Historic events

80th anniversary of the Wall Street Crash: Capitalist failure - then and now

Scant attention has been paid in the media to the 80th anniversary of the October 1929 Wall Street crash. The capitalists can hardly repeat their theme of yesterday - "it can never happen again."
Peter Taaffe, general secretary of the Socialist Party, takes a look at how much of it really has happened again, and spells out the underlying cause.

Newport Rising 1839

Feature: ON 4 November 1839, 170 years ago, the 'Chartist Rising' in Newport, south Wales, ended in bloodshed. DAVE REID explains the background to one of the first workers' insurrections in history.

1949 - Chinese revolution

IT IS an especially nervous Communist Party (CCP) regime that presides over the 60th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the People's Republic of China on 1 October...

The Dirty Thirty - Heroes of the Miners' Strike

The term 'Dirty Thirty' has lived on long after the miners' strike ended in 1985, writes Tony Church. It was the name given to a small band of Leicestershire NUM members, who joined the year long strike in spite of their...

Return of al-Magrahi to Libya ignites a political storm

Justice Secretary Jack Straw has denied any 'oil for al-Magrahi' deal with Libya. However, according to The Times, Straw was personally lobbied by oil giant BP over Britain's prisoner transfer agreement...

Marxism and the Second World War

Peter Taaffe writes in the latest Socialism Today, magazine of the Socialist Party.

August 1969: Northern Ireland explodes - 'the troubles' begin

THE EVENTS of August 1969 were an historical turning point for Northern Ireland that echo down to this day. The first deaths of 'the troubles' occurred in 1969.

Ciaran Mulholland of the Socialist Party in Northern Ireland explains how the situation rapidly escalated to the brink of civil war and what lessons can be learnt from these events.

When workers shut down Minneapolis

75th anniversary of the "Teamster Rebellion": TODAY, FACED with the worst economic crisis since the 1930s Great Depression, it is crucial we learn how workers successfully defended themselves in the past...

Demanding justice for Shrewsbury 24

Around 400 trade unionists marched through Shrewsbury on Saturday 4 July in pursuit of justice for the 24 building workers who were put on trial in 1973 following their successful 1972 building workers strike, writes Dave Griffiths and Andy Ford.

25 years ago: Liverpool - a city that dared to fight

ON 9 July 1984 Liverpool City council, led by Militant (the Socialist Party's predecessor), won a sensational victory over the ruthless Tory government of Margaret Thatcher...

Billy Bragg's Miners' Strike Tour

UNDER THE South Wales area National Union of Mineworkers' banner with the words "Forward to a Socialist Britain and World Peace", singer Billy Bragg treated us to a great concert in Caernarfon on 11 June, writes Jan Underwood, Bangor Socialist Party.

The Masses Arise: The French revolution and today's struggles

The Masses Arise, by Peter Taaffe, which was first published in 1989 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the start of the French revolution, is now back in print, writes Kevin Parslow.
In a new introduction, the author recounts the events of the revolution, bringing out the heroic role of the sans-culottes - who have been vilified by right-wing historians - and the relevance of these events to what is likely to develop in the coming period in France, Europe and throughout the world. "This book is more relevant today than when it was first published in 1989," writes Peter Taaffe.

Tiananmen Square 1989: Counter-revolution crushes China's democracy movement

ON 3-4 June 1989, Deng Xiaoping and other aged leaders of China's so-called 'communist' party, ordered 200,000 troops to crush a two-month long movement of workers and students against bureaucratic rule and for workers' democracy...

Defeating the poll tax

Despite being "too young to remember the anti-poll tax battle", Bob Severn (The Socialist issue 578) rightly criticises the middle-class editors of a middle-class paper, the Independent, writes Rob Windsor, Socialist councillor and former anti-poll tax federation secretary, Coventry.

The Spanish Civil War: Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory

THE SPANISH civil war (1936-39) was the bloodiest stage in the ten year-long Spanish revolution that began in 1931. As Hannah Sell explains, Spain was a further confirmation of Leon Trotsky's theory of 'permanent revolution', which was earlier borne out in the Russian workers' socialist revolution of 1917.

The battle to defeat the Poll Tax

A landmark in working class struggle TWENTY YEARS ago the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher introduced the hated poll tax, first in Scotland to be followed one year later in England and Wales...

Lessons of the Jarrow Crusade: no return to the 1930s!

Economic recession with growing unemployment, poverty and deprivation - these are some of the spectres facing working-class and young people across Britain and the world. These problems were also faced by workers and youth in the 1930s.
Greg Maughan looks at the great Jarrow Crusade of the unemployed and draws out some of the lessons for fighting job cuts today.

Germany 1919 The Spartacist uprising

Historical feature: NINETY YEARS ago this month the German workers rose in the 'Spartacist uprising' - a turning point in the German revolution of 1917-1923 which led to the tragic deaths of revolutionary socialist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht...

France 1968: Be realistic - demand the impossible!

Book review: In times when the idea of a socialist revolution is treated as laughable, socialists are commonly asked: is a revolution possible in a rich country like Britain?

France 1968: Capitalism brought to its knees

FORTY YEARS ago this month, France was gripped by a revolutionary fever. Within days of a one-day general strike being called in solidarity with protesting students, ten million workers were on strike.