Party & Programme > Bolshevism
Fur flies over Lenin
22 Mar 2012
What has the debate over 1912 got to do with current communist practice? James Turley answers the philistines
What sort of Partyism?
12 Dec 2024
Ideas that party building can be skipped, that programmatic differences ought to be avoided, that there should be bureaucratic restrictions on polemics - all are roads to nowhere. In the second part of his discussion Mike Macnair focuses on a group of RS21 members and Joe Todd’s recent contributions
Formulations, fetishes and failures
10 Oct 2024
Steve Bloom dogmatically clings to ‘new left Trotskyist’ orthodoxy, says Mike Macnair, and this leads him and his co-thinkers to strategic unrealism and abandoning working class political independence
Analysis of historical causes
03 Oct 2024
We must ruthlessly criticise all past attempts. As Mike Macnair once again demonstrates, Steve Bloom’s arguments on method and history only give support to dogmatism and personality cults
Fetishising revolutionary crisis
26 Sep 2024
Clinging to the general strike, and to the idea of taking the tide at the flood, is at the core of present failures. Mike Macnair argues that Steve Bloom’s call for ‘synthesis’ is badly misconceived
Amy Leather vanishes
19 Sep 2024
What lies behind the mid-term changes at the top? The central committee limits itself to a single gnomic pronouncement. Meanwhile, Paul Demarty investigates
Historical and methodological differences
29 Aug 2024
Because revolutions have failed, that does not mean they were bound to fail. Steve Bloom continues his exploration of revolutionary strategy and history
Primary task set
18 Jul 2024
Theory and programme are treated seriously, but there are leftist and anarchistic carryovers. Martin Greenfield reports on the Revolutionary Communist Organisation conference in Australia and the next steps that are needed in what will doubtless be a long journey
Programme makers
13 Jun 2024
Without the working class organising itself into a political party there can be no chance of socialism. But, argues Jack Conrad, without a comprehensive, fully worked-out programme, that party has no chance of taking coherent form, guarding against opportunism or navigating the road to socialism
Muddleheaded Labourism
30 May 2024
Vincent David of the Spartacist League central committee says any Labour vote is “crossing the class line” - even in the absence of an alternative left candidate. Instead he urges everyone to join Tusc’s dead-end Labour Party mark two project
Another sect is rebranded
09 May 2024
Carl Collins looks at the factors behind the shift from clause four Fabianism to the Madison Avenue ‘communist turn’
Debating with Oehlerites
09 May 2024
With the general election fast approaching, Eddie Ford reports on the Online Communist Forum debate. While the Spartacist League fetishises opposition to the person of Sir Keir Starmer and throws in its lot with the Tusc opportunist lash-up, the CPGB emphasises communist unity as the only serious route towards mass work
Two election tactics
18 Apr 2024
The Bolsheviks are rightly famous for their armed street demonstrations and storming of the Winter Palace. But what they are less known for is their use of elections to the duma, the tsar’s toothless parliament. Jack Conrad puts the record straight
Same old same old
04 Apr 2024
Having abandoned clause four Fabianism, the Woods-Sewell tendency has issued a manifesto with a view to grandly renaming their oil slick international. Mike Macnair asks what, if anything, is new about their Revolutionary Communist International
Repeating past failures
28 Mar 2024
Socialist Appeal’s proposed ‘Revolutionary Communist Party’ claims to offer a ‘clean break with the sects’. In fact, the proposal is a mere repetition of the method of the confessional sects, argues Mike Macnair
Delusions of ‘official optimism’
21 Mar 2024
Socialist Appeal has discarded its ‘clause four’ Fabianism and made a ‘communist turn’, all explained by heady talk of a coming revolutionary crisis. Mike Macnair assesses its perspectives