Finding a Route to Socialism USA

Alan Jones is a member of Socialist Alternative in the US. At the end of June, amid a growing discussion about socialism in the US, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote an important op-ed in the New York Times entitled ‘Socialism’s Future May Be Its Past’. ALAN JONES wrote a contribution on behalf of Socialist Alternative. This is […]

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July 1917: The Bolsheviks “become a power”

Vincent Kolo is a contributor to chinaworker.info. A century ago this week, 500,000 workers and soldiers marched through the Russian capital Petrograd, with tens of thousands joining marches in Moscow, Kiev and other cities. The demonstrations on 1 July (18 June according to Russia’s old calendar), called by the pro-government socialist parties who at that […]

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Russian Revolution: May and June 1917

Niall Mulholland is a member of the Committee for a Workers’ International. May and June: Provisional Government weak but revolutionary movement not yet able to take power The situation is one of dual power: the weakness of the Provisional Government is becoming increasingly clear; the revolutionary movement not yet able to take control. Right-wing social […]

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100 Years Ago, A Forgotten Soviet Revolution in LGBTQ Rights

Edmund Schluessel is a member of Sosialistinen Vaihtoehto (CWI in Finland). Review of Dan Healey’s book: Homosexual Desire in Revolutionary Russia The socialist October Revolution in 1917 brought about fundamental, thoroughgoing changes in Russian society. Millions of people in the largest country on Earth quickly found themselves far freer than they had ever been under the […]

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Socialist Alternative Magazine #6

150 Years Capitalism, Colonialism, Corruption, and Resistance BC Liberals rule for the Rich Food Workers Win in Toronto Trudeau Shows Real Colours Over 150 Years of Indigenous Colonization Immigration: Exploitation and Exclusion Workers Built Canada Nova Scotia Teachers’ Strike NAFTA: “Free Trade” Without Freedom … and more from Canada and the World   If you […]

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Russian Revolution: April 1917: How the Bolsheviks re-orientated

Paula Mitchell is a member of the Socialist Party (CWI in England & Wales). On 3 April 1917, Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from exile. Lenin’s arrival turned the Bolshevik party upside down and changed the course of history. Just weeks earlier, demanding an end to the bloody slaughter of World War One, the masses of […]

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Alexandra Kollontai: Pioneer of the Struggle for Socialism and Women’s Liberation

As a new generation of women move into struggle, Christine Thomas looks back at the life and ideas of the Russian revolutionary, Alexandra Kollontai, a pioneer of the struggle for socialism and women’s liberation. Alexandra Kollontai is probably the best-known woman among Russian revolutionaries, the first woman elected as a full member of the Bolshevik […]

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Russian Revolution: Overthrow of the Tsar to Edge of Power: February to October

The February revolution in Russia, started by women striking on International Working Women’s Day, quickly pushed aside the Tsar. The main demands were Bread, Peace and Down with the Autocracy (feudal dictatorship). The next nine months were a living struggle around these slogans. A revolution is not an event; it is a process. Two Opposing […]

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Russian Revolution: March 1917 – After the fall of Czarism, what next for the revolution?

Robert Bechert is a member of the Committee for a Workers’ International. The overthrow of Tsarist rule in February and the winning of some important democratic rights did not mean the end of the revolution. Rather it was the beginning of the struggle to determine what would be the shape of the new Russia that […]

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Early Soviet propagand poster inviting women to join the Revolution

Women and the Russian Revolution

Heather Rawling is a member of the Socialist Party (CWI in England & Wales). Striking women workers kick-started the February 1917 revolution then, following the Bolshevik-led October revolution, women gained full legal equality with men. The preceding period had seen an intense battle of ideas between various strands of feminism – debates which are just […]

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