Workers' Liberty 8, October 1987

Poland: A Polish Petrograd

Zbigniew Kowalewski, a former leader of the left-wing in Solidarnosc, describes how Solidarnosc fought for workers' control in Lodz in 1980-1. This is an abridged translation of a chapter from his book, 'Rendez-nous nos usines'. Click here to download pdf .

Big screen blues: What's wrong with movies?

If most films made in the West today are bad, it's becuase they are made to a formula. The formula is simple - big name stars, exotic locations, a hit song to promote the film, simple stories, directors who have clocked up a number of hits, and massive advertising campaigns. These days the stories don't even have to be new, we're in the age of sequelitis... Click here to download pdf .

Tony Benn's Socialist Manifesto 1987

In 1987 Tony Benn submitted a draft Socialist Manifesto to the Labour Party's National Exacutive Committee with the aim that it be discussed and voted on at the 1987 Conference. We republish that document here .

Workers' Liberty No.8 - Le Pen, South Korea, Australian Labor Party, National Union of Railwaymen (NUR), 1987 TUC conference

A collection of articles from Workers' Liberty No.8. * Conservative Party invitation to French Fascist and leader of the French National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen. * 1987 TUC conference and the Union leaderships' response to declining union membership. * An analysis of the Australian Labor Party's 1987 Australian general election victory. * Child sex abuse, incest and UK law. * The rise of working-class struggle in South Korea * General Secretary Jimmy Knapp's sell-out of the members of the National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) Click here to download pdf .

South Africa: The Way to a Workers' Party

There are many political strands besides the ANC in the movement against apartheid - "Black Consciousness" militants, socialists, and "workerists" from the FOSATU federation of the early 1980s. Click here to download pdf .

South African miners: Black Gold, White Profits

The history of the mineworkers in South Africa, from the discovery of diamonds and then gold in the 1880s through the strikes of 1920, 1922, and 1946, to the 1980s. Click here to download pdf .

Workers Against Gorbachev

Many socialists exaggerate what Gorbachev has done. It is understandable that the first stirrings of open political life for decades in the USSR should be welcomed. But if Gorbachev's reforms lead to workers' liberty in the USSR, it will only by shaking up the system and creating openings for the workers to move against the system and against Gorbachev himself. Click here to download pdf .

Rosa Luxemburg on Britain

Before we cast a general glance back the discussion about Bernstein's book in the party press, we still wish to treat individually some questions of detail which were particularly stressed in that discussion. This time, let us turn to the English trade union movement. The catchphrase of the "economic power" of the "economic organisation" of the working class plays a great role among the supporters of Bernstein. "It is the task of the working class to create economic power for itself" writes Dr Weltmann in issue 93 of the Elberfelde Freie Presse. In the same way E David concludes his series of...

Under two flags: Constance Markievicz, Irish Socialist and Irish Republican

Constance Markievicz (left) The well-known author Tim Pat Coogan once remarked that Irish history has the only example of Communists and bourgeois nationalists joining together against imperialism in which it was the Communists who were gobbled up. He was referring to the 1916 Rising and to what happened afterwards to the hundreds of socialist workers - members of the trade union militia, the Irish Citizen Army - who took part in it together with the secretary of the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, James Connolly, the military leader of the rising. The Irish labour movement was...

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