Articles

Discussion of 1917 in terms of Lenin’s concepts of state and revolution, imperialism/national liberation, and the need to uproot capitalism. Also looks at Lenin’s and Trotsky’s differences with Luxemburg and the relevance of the experience of 1917 for today, in the era since Occupy and the Arab revolutions. Originally appeared as part of an international […]

What does it mean to celebrate and concretize for today Marx’s greatest work, Capital, Vol. I? Such a discussion is terribly important at this juncture, when we are in a new situation where even some sectors of the right have started to attack neoliberalism. The Brexit vote in the UK, the large vote for Le […]

At one level, France’s 2017 elections were a huge triumph for global capital. A young and very modern neoliberal candidate, Emmanuel Macron, won huge majorities for his new political party, On the Move (En Marche), in both the presidential and the legislative elections.   At another level, however, Macron’s pathway forward is fraught with challenges, both […]

Marx’s writings on the American Civil War have long languished in obscurity. Despite the fact that they address race, class, and revolution — and that major figures including W. E. B. Du Bois, C. L. R. James, and Raya Dunayevskaya have viewed them as central to Marxist theory — most of them had been out of print for decades […]

Within a few days in April, the Trump administration pivoted away from its nearly open support for the Assad regime to a military attack on it. This was followed by harsh language against Russia, the setting off of a huge bomb in Afghanistan, and the dispatch of an aircraft carrier armed with nuclear weapons toward North Korea.

As the U.S. marked the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, some attention was given to African-American resistance to slavery and to the northern radical abolitionists. Increasingly, it was admitted, even in the South, that the Confederacy’s supposedly “noble cause” was based upon the defense of slavery.

United Nations aid convoys and civilian hospitals and clinics regularly attacked by planes. Civilians deprived of water and food. Hundreds dying every week. Thousands of refugees fleeing, while hundreds of thousands of people remain trapped. Such is the situation in eastern Aleppo, Syria, as the Assad regime, Russia, and Iran and its proxies commit one […]

The old Wobbly slogan says, “Don’t Mourn, Organize,” but I think we can amend that to say that we should mourn the fateful events of Nov. 8, but not for too long.  Then, we need to reflect theoretically and organize in response to the monstrous reality we are now facing. Here’s one way to think […]

[Arabic] Nagesh Rao, “When Marx Looked Outside Europe,” Illuminations, Aug. 21, 2016

This article was translated into Persian and published in Critique of Political Economy. The original was published in Jacobin on September 12, 2016 and can be accessedHERE. The Persian translation can be accessed HERE