uprisings

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - Marek Edelman

Jewish fighters captured during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, 1943.

First-hand account of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising, and the increasingly inhumane living conditions imposed on the ghetto by the Nazis in the years leading up to it, told by Marek Edelman, member of the socialist Jewish Labour Bund and co-founder of the Polish anti-Nazi resistance group, the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB).

The March Intifada - Bahrain, 1965

The March Intifada in Bahrain, 1965 began with the laying off of hundreds of workers at the Bahrain Petroleum Company, school students protested, were suppressed by the military, and things developed into a general strike against British rule. Bahrain joined the UAE in 1968, and annual protests continued until 1972.

E07: The West Virginia mine wars, 1902-1922

Striking West Virginia miner, 1921

Podcast episode on the West Virginia mine wars 1902-1922. We speak with Catherine Moore and others from the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum, as well as some striking West Virginia teachers about the conflicts, and how they are remembered today.

1947: The February 28 Incident

An account of the brutal repression of anti corruption and police brutality protests in Taiwan by the Chinese (Republic of China) military and KMT occupation.

Class and Revolution in Ethiopia

Extracts from John Markakis and Naga Ayale's book 'Class and Revolution in Ethiopia', published in 1978, a year after Ayale was killed in one of the Derg's purges of the Ethiopian left.

The Experience of Local Councils in the Syrian Revolution

"We are not less that the workers of the Paris Commune... They lasted 70 days and we are still here since a year and a half." This is how the organic intellectual Omar Aziz described the revolution in Syria. On 17 February 2013, Aziz was martyred in Adra Central Prison.

The 1947 Malagasay uprising

In 1947 an insurrection broke out in Madagascar, beginning with raids on police stations in the East and South then quickly spreading across the island. The French colonial government doubled its defence force in response, and the subsequent repression led to an estimated 90,000 or more deaths. While the revolt has been attributed to the reformist MDRM party, two underground organisations, Vy Vato Sakelika (VVS) and JINA, were instrumental in the early stages, although even they stated later that they did not begin the insurgency. Strikers at Renault in Paris denounced the repression.

The post-war strike wave in East, West, and Southern Africa

From the end of the Second World War until the mid-'60s there was a wave of strikes in British East and West Africa, French West Africa, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The history of this class struggle has been neglected by both mainstream historians and most revolutionary tendencies based in Europe and the US.

Year of Fire, Year of Ash. The Soweto Revolt: Roots of a Revolution?

Baruch Hirson's seminal 1979 book on the Soweto Uprising.

Squatters and the State: Back Street Politics in the Islamic Republic - Asef Bayat

Map of Iran showing Mashhad

The early 1990s saw a period of renewed urban popular uprisings in Iran, unprecedented since the 1979 revolution. From August 1991 to August 1994, six major upheavals took place in Tehran, Shiraz, Arak, Mashhad, Ghazvin and Tabriz, and there were frequent minor clashes in many other urban centers. Most of these incidents involved urban squatters concerned with the destruction in their communities. This was the case in Tehran, Shiraz, Arak, Mashhad and Khorramabad.