Is Bolivia “a case of a workers’ government in the sense the early Comintern/Zetkin meant it?” The question comes from Pham Binh in a comment on this website. In my view, the “workers’ government” concept is certainly relevant but must be used with caution.
By John Riddell: The influence of the Communist International was decisive in the early 1920s in winning a generation of black revolutionaries to Marxism. On this the historians agree. But what did this influence consist of, and how was it exerted? Read more…
The National Farmers Union (NFU), an affiliate in Canada of La Via Campesina, is now leading the struggle of western grain producers to save the farmer-managed Canada Wheat Board. (See report on this website.) In the following article, originally published in 2008, I take a broader look at the work of the NFU, starting with the experiences of farmers in Grey County, northwest of Toronto. Read more…
Canada’s government has announced plans to abolish western grain farmers’ right to market their products collectively as a protection against agribusiness monopolies. In the following article, originally printed in Briarpatch Magazine, Saskatchewan wheat farmer Terry Boehm explains the stakes and appeals for support. Boehm is the president of the National Farmers Union. Read more…
An exchange of nine recent comments by Pham Binh and John Riddell on this website explores how the example of the early Communist International can assist – or mislead – Marxist organizations in North America today. Totaling 5,000 words, this dialogue encompasses relationships to social movements, leadership selection, international centralization, and the example of the Communist Party of Cuba. Read more…
How are imperialist powers responding to the relative decline in U.S. world hegemony? For Canada, U.S. slippage has accentuated the “independent, aggressive, and increasingly militaristic” course of the Canadian capitalist class, says Toronto socialist Paul Kellogg. The Conservative victory in Canada’s May 2 federal elections signifies “the consolidation of a new hegemonic bloc in the Canadian capitalist class, the culmination of a 20-year trend.” Read more…
English-language discussion of the Communist International’s 1922 call for workers’ governments has been based on a preliminary draft that was significantly altered before its adoption. Here, probably for the first time in English, is the amended text that the congress actually adopted. Read more…
In a comment posted July 16 to my article “Honduras Accord: A Gain for Ottawa?” Todd Gordon warns against the danger of “popular-front style organization” and a “popular front electoralist strategy” (see his comment below). Socialists often use the term “popular front” or “people’s front” as a form of condemnation. But what exactly does the term mean, and how does apply it to poor, oppressed countries like Honduras? Read more…
My article “Nationality’s role in social liberation: the Soviet legacy” drew four comments, each of which raises an important issue. They take up (1) Soviet attitudes to Sharia-based customary law; (2) the consistency of Lenin’s thought; (3) the role of the Jewish Bund; and (4) the results of Soviet rule in Armenia. Here are the readers’ contributions, plus a few remarks of my own. Read more…
Just under a century ago, the newly founded Soviet republic embarked on the world’s first concerted attempt to unite diverse nations in a federation that acknowledged the right to self-determination and encouraged the development of national culture, consciousness, and governmental structures. Previous major national-democratic revolutions – in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the United States – had been made in the name of a hegemonic nation and had assimilated, marginalized, or crushed rival nationalities. The early Soviet regime, by contrast, sought to encourage, rather than deny, internal national distinctiveness. Read more…
An exchange between Todd Gordon/Jeffery R. Webber and Richard Fidler addresses whether the Cartagena Accord, which opened the road to Ex-President Manuel Zelaya return to Honduras, marks a victory for the Canadian government in its efforts at capitalist penetration of the Central American country. Read more…
By Felipe Stuart Cournoyer and John Riddell. A National Assembly of the Resistance, uniting more than 1,500 delegates from across Honduras, voted June 26 to launch a new political party, the Frente Amplio de Resistencia Popular (Broad Front of Popular Resistance—FARP). Read more…
Here are some thoughts by U.S. socialist Dianne Feeley on my article, “The Communist Women’s Movement (1921-26),” posted as a comment to this website and reposted with Dianne’s permission. I’ve added a few comments of my own on the state of research in this field. Read more…
The following working paper was presented to the Toronto conference of Historical Materialism on May 16, 2010. For Spanish-language translation, see IPS blog de debate.
By John Riddell. When we celebrate International Women’s Day, we often refer to its origins in U.S. labour struggles early in the last century. Less often mentioned, however, how it was relaunched and popularized in the 1920s by the Communist Women’s Movement. Moreover, this movement itself has been almost forgotten, as have most of its central leaders. Read more…
By Felipe Stuart Cournoyer and John Riddell. On May 22, Honduran president Porfirio Lobo Sosa and former president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales signed an agreement ‘For National Reconciliation and the Consolidation of the Democratic System in the Republic of Honduras.’ Read more…