Marxist history

Wandering in the Void: The Dead End of National Bolshevism

Wandering in the Void: The Dead End of National Bolshevism

National Bolshevism originated during a brief, disastrous moment in the 1920s when the German Communist Party attempted to appeal to working-class Nazi supporters with nationalist or even anti-semitic rhetoric. As Marxist historian Doug Enaa Greene shows, this shameful chapter still resonates today. Marxists should never be tempted to set aside our internationalism or anti-oppression principles in hopes of reaching the most backward workers.

Why Kautsky Was Wrong (and Why You Should Care)

Why Kautsky Was Wrong (and Why You Should Care)

During his lifetime, Karl Kautsky was such an influential theorist he was called the “Pope of Marxism” — but he was also famously branded “the renegade Kautsky” by Lenin for his betrayals of revolutionary socialism. In recent years there have been efforts to revive Kautskyism in order to justify reformism and electoralism. This approach is as wrong as it always was: Kautskyism remains a renegade socialism that is fundamentally opposed to revolution.

Years for the Locust? Part Two: Leninism Deformed

Years for the Locust? Part Two: Leninism Deformed

Continued from Part One After my first experiences with the International Socialist Organization (ISO), what convinced me to join was the sincere belief that my views and actions mattered. After meeting up with some comrades from the organization in early 2011, we...

Years for the Locust? Part One: The Myth of the Microsect

Years for the Locust? Part One: The Myth of the Microsect

Introduction “Trotsky considers the opportunist current and its leaders somewhat as victims of circumstances… There is no doubt that opportunism, like all else in the world has its objective causes in external conditions. But in politics more than anywhere else, to...

Building Followers and Bitter Dissidents, But Not Leaders

Building Followers and Bitter Dissidents, But Not Leaders

“A supporter of the theory of scientific communism does not take anything on word. He judges everything by reason and experience…. Bureaucratic and artificial discipline has crumbled to dust at the moment of danger. Revolutionary discipline does not exclude but...