Month: March 2019
Arguing with President Trump
On February 5 our great flag-hugging president Donald Trump stood before Congress and delivered his State of the Union Address. Among other things he said: Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence — not government coercion, domination, and…
Russia was never socialist – and why: what we said over the years
October 1996, U.K. So often Russia is described at having tried ‘socialism.’ Russia under Lenin, Stalin and the rest is usually described as socialist or communist by the media. Yet, as these extracts from our British-based journal, The Socialist Standard, argue, Russia was never socialist…………….. 1920 When we are told that Socialism has been obtained…
Security and “terror” in South East Asia
This article has been reproduced from the Socialist Standard (March 1996), the monthly journal of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. ‘The Indonesian Government remains a military dictatorship that has little hesitation in cracking down on political dissent. Military repression in East Timor and harsh clamps on free speech and other civil liberties in Indonesia…
Pinochet and socialism
This article has been reproduced from the Socialist Standard (December 1998), the monthly journal of the Socialist Party of Great Britain The arrest of the Chilean ex-dictator Pinochet in London in October reopened the debate about the overthrow by the armed forces of the Allende government in 1973. At the time Leninists and anarchists trumpeted…
Black consciousness in South Africa
November 2000, South Africa This article has been reproduced from the African Socialist (December 2000), a journal of the World Socialist Movement. What follows is a text submitted by Crifford Marathodi , a W.S.M. member in South Africa, with an introduction by Ben Malcom of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Introduction This article, focusing…
Ethnic cleansing the desert
In Israel/Palestine there exist communities of what some call the ‘Invisible Citizens’ and with echoes of past justifications for the establishment of Israel assert that the Negev desert where they dwell is vacant and undeveloped. These are the Bedouin who make up around 3.5 percent of Israel’s population and thousands of Bedouin serve in the…
What is happening in Venezuela?
On 23 January 2019, the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, declared himself ‘Interim President’ of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, denouncing the elected President Nicolas Maduro as an illegitimate dictator. The US government immediately announced its support, followed by a declaration from the Group of Lima, which is an institution embracing several…