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
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
Other theories, other labels
10 Aug 2023
If, after the launch of the first five-year plan, the Soviet Union cannot be classified as a workers’ state, what was it? Jack Conrad looks at some alternatives that have been offered by different schools of thought
Clean breaks and clear principles
03 Aug 2023
Today’s left largely misunderstands and therefore misrepresents Clara Zetkin’s contribution to the politics of Marxism. Ben Lewis provides an excerpt from the introduction to a newly translated pamphlet
Online Communist Forum, Sunday July 30 5pm
27 Jul 2023
Veiled lessons
29 Jun 2023
Yassamine Mather spoke to Anne McShane at a Hands Off the People of Iran meeting. Given the recent wave of arrests in Iran and new legislation reinforcing the wearing of the hijab, the experience of the Soviet Union’s Zhenotdel in the 1920s is of particular relevance.
Dumbness of dumbing down
29 Jun 2023
The Morning Star’s CPB is about to enter its pre-congress discussion period. We have here, though, a classic case of bureaucratic, not democratic, centralism. Mike Macnair investigates
First plan realities
22 Jun 2023
Clearly the first five-year plan had nothing to do with the realisation of socialist planning. In the second of two articles, Jack Conrad investigates the counterrevolution within the revolution