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Fra International Socialism Journal nr. 130

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Contents (ISJ 130, Spring 2011)

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Contributors (ISJ 130, Spring 2011)

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Alex Callinicos: Analysis: The return of the Arab revolution

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In the winter of 1939-40 the German Marxist critic Walter Benjamin wrote a remarkable text known as “Theses on the Philosophy of History”. In it he attacked the widespread belief on the left that socialism would come about inevitably, as the fruit of historical progress.

Friedrich Engels: Analysis: Engels on the power of nature

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The terrible earthquake and tsunami that hit Tohuku in northeastern Japan on 11 March took place as this issue of International Socialism was on its way to the press.

Iain Ferguson: Analysis: The return of fear

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In 1952 Aneurin Bevan, leader of the parliamentary Labour left and health minister in the 1945-51 Clement Attlee government, wrote a book about the newly-created welfare state in Britain. He called it In Place of Fear.1 It was an appropriate title.

Chamseddine Mnasri: Tunisia: the people’s revolution

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On 14 January 2011 Tunisians ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after a month’s revolt. Ben Ali’s removal has changed our perception of revolution. Two things explain this: the change came totally from below; and the reactionary forces have failed to restore the old order.

Phil Marfleet: Act One of the Egyptian Revolution

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Of all the startling scenes which made up Act One of the Egyptian Revolution, the events in Tahrir Square on 2 February were surely most astounding. When Mubarak sent gangs of plainclothes police to attack demonstrators, the protesters fought like demons. They first resisted, then drove back the baltagiyya (criminals/thugs). As news of the battle spread, people flooded in from every area of Cairo, racing to the front line to support the resistance.

Jonny Jones: Social media and social movements

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The past few months have seen an explosion of debate, blogging, theorising and hype around the role of the Internet in today’s social movements. Social media—Internet applications such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube which facilitate the creation and exchange of user-created content—have been identified as key to events as diverse as the rise of student protests in Britain at the end of 2010 and the outbreak of revolution in the Arab world.

Dan Swain: The student movement today

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The month-long period between 10 November and 9 December saw the birth of the largest and most militant student movement Britain had experienced for decades. A wave of walkouts, demonstrations and occupations shook university managements and the government, bringing it to the brink of defeat.

John Riddell: The origins of the united front policy

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The policy of the united front is among the most effective tools for working class action inherited from the era of VI Lenin and the Russian revolution.

Dave Renton: The Tories, Eton and private schools

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One of the most striking features of the new government is the dominance within its ranks of individuals showing every sign of class privilege. The Sunday Times reports that 18 of the 23 full-time members of the cabinet are millionaires, having between them a capital wealth of about £50 million.

Keith Flett: I love the sound of breaking glass: the London crowd, 1760-2010

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On the BBC’s Weekly Politics programme on 9 December 2010 the historian David Starkey commented on the tuition fees protests in London that day that the capital had seen nothing like it since the Chartist period of the 1840s. Starkey is a historian of the 16th not the 19th century so he is hardly best placed to make an informed comment. However, the broader point was well made.

Stathis Kouvélakis: Feedback: Facing the crisis: the strategic perplexity of the left

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Everyone knows the joke that, of the last three crises, Marxists have predicted at least five. What the joke doesn’t say is that they failed to predicted a sixth, their own crisis, to which I will devote these remarks. To put it differently I will focus on the political aspect of the crisis, because, it seems to me, it is at this level that the contradictions of the economy are concentrated and that their ultimate resolution is decided.

Sheila McGregor: Feedback: Sexuality, alienation and capitalism

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The last few issues of this journal have seen a debate develop over the Marxist attitude to sex work. Jane Pritchard’s original article, “The Sex Work Debate”, elicited a critical response from Gareth Dale and Xanthe Whittaker. Jess Edwards replied to these criticisms in her article “Sexism and Sex Work”, which Dale and Whittaker responded to in turn.

Lucien van der Walt: Feedback: Counterpower, participatory democracy, revolutionary defence: debating Black Flame, revolutionary anarchism and historical Marxism

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This article responds to criticisms of the broad anarchist tradition in International Socialism, an International Socialist Tendency (IST) journal. I will discuss topics such as the use of sources, defending revolutions and freedom, the Spanish anarchists, anarchism and democracy, the historical role of Marxism, and the Russian Revolution.

Lee Humber: Feedback: The social roots of “impairment”

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There was a lovely piece on capitalism and disability from Roddy Slorach in the last issue of International Socialism, with a very well balanced account of the social model of disability which, as Roddy says, “turned received wisdom on its head”. I thought it might be useful to add a short comment or two with regard to some of the implications of the dualism the model sets up between “impairment” and “disability”, with specific reference to people with learning difficulties.

Lee Billingham: Book review: We want rebel music

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Ian Goodyer, Crisis Music: The Cultural Politics of Rock Against Racism (Manchester University Press, 2009), £60

Martin Empson: Book review: Natural’s not in it

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John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark and Richard York, The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth, (Monthly Review Press, 2010), £14.95

Chris Bambery: Book review: State of the union

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Perry Anderson, The New Old World (Verso, 2009), £24.99
Given the crisis that has gripped Europe over the last year, exposing deep faultlines within the EU, there is no better time for a Marxist examination of the union to appear. That it’s written by Perry Anderson, former editor of New Left Review, ensures it’s written with panache, is hugely enjoyable and that it provides a broad historical sweep. That said, it is not without some question marks.

John Newsinger: Book review: Forgotten famine

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Madhusree Mukerjee, Churchill’s Secret War: the British Empire and the Ravaging of India during the Second World War (Basic Books, 2010), £18.99
The Bengal Famine of 1943-44 is one of the most terrible episodes of the Second World War. According to Madhusree Mukerjee’s new book, the death toll has to be revised upwards from the generally accepted figure of 3.5 million men, women and children to over 5 million. Certainly, it was, as the Viceroy, Lord Wavell, put it, “one of the greatest disasters that has befallen any people under British rule”. And yet it has almost completely disappeared from the history books.

Andy Wynne: Book review: Africa’s opening

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Issa G Shivji, Accumulation in an African Periphery: a Theoretical Framework (Mkuki na Nyoto Publishers), £15.95
Professor Shivji of the University of Dar es Salaam has been writing in the Marxist tradition since the 1970s when, for example, he wrote the classic Class Struggles in Tanzania. His latest project, of which this booklet is the first chapter, is an analysis of the place and role of Africa in the global political economy of neoliberalism. The central message of the booklet is that the crisis of recent years has provided an opening for the Global South to refuse to play the capitalist imperialist game, whatever the rules. He argues it is time to rethink and revisit the direction of development and dominant strategies.

Jonny Jones + Alex Callinicos: Pick of the quarter: This quarter's selection

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New Left Review – Historical Materialism (Lenin) – Socialism and Democracy