We Stand For Workers' Liberty

We Stand for Workers' Liberty (2006)

Linked below are the main articles and "extras" from our 2006 pamphlet We Stand for Workers' Liberty . Although many of the contents are dated, it still give a good overview of our politics and approach. The whole pamphlet as a PDF is here . 1. What is the Alliance for Workers' Liberty? Who was Karl Marx? What we do: the anti-union laws What AWL members do Who was Leon Trotsky? 2. The lies against socialism answered Workers against Stalinism: Poland 1980-81 Who was Joseph Stalin? What we do: solidarity Who was Che Guevara? 3. The socialism we fight for Who was Vladimir Lenin? Who was Rosa...

Le marxisme: quelle sorte de marxisme?

Traduction par Hugo Pouliot Texte provenant de la brochure We Stand for Workers Liberty (Nous défendons la liberté des travailleurs), publiée par l’organisation trotskyste britannique Alliance for Workers Liberty. L'AWL est trotskyste : ce qui veut dire que nous nous basons sur les idées et les luttes des bolcheviks loyaux qui, après avoir mené la Révolution russe en 1917, ont continué à résister à la contre-révolution stalinienne. Notre pierre de touche est l'indépendance politique de la classe ouvrière. Dans certaines situations, cette idée peut être résumée par l'expression "le troisième...

Qui était Che Guevara?

Texte provenant de la brochure We Stand for Workers Liberty (Nous défendons la liberté des travailleurs) publiée par l’organisation trotskyste britannique Alliance for Workers Liberty. Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-1967) est né dans une famille aisée de l’Argentine, est devenu un étudiant en médecine, puis après avoir voyagé à travers l’Amérique latine, il s'est engagé dans un groupe révolutionnaire oeuvrant à renverser la dictature corrompue de Batista à Cuba, qui à l'époque était soutenue par les Etats-Unis. Il est devenu un dirigeant de la guérilla qui pris le pouvoir à Cuba en 1959. En 1965...

Le socialisme pour lequel nous luttons

Un texte rédigé par l’Alliance for Workers Liberty (Alliance pour la liberté des travailleurs), une organisation trotskyste britannique, et qui explique leur conception du socialisme. Le socialisme est sans doute le mot le plus mal compris dans l'histoire. De nombreuses personnes décrivent les régimes meurtriers staliniens en Russie et Europe de l'Est qui se sont effondrés en 1989-91 comme ayant été socialistes. D'autres décrivent les tyrans désormais au pouvoir en Chine, la Corée du Nord et Cuba comme étant socialistes. Mais ces États n'ont rien à voir avec le socialisme. Pour l'AWL, le...

The Lies Against Socialism Answered

For most of the 20th century, the common image of "socialism" was the USSR and the other states modelled on it, China, Cuba, and so on. There were always socialists who were critical of Stalin's or Khrushchev's USSR, seeing it as an unacceptably bureaucratic version of socialism, and keen to create a more democratic version in their own countries. By the late 1960s or early 1970s, a big majority even in the official Communist Parties was highly critical of Brezhnev's USSR. But most of those who criticised the USSR clung to the idea that some other USSR-model state - China, Vietnam, Cuba.... -...

What is the Alliance for Workers' Liberty?

The Alliance for Workers' Liberty are socialists. We organise our daily activity mainly around two big ideas: 1. Workers' struggles; 2. Consistent democracy. Working class struggle Everything we do starts from workers in struggle. Capitalism, the present social system, is based on organising people into wage-labour, i.e. on having their time, energy, and skills used to create fat profits in return for a thin wage. By its very nature, it organises workers in large workplace and urban concentrations, exposes them to ideas and literature, and compels them to struggle for their wages and...

Who was Karl Marx?

Karl Marx (1818-83) was born into a middle-class family in Germany. At university he was one of many radically-minded philosophers. In his mid-20s, partly under the influence of workers' socialist groups he met during a stay in Paris, he decided to throw in his lot with the working class then emerging as a social force in Europe. He joined a group called the Communist League and wrote the famous Communist Manifesto for it. That appeared in early 1848. Within a few days revolutionary upheavals exploded in France and Germany (then ruled by monarchies, with very little space for democracy). From...

What we do: the anti-union laws

When they finally started to push back the militant trade unionism of the 1970s, the Tory governments of the 80s tried to screw down the lid by bringing in laws that fundamentally undermined trade unions' right to organise and take action. Meanwhile, a wave of privatisations and bankruptcies swept the British industrial landscape. Whole sectors of the economy (coal-mines, machine-tools, docks, newspaper printing, textiles, railways) were shattered and whole communities destroyed. The AWL wants unions to campaign for the repeal of all anti-union laws. But we just also make our union leaders...

What AWL members do

"The emancipation of the proletariat is not a labour of small account and of little people: only they who can keep their heart strong and their will as sharp as a sword when the general disillusionment is at its worst can be regarded as fighters for the working class or called revolutionaries" Antonio Gramsci. An activist - or member - of the AWL is expected to: guarantee a regular minimum of participation at AWL meetings (e.g. weekly branch meetings) and public activities (e.g. paper sales, street stalls, distribution of workplace bulletins). educate themselves politically; take part in our...

Who was Leon Trotsky?

Becoming a revolutionary in his teens, Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) led the Soviet (workers' council) in St Petersburg during Russia's 1905 revolution. From 1903 through to 1917 he was active in the Russian socialist movement (mostly from exile), but outside the two main factions, Bolsheviks and Mensheviks. In 1917 he joined the Bolsheviks (the party led by Lenin). He was the main leader of the revolutionary uprising in October 1917, and the main organiser of the Red Army which defended the new workers' government against Russian counter-revolutionaries and invading armies from no fewer than 14...

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