Leon Trotsky

The history of Fascism in Europe is taught in school as if it was some kind of one-off, an aberration of mystical, unspeakable evil that will never be repeated.

Hundreds of hours of TV and in classrooms is spent pouring over details; the horrors of the Second World War, ...the concentration camps, and the Holocaust. However in terms of any real explanation for how these events came to happen in a modern, literate, industrialised society, we get little which goes beyond superficial study of the personalities; everything from the childhoods to the sex lives of the leading individuals.

Marxists seek to understand the world and the actions of people in it scientifically. Fascism grew out of a specific historical context: The aftermath of the First World War and the greatest crisis of capitalism in the 20th century.

Join Merseyside Workers’ Liberty for a discussion of how Fascism developed in war-exhausted and crisis-ridden Italy and Germany, how the powerful workers’ movements in those countries were politically disorientated and smashed, and what lessons our movement can draw from that experience in order to fight the likes of the BNP and EDL today...

Facebook event here: http://www.facebook.com/events/354771374543818/

Facebook event here.

To mark the 70th anniversary of his murder by a Stalinist agent, AWL North East London is hosting a series of discussions about different aspects of Leon Trotsky's revolutionary politics. Debate is welcome. The meetings will take place at 7:30pm every Tuesday (until Tuesday 2 November) and will include a short business/planning session for members of the AWL NE London branch. For more info, email Stuart (stuartjordan32@hotmail.com) or Daniel (skillz_999@hotmail.com).

Tuesday 2 November – Art and revolution

In 1927 Trotsky wrote what remains the definitive contribution to developing a Marxist theory of art. As Stalinist Moscow was churning out grim “socialist realism” and nauseating paintings of heroic peasants and labourers, Trotsky was collaborating with visionary artists such as André Breton to develop a conception of a “free revolutionary art.” We look at his ideas and how the debate between the Stalinist and anti-Stalinist theories of art played out down the decades.

Facebook event here.

To mark the 70th anniversary of his murder by a Stalinist agent, AWL North East London is hosting a series of discussions about different aspects of Leon Trotsky's revolutionary politics. Debate is welcome. The meetings will take place at 7:30pm every Tuesday (until Tuesday 2 November) and will include a short business/planning session for members of the AWL NE London branch. For more info, email Stuart (stuartjordan32@hotmail.com) or Daniel (skillz_999@hotmail.com).

Tuesday 19 October – the “French Turn”

In 1934, Trotskyists in France began working inside the SFIO (the broad equivalent of the British Labour Party). What can their experience tell us about how Trotskyists can relate to mass labour-movement parties of that kind?