Place: Russia/USSR

Biden’s Plan to Revamp American Imperialism

American socialists face the task of opposing American imperialism while showing internationalist solidarity with struggles for democracy, social reforms, and socialism in countries around the world.

Western Imperialism and the Role of Sub-imperialism in the Global South

An examination of the significance of BRICS countries as “sub-imperial” powers in the context of global capitalism and imperialism.

From the Russian Revolution to Russia Today

The relationship between Russia and the left from 1917.

Where to Begin? Growing Seeds of Liberation in a World Torn Asunder

What faces us in the post-COVID-19 world as we struggle to uproot capitalism and its malignant racism, sexism, heterosexism, and environmental destruction, both in theory and in practice?

Nine Years Against Assad

As Bashar al-Assad brutally crushes the last areas not under his control, Joseph Daher, Syrian socialist activist, gave this wide-ranging interview to the UK-based journal Socialist Resistance.

The Historical Retrieval and Controversy of Walter Rodney’s Russian Revolution

The posthumous publication of Walter Rodney’s book on the historiography of the Russian Revolution is a remarkable accomplishment of historical retrieval, and it provides us with an opportunity to look more deeply into Rodney’s relationship to Marxism, Soviet . . .

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Taking Stock, Settling Accounts: Coming to Terms with Stalinism

I have written at some length about my experience as a member of Workers World Party, which I left due to the organization’s flawed political practice. What I’ve said less about is my psychological and ideological state during this time. . . .

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Call for Solidarity with Uprisings in the Middle East & North Africa

This is a critical moment in the Middle East and North Africa. In 2019, uprisings have emerged in Sudan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon and Iran. All have opposed authoritarianism, neoliberalism, poverty, corruption, religious fundamentalism and sectarianism. Women have been active participants . . .

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Thirty Years since the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Remember when the Berlin Wall came down? I do.
Glued to TVs in DeKalb, Illinois, my college friends and I watched in envy and amazement as the young Berliners on our screens swarmed all over that unholy edifice attacking it with . . .

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On Gutter Journalism and Purported “Anti-Imperialism”

Gutter journalism is unfortunately not the preserve of openly right-wing tabloids. There has existed since the advent of Stalinism a “left-wing” strand of public mudslinging: Zhdanov was the counterpart of Goebbels. The Stalinist slander apparatus originally targeted the USSR’s left-wing . . .

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In Defense of Socialist Internationalism: Answering the Propaganda of the Authoritarian “Left”

We have been slimed. An article by Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal on the recent Socialism 2019 Conference — which appears on their rancid website, The GrayZone, and is apparently being widely circulated — is a scurrilous attack not only . . .

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Theoretical Lies of the World Bank

In 2019, the World Bank (WB) and the IMF will be 75 years old. These two international financial institutions (IFI), founded in 1944, are dominated by the USA and a few allied major powers who work to generalize policies that . . .

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Review: We Need To Talk About Putin

Mark Galeotti, We Need to Talk About Putin: How the West Gets Him Wrong (London: Ebury Press, 2019). 160 pp.

Call for the Formation of a Transnational Socialist-Humanist Solidarity Network

Critical developments around the globe compel the creation of a new type of transnational socialist and anti-authoritarian solidarity network.

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Russian Revolution

Muraskin and Epstein criticize Harrison’s view of the Russian Revolution; Harrison replies.

Indefensible: Idlib and the Left

A critique of the response to the suffering of Idlib by too much of the left.

Desperately seeking socialism: why the Soviet Union’s left-wing dissidents matter today

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The following text appeared on OpenDemocracy, and features a review by Gabriel Levy of Ilya Budraistkis’ book Dissidents Among Dissidents, a new collection of essays published in Russian in 2017 by Free Marxist Publishers. It was originally published on People and Nature

This new collection of essays seeks to rebalance our understanding of dissent in the late Soviet Union, drawing attention to democratic socialists from the 1950s into the 1980s.

War, Imperialism, and Class Polarization on a Global Scale

From East Asia to the Middle East and from South Africa to Europe

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Adapted from a presentation to the Chicago Convention of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization, July 13, 2018.

Revolution in a Warming World: Lessons from the Russian to the Syrian Revolutions

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It doesn’t take much imagination to associate climate change with revolution. If the planetary order upon which all societies are built starts breaking down, how can they possibly remain stable? Various more or less horrifying scenarios of upheaval have long been extrapolated from soaring temperatures. 

Une déclaration sur le voyage de Mélenchon en Russie

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This is a declaration signed by two French militants and a young Ukrainian left-wing activist describing the details of Jean-Luc Mélenchon's trip to Russia not long ago, and the scandal of the ignorance of part of the left under the pretext of anti-imperialism.

Beyond Fake News

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1. “All Governments Lie”

As 1950s investigative reporter I.F. (“Izzy”) Stone famously stated: “All governments lie.”[1] Fake news has historically been the weapon of the rulers, especially when in need of excuses for military aggression.

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