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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Igor Yasin is a member of Sotsialisticheskaya Alternativa (CWI in Russia). Reports of gay men being detained, tortured and killed by officials under the control of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, have hit headlines around the world and provoked anger and protests from LGBT, democratic rights and socialist activists. The Russian newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, reported that […]
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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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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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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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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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Vincent Kolo is a contributor to chinaworker.info. In the February Revolution of 1917, (March in today’s calendar) the centuries-old system of Russian tsarism came crashing down. It was the working class especially of the capital Petrograd that made this revolution, spurred into action by the heroic women workers. The emblem of the February Revolution was […]
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Russia in February 1917 was a mass of tensions and contradictions. The slaughter of war seemed endless, the countryside remained gripped by feudal backwardness, the workers in the cities were hungry and angry and millions of national minorities were locked in the oppression of the empire. The soldiers were often sent to the front without […]
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Clare Doyle is a member of the Committee for a Workers’ International. Demonstrations world-wide swelled by anti-Trump anger International Women’s Day (8th March) is being celebrated with special enthusiasm this year by members of the parties and organisations affiliated to the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI). It is a hundred years since women workers […]
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In 1917, the Russian people, especially the working class, took control of society and history. The October Revolution delivered Peace, Bread and Land by ending the slaughter of the Russian soldiers, cutting the working day to eight hours and distributing the feudal estates to the peasants. The new government introduced sweeping democratic gains for women, […]
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