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
Deal with the arguments
22 Feb 2024
The left needs to stop tailing spontaneity and start thinking strategically. Mike Macnair takes issue with Steve Bloom’s canonisation of Luxemburg and criticisms of democratic republicanism
Communist unity and its refuseniks
25 Jan 2024
We must reject bureaucratic centralism, sects of one and diplomatic unity-mongering. Instead, we must uphold the right to engage in sharp polemics and form factions, says Mike Macnair. This is an edited version of his January 21 Online Communist Forum talk
Communists and holy war
18 Jan 2024
While the past should not and cannot be mapped onto the present, Jack Conrad argues that the approach taken by Comintern to the Muslim east contains many useful lessons - if, that is, we retain our critical faculties
Doing their party turn
23 Nov 2023
What lies beneath the new communist wrapping? Baris Graham takes a look at Socialist Appeal’s latest incarnation
A communist appeal to Socialist Appeal
09 Nov 2023
Going from Fabian clause four socialism to self-declared communism is welcome progress, says Mike Macnair. But what that poses is unity in a Communist Party
Transition to nowhere
02 Nov 2023
The so-called transitional method relies on economism and spontaneity. Jack Conrad makes the case for the minimum-maximum programme and the struggle to win the battle for democracy
Unity based on solid principles
02 Nov 2023
Mike Macnair replies to criticism of the CPGB on partyism and explains why we uphold the use of sharp open polemics and reject the soggy methods of diplomacy
Opportunism in matters of organisation
26 Oct 2023
While we broadly agreed over Israel and Gaza, we sharply disagreed over membership commitment and maintaining barriers. James Harvey reports
Getting in touch
19 Oct 2023
Jack Conrad takes up the offer made by Will McMahon and Nick Wrack about talks and joint work towards creating the basis for a mass Communist Party
The nature of the beast
19 Oct 2023
Could the Soviet Union be described as a ‘workers’ state’ of any type? Drawing on the groundbreaking work of Hillel Ticktin, Yassamine Mather says that the only serious answer must be an emphatic ‘no’
Debating unity in Socialist Alliance
05 Oct 2023
Recently there has been talk going around about CPGB-AWL ‘fusion talks’ in the early 2000s. There were talks, that is for sure, but not about fusion. This was before the Iraq war and in the context of the Socialist Alliance, which brought together six principal organisations, including the CPGB, AWL, SPEW and SWP. In the interests of clarity and to encourage worthwhile left unity, we republish our report from October 2 2002 of the CPGB’s membership aggregate, written by Mary Godwin
Unity and its discontents
28 Sep 2023
Are campaigns calling for unity bound to fall on stony ground? Lawrence Parker takes issue with Mike Macnair on communist rapprochement
It’s good to talk
28 Sep 2023
Unwillingness to fight through political differences results in unprincipled splits which cannot be explained and reduces the movement to gravel. Mike Macnair issues a call for debate
Two forms of unity
21 Sep 2023
There are any number of broad unity projects being plotted, floated and pushed at the moment. All will fail. James Harvey reports on our assessments, debates … and a membership application
Once more unto the breach
14 Sep 2023
Workers did not rule and suffered terrible oppression, but, sticking to the provisional assessment made by Trotsky in the 1930s, the Soviet Union was still a workers’ state, insists Daniel Lazare