Revolutionary history

Revolution — the old mole that keeps burrowing through history

  • Ancient history

    Ancient history

    The history of the ancient world is ripe with lessons about the development of class society and the heroic struggle of the early oppressed classes against their masters.
  • English Revolution

    English Revolution

    The Civil War in England was a revolutionary clash by the rising bourgeois class of English merchants and bankers, led by Oliver Cromwell, against the rotten feudal regime of Charles I.
  • French Revolution

    French Revolution

    In the Great French Revolution of 1789, the revolutionary bourgeoisie and popular masses overthrew the decrepit Ancien Regime, creating an earthquake that shook the world.
  • Paris Commune

    Paris Commune

    For a tragically brief period in 1871, the workers of Paris began the tremendous task of replacing the capitalist state with the dictatorship of the proletariat.
  • First International

    First International

    The first international proletarian organisation, with the participation of Marx and Engels, paved the way for the development of organised working-class struggle worldwide.
  • Second International

    Second International

    The Second International was a formidable bastion of working-class internationalism until it descended into national chauvinism and opportunism. Its history is rich with lessons.
  • World War I

    World War I

    To understand the causes of the great slaughter, it is necessary to lay bare the real mainspring of war in the modern epoch: the contradiction between the interests of different capitalist states.
  • German Revolution

    German Revolution

    After the Russian Revolution, the German proletariat entered the scene of history and brought an end to WW1 - but their revolution was sadly defeated.
  • Third International

    Third International

    The Third (Communist) International was a vital school of revolutionary ideas and strategy, which degenerated with the rise of Stalinism.
  • Fourth International

    Fourth International

    The history of the Fourth International was a struggle (led by Leon Trotsky) to keep the genuine traditions of Bolshevism alive, against colossal odds.
  • Spanish Revolution

    Spanish Revolution

    The Spanish masses strived towards socialist revolution in the 1930s, but were strangled by the class collaboration of their leadership, paving the road to fascist victory.
  • World War II

    World War II

    Although WW2 is often portrayed in the history books as a clash between ‘democracy’ and Hitler’s Germany, the war was mostly a titanic struggle between fascism and the USSR in which the latter triumphed.
  • Chinese Revolution

    Chinese Revolution

    The Chinese Revolution saw the heroic masses throwing off the yoke of imperialism, although the revolution degenerated along Stalinist lines, culminating in capitalist restoration.
  • Cuban Revolution

    Cuban Revolution

    On 1 January 1959, the brutal Cuban dictator Batista fell to the guerrillas of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Within three years, capitalism had been abolished on the island.
  • Colonial Revolution

    Colonial Revolution

    In the colonial and ex-colonial countries, the post-war period saw unprecedented upheaval, characterised by famine, social unrest, wars, revolution and counter-revolution.
  • Revolutionary 1968

    Revolutionary 1968

    The year 1968 saw one revolutionary eruption after another worldwide, including the greatest general strike in the post-war period in France, which almost toppled Charles de Gaulle.
  • Ireland & Republicanism

    Ireland & Republicanism

    The national struggle and the class struggle in Ireland have always been closely connected. Today, the struggle for a united Ireland is bound up with the struggle for a workers’ republic.
  • British Labour Movement

    British Labour Movement

    Despite its conservative reputation, Britain’s history is full of class struggle: from Chartism to the foundation of the Labour Party, to the general strike of 1926, to the Miners’ Strike of the 1980s.
  • Class Struggle in the USA

    Class Struggle in the USA

    The history of the class struggle in the United States illustrates that the ideas of Marxism, socialism and communism aren't at all alien to "the land of opportunity."
  • Black Struggle

    Black Struggle

    Racism is hardwired into the capitalist system, serving as a convenient weapon of divide and rule to keep the exploited masses from uniting against their shared oppressors.
  • Deformed Workers' States

    Deformed Workers' States

    A revolutionary wave swept Europe after the Red Army’s victory over fascism in WW2, but the new regimes established were deformed workers’ states modelled on Stalinist Russia.
  • Arab Revolution

    Arab Revolution

    In 2011, a tremendous revolutionary tsunami swept the Arab world, bringing down multiple dictatorships. Sadly, a lack of revolutionary leadership opened the door for counter-revolution.
  • Venezuelan Revolution

    Venezuelan Revolution

    The Bolivarian Revolution led by Hugo Chavez defied imperialism and carried out huge reforms for the workers and poor, but its failure to break with capitalism led to compromise and crisis.
  • Perspectives

    Perspectives

    The purpose of Marxist perspectives is to provide a guide to action based on scientific analysis of the main processes in society. These documents ask: where is world politics going?
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