Imperialism

The IRA in a West of Ireland Town in the 1930s

Below the great political generalities - opposition to British Imperialism, Partition, the "sell-out of Republican principles" by De Valera's constitutional Republican party, Fianna Fail - what was the IRA? Let us look at what it was in the 1930s in one area, Clare, and particularly in one town, Ennis, part of Eamonn De Valera's constituency. We are not, in this excursion, in which we will look at the labour movement in that town, wandering off the subject: we are trying to bring the IRA of that time and of such places, and the sort of people who joined it, into clearer focus. Republicanism is...

The IRA in a West of Ireland Town in the 1930s

Below the great political generalities - opposition to British Imperialism, Partition, the "sell-out of Republican principles" by De Valera's constitutionalRepublican party, Fianna Fail - what was the IRA? Let us look at what it was in the 1930s in one area, Clare, and particularly in one town, Ennis, part of Eamonn De Valera's constituency. We are not, in this excursion, in which we will look at the labour movement in that town, wandering off the subject: we are trying to bring the IRA of that time and of such places, and the sort of people who joined it, into clearer focus. Republicanism is...

The Russians Withdraw from Afghanistan (1988)

The withdrawal of Russian troops from Afghanistan must be perplexing for those on the left who supported their invasion or did not oppose their presence. They argued that Afghanistan was a different case from Vietnam or other battles against imperialism. The USSR claims to be socialist; and even if we reject this claim we can point to the frankly reactionary prograrnme of the Afghan rebels and the support for them from the United States. In comparison the Afghan government and its Russian backers are , if no more, 'progressive'. The People's Democratic Party (PDP) government which took power...

Homophobia: a colonial legacy

As the Commonwealth Games gets underway in Glasgow, various LGBTI rights groups have been raising awareness about the oppression of LGBTI people in the countries taking part. In 42 out of the 53 Commonwealth countries, same-sex relationships are a crime. In northern Nigeria, some states have the death penalty. The Commonwealth Charter does not mention LGBTI rights. Edwin Sesange, from the Out and Proud Diamond Group, writes in Gay Star News, 'This isn't about abstract “laws”. Legislation wrecks LGBTI people's lives, even leaving some of them dead. Millions of our [LGBTI] brothers and sisters...

The Prague Spring and after

1: April 1968: A "Cultural Revolution"? The unique liberalisation of the long frozen Stalinist regime in Czechoslovakia and the echoes across the border in Poland inevitably recall the events of 1956. That time, a series of shocks and explosions, beginning with the 20th. Congress of the CPSU and continuing with the workers' uprising in Posnan and the formation of the Polish Workers Councils, rapidly led to the Hungarian Revolution: a spontaneous rising of the working class to take power from the bureaucratic regime and the Russian Army. The spark which ignited Hungary was not only the mass...

Czech Imperialism and the National Question in Central Europe (1938)

Between the two imperialists world wars the Marxists considered Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Poland to be imperialist powers, because in these three states there were oppressed national minorities – Croats, Kosovars and others in Yugoslavia, Slovakians and Sudeten ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia, Ukrainians in Poland. If it could be taken apart from the entire context which in fact it had, and if German imperialism had not been German imperialism, Hitler's claim to the Sudetenland, where the majority wanted to unite with Germany, would have been more or less reasonable. In reality it was...

Back whoever contests US hegemony?

Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalisation and Empire by Radhika Desai is a wretched apology for some of the worst regimes on the planet, dressed up as critique of political economy. It demonstrates how the language and words of the classical Marxist tradition can be absconded and transformed into a world view subservient to the ruling classes of certain powerful, and ultimately imperialist or sub-imperialist states. Desai takes the idea of uneven and combined development (U&CD), which she attributes to the Bolsheviks rather than specifically Trotsky, and turns it into a means of...

The Old Left Continues To Rot (1994)

THE "George-Galloway-loves-Saddam-Hussein" affair gave the Tories a brief respite from their own scandals and sensational revelations last week. It brought no respite to socialists concerned at the continuing decay of the old left. It was the latest putrescent manifestation of that decay. The Tories needed the respite, and though in fact it was the BBC monitoring service which "broke" the story, we got tabloid front pages. Beneath the abuse, they must have loved George Galloway! "Where's your nose been Galloway? ...Presstuck up Saddam's junta, that's where!" grimly chortled the dingy Star. The...

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