember, when I did originally introduce these old recordings on the blog, I did introduce them as, The SPGB: the basement tapes. The political quality of the recordings has been immeasurable, and I hope that other comrades in the SPGB tradition will look to upload further talks and debates on the Party website and/or their blogs.

Martov was an important socialist thinker and activist from the first two decades of the twentieth century, and I hope that readers will also take the time to check out the links below for further information about Martov and the period under discussion.

First Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: Martov and the Anti-Bolshevik Approach To Revolution

FILE NAME: martov part one.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~67.40 megabytes

LENGTH:1:13:10

Second Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: Martov and the Anti-Bolshevik Approach To Revolution

FILE NAME: martov part two.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~27.24 megabytes

LENGTH: 29:34

Further Reading on Julius Martov:

Julius Martov on the Marxist Internet Archive

Julius Martov page at Spartacus.Net

The State and the Socialist Revolution by Julius Martov

Review of Martov's 'The State and the Socialist Revolution' (From an issue of the Socialist Standard that dates from 1940.)

Martov: a Russian Social-Democrat (A review of Israel Getzler's biography of Julius Martov that first appeared in the November 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard.)

The role of the soviets in Russia's bourgeois revolution: the point of view of Julius Martov by Adam Buick (Originally published in the French political journal, Economies et societes, cahiers de l'ISMEA, Paris, serie S, Number 18, April-May 1976 issue.)

William Morris's Vision of Socialism

Penultimate talk from the 'Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made' lecture series.

According to the Socialist Standard of the time, the talk dates from Sunday 12 December 1982, and was held at the Prince Albert pub in Kings Cross, London.

First Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: William Morris's Vision of Socialism

FILE NAME: 02 william morris Part 1.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~60.58 megabytes

LENGTH:1:05:46

Second Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: William Morris's Vision of Socialism

FILE NAME: 03 William Morris Part 2.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~50.57 megabytes

LENGTH: 54:54

Further Reading on William Morris:

William Morris on the Marxist Internet Archive

The William Morris Society

William Morris: Life and Times (From the Socialist Standard, 1984)

Morris and the Problem of Reform or Revolution (From the Socialist Standard, 1984)

Art, Labour & Socialism by William Morris . . . With a Modern Assessment (SPGB pamphlet from 1962.)

Belfort Bax and the "Ethics of Socialism"

Down to the final three talks in the 1982 'Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made' lecture series. Once again, the speaker/lecturer is Steve Coleman, and this time the socialist thinker under discussion is Ernest Belfort Bax.

Down the years, Bax is someone who has been pretty much written out of the history of the nineteenth century British Socialist Movement.

Whilst Hyndman is always on hand to take on the role of the Victorian villain for the failure of the Marxist Left in Britain for not fully integrating into the wider Labour Movement, and William Morris gets rediscovered every generation via a new biography and/or a new exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Bax, who was a comparable heavyweight figure in the Social Democratic Federation in the 1880s and was a major player - alongside Morris, Aveling and Eleanor Marx - in the Socialist League split from the SDF in 1885, if he is known at all, is best known these days for his virulent anti-feminism in the latter years of his political life, and his capitulation to British chauvinism at the outbreak of the First World War.

In recent years, Old Skool Trotskyist, Ted Crawford, (Officer Class), has done sterling work in creating a Bax archive on the Marxist Internet Archive which is comparable to many of the better known socialist writers on the website. And more background on Bax is available via Ted's autobiographical sketch on the Marxist Internet Archive website.

First Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: Belfort Bax and the "Ethics of Socialism"

FILE NAME: 02 Belfort Bax and the Ethics of Socialism Part 1.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~59.47 megabytes

LENGTH:1:04:33

Second Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: Belfort Bax and the "Ethics of Socialism"

FILE NAME: 01 Belfort Bax and the Ethics of Socialism part 2.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~41.88 megabytes

LENGTH: 56:01

Further Reading on Ernest Belfort Bax:

Bax on the Marxist Internet Archive

From the August 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard: Eleanor Marx, Belfort Bax and “the Woman Question”

Karl Kautsky and the Socialist Critique of Religion

Another talk in the 1982 'Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made' lecture series. Once again, the speaker/lecturer is Steve Coleman.

Don't mind the accompanying picture for the post. Thought I'd indulge myself by using the front cover of Dick Geary's 1987 biography of Kautsky that was published as part of the 'Lives of the Left' series.

Those were the days . . . when I used to read books.

First Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: Karl Kautsky and the Socialist Critique of Religion

FILE NAME: 02 Karl Kautsky and the Socialist Critique of Religion.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~46.17 megabytes

LENGTH:50:07

Second Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: Karl Kautsky and the Socialist Critique of Religion

FILE NAME: 03 Karl Kautsky and the Socialist Critique of Religion Part 2.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~51.61 megabytes

LENGTH: 56:01

Further Reading on Karl Kautsky:

Kautsky on the Marxist Internet Archive

Plekhanov and the Materialist Conception of History

From further investigation - cheers RD - it looks like I've already buggered up the chronology of the 1982 'Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made' lecture series so, with that in mind, I'll just plump for the Steve Coleman talk on Georgi Plekhanov as the next one to be uploaded.

From listening again to the Plekhanov talk, I'm guessing that it was the first in the series, followed by the Dietzgen talk already posted, and then the talk on Karl Kautsky:

First Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: Plekhanov and the Materialist Conception of History

FILE NAME: 03 pleknanov 1.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~60.57 megabytes

LENGTH:1:05:45

Second Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: Plekhanov and the Materialist Conception of History

FILE NAME: 04 plekanov part 2.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~34.20 megabytes

LENGTH: 37:07

Further Reading on Plekhanov:

Plekhanov on the Marxist Internet Archive

Broken Socialist Scene

Links are being a bit weird at the moment. Thought I was going to have to delete the link to the first part of The Historical Place of the SPGB, as it didn't appear to be working 40 minutes ago but I just clicked on it a few minutes ago and it seems to be working again. I'm glad, 'cos the first part of the talk has now been downloaded/listened to 140 plus times* on ZShare, and it would have annoyed the hell out of me if I had to start over again.

Turns out that the link to the Mastering Marxian Economics article from the SPGB page on MySpace was also broken. It's since been fixed.

*Granted, I know that a few people have downloaded the talk more than once or twice.

Bronterre O’Brien and Working Class Radicalism 10/10/82

Back To The SPGB Basement Tapes

As promised, another old SPGB talk/lecture spirited from the vaults.

The following talk on the Chartist leader, James Bronterre O'Brien - split into three audio files for some reason - was, I think, the first lecture in a seven part series of talks which were grouped together under the title of, 'Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made', and dates from early October' 82. (A time when Musical Youth was number one; Luther Blissett was the most prolific striker in English football; and I was coasting headfirst into my worst ever School Report Card*).

Once again, the SPGB speaker is Steve Coleman - who gave all the talks in the lecture series - which suggests that I've got some sort of political man-crush on the bloke that knocks Will's love-blog to Christopher Hitchens into the bleachers**, but probably owes more to the fact that once upon a time I was a labour history nut, and that was Coleman's field of expertise.

On the subject of O'Brien himself, I can't pretend to know a hell of a lot about him beyond what I've read in the past in the general histories of Chartism. He was always there or there about in the books about that tumultous period, but obviously the likes of Fergus O'Connor, Ernest Jones and Julian Harney always seemed to take top billing in such narratives.

What I do find interesting about O'Brien is that from what I remember of Stan Shipley's 'Club Life and Socialism in Mid-Victorian London', he had a dedicated group of supporters/followers who carried the mantle of his politics and legacy long after the slow political death of Chartism in the early 1850s, and this group of radicalised workers were one of the few groups who tried to sustain any sort of genuine independent working class politics during the difficult times of the 1850/60s.

Before I forget, an old quote from O'Brien that I dug out once upon a time:

“Lift up your democratic heads, my friends! Look proud and be merry. I was at a meeting on Tuesday night which does one's heart good to think on. I have been present at all sorts of political meetings, Whig, Tory and Radical, but never was it my good fortune to witness so brilliant a display of democracy as that which shone forth at the Crown and Anchor on Tuesday night. I often despaired of Radicalism before; I will never despair again after what I witnessed on that occasion.” London Mercury, 4th March 1837

Christsake, doesn't matter if it's 1837, 1977 or 2007, it looks like us lefties will always fall victim to the 'After The Pub Shuts' syndrome. I'll have a Vodka and Red Bull, thanks.

First Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: Bronterre O’Brien and Working Class Radicalism

FILE NAME: part 1.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~44.70 megabytes

LENGTH: 48:31

Second Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: Bronterre O’Brien and Working Class Radicalism

FILE NAME: part 2.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~15.17 megabytes

LENGTH: 16:28

Third Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: Bronterre O’Brien and Working Class Radicalism

FILE NAME: part 3.mp3

FILE SIZE: ~20.97 megabyte

LENGTH: 22:46

More lectures in the same series to follow*** when I'm in need of a blog-filler to mask the bloggers block.

*If memory serves me right, out of nine subjects taken: five C minuses; two Cs; one B minus; one C plus; and one A plus. Happy days.

**"bleachers"? Can't stand baseball, but its terminology has invaded my vocabulary for some reason.

***Featuring such oddballs as Kautsky, Dietzgen, Bax and Plekhanov amongst others.

Reasons To Be Impossibilist: The Historical Place Of The SPGB

One for the political anoraks out there.

As hinted at in a previous post, via ZShare, I've uploaded an SPGB talk/lecture that dates from the early eighties (I've never been able to find the exact date or location of the talk, but I'm guessing the talk was organised by the old Islington Branch of the SPGB and that it dates from 81/82.)

The talk is entitled 'The Historical Place of the SPGB', and the speaker was Steve Coleman who, for many years, was an excellent speaker and writer for the SPGB but who dropped out of the Party about 6 or 7 years ago. He actually did his PhD on the early history of the SPGB, so I'm guessing that part of the talk is based on the research undertaken for his doctorate.

What with mentions of the Scottish District Council of the SDF, the Shoreditch Conference, Percy Freiburg and the impossibilist current within the Finsbury Park branch of the SDF, the talk is rather specialised and maybe not everybody's cup of tea but I hope some readers will give it a chance as they may find it of interest.

I also hope the sound quality is good enough. The recording was ripped from a cassette, and though the sound quality of the contributions from the audience at these early eighties SPGB meetings were always below par, the main speaker was always audible enough. (Insert conspiracy theory here.)

The audio file is split into two parts. As this is an experiment at my end, let me know if there were any glitches in downloading the mp3 files. I've got some other talks from the same period, and if this upload works without any hitch I'll upload the other talks when I get the inclination.

First Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: The Historical Place of the SPGB

FILE NAME: 01 Historical Place (Part 1).mp3

FILE SIZE: ~58.31 megabytes

LENGTH: 1:03:13

Second Part

DOWNLOAD LINK: The Historical Place of the SPGB

FILE NAME: 02 Historical Place (Part 2).mp3

FILE SIZE: ~51.39 megabytes

LENGTH: 55:42