Actually, “anticommunism” had a long and nasty record in American history. The same spirit was expressed decades before the Russian Revolution under a variety of labels. Campaigns and vigilantism were undertaken against those who were called “anarchists,” “aliens,” “terrorists,” and, of course, “communists.” Invariably, these were individuals active in protesting one or another of the…
War is the Health of the State Chapter 14 of A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (1980) “War is the health of the state,” the radical writer Randolph Bourne said, in the midst of the First World War. Indeed, as the nations of Europe went to war in 1914, the governments…
Russia, Autumn 1917. Excerpted from The Dilemmas of Lenin, by Tariq Ali, Verso 2017. Two American journalists, John Reed and Albert Rhys Williams, were observing the events in Russia close-up and summarising the day to each other before sending their reports back to the United States. Reed had arrived in the country later than Williams…
Right-wing historians often describe October as a Bolshevik ‘coup’ made possible by the ‘anarchy’ into which Russia had fallen by autumn 1917. The misunderstanding is profound. Their basic error is to view history from above, not below. What looks to them like ‘anarchy’ was, in fact, the leaching away of state authority and the rise…
Getting to the News that Matters, via journalist Antonia Juhasz, shared on Facebook: There’s been a lot of breaking news lately about a lot of critically important things. And there’s been a lot of spreading of misinformation. As a writer, I’d like to offer a few friendly reminders to help you steer your way through…
Just in case you hadn’t heard the good news – the Water Board has rather emphatically denied Dutra’s Alternatives Analysis.
