Revolutionary Beethoven

A towering figure of music, Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770. He grew to be a genius of the European tradition of classical music. His life was a time of turmoil and revolution and at a crossroads of an artist’s relation with society. Beethoven’s musical beauty and genius is best understood in the context […]

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The Mexican Revolution: A Revolution Derailed (Part 1)

Mauro Espinola is a member of Alternativa Socialista (ISA in Mexico). The first of a series of articles that seeks to clarify and outline the nature of the Mexican Revolution from a class point of view. November 20 marked the 110th anniversary of the beginning of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, in which thousands of […]

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Friedrich Engels at 200: His Life and Work

Albert Kropf is a member of Sozialistische LinksPartei (ISA in Austria). Many want to drive a wedge between Marx and Engels for their own interpretations of Marxism and socialism. There is no either or, but only both together. Let us take a look at this in a brief foray into the wild life of Friedrich […]

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The Bitter Legacy of Margaret Thatcher

Mike Forster is a member of Socialist Alternative (England, Wales & Scotland). On November 28, 1990, 30 years ago, Margaret Thatcher tearfully tended her resignation as Tory Party leader and therefore by default, as prime minister of the UK, after 11 years in power. She was forced out by a Cabinet coup against her and […]

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70 Years Since the Death of George Orwell

Andy Ford is a member of Socialist Alternative (England, Wales & Scotland). 2020 marks 70 years since the untimely death of George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair) from tuberculosis in University College Hospital, London. His political and literary legacy has been fought over ever since. Early years Orwell was born in 1903 in Motihari, India, as […]

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Who’s in Favour of a Four-day Week?

There was that old Victorian, moralistic saying of drink being the curse of the working classes. Oscar Wilde wittily turned it around to read that work is the curse of the drinking classes. Can we consider work as a curse? A recent US survey found that 36 percent loved their job and was meaningful, nearly […]

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Book Review: The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins

Manus Lenihan is a member of the Socialist Party (ISA in Ireland). The Jarkarta Method presents a bold counter-history of the Cold War, showing how this colossal violence played an essential role in shaping the world we live in today. The beautiful Indonesian island of Bali attracts visitors from all over the world. But most […]

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Engels @ 200: A Revolutionary Thinker for a World in Turmoil

Katia Hancke is a member of the Socialist Party (ISA in Ireland). Friedrich Engels was born 200 years ago, yet as a thinker was profoundly radical and strikingly modern. While his lifelong collaboration with Karl Marx resulted in many co-authored works, as well as extensive correspondence between the two in which they developed their ideas […]

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Thousands of Nameless and Faceless Heroes — the History of the Trotskyist Left Opposition

George Martin Fell Brown is a member of Socialist Alternative in the US. Rob Jones is a member of Sotsialisticheskaya Alternativa (ISA in Russia) . On 20th August 1940, Lev Davidovich (Leon) Trotsky was brutally murdered by one of Stalin’s henchmen. To commemorate his work and examine his ideas International Socialist Alternative is publishing a […]

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Trotsky: A Biography by Pierre Broué Reviewed

Arne Johansson is a member of Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (ISA in Sweden). Pierre Broué takes us on a historic journey that begins with Lev “Lyova” Davidovich Bronstein’s birth on a Ukrainian farm in 1879, the early struggle of his teenage years to understand Marxism and his enthusiastic attempts to organise the Southern Russian Workers’ Union during […]

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