Culture

Culture

King Lear today

Just before thousands of students agonise once again over the question of Lear’s madness and other issues, Socialist Voice presents a Marxist view, based on understanding Shakespeare’s times. Shakespeare lived in early capitalist society, marked by an uninhibited pursuit of power on the one hand and a new, humanist image […]

Culture

Film Review: No stone unturned?

No Stone Unturned (2017) is a documentary film about the Loughinisland massacre, directed by Alex Gibney. For those unaware of what happened in Loughinisland or, like me, who were born after the events took place, the two-hour documentary is well worth watching; and for those who remember the events well […]

Culture

James Connolly Festival, 2018

The James Connolly Festival (from Wednesday 9 May to Sunday 13 May 2018), now in its fourth year, is an annual community-centred celebration of music, films, theatre, and debate, with a radical twist. Since its foundation in 2014 the festival has aimed to bring together friends and supporters, critics and […]

Culture

The storm is breaking!

Maxim Gorky was born 150 years ago this month. His works remain widespread on all continents and contribute to the consolidation of proletarian class-consciousness. Gorky’s socialist-realist method is his ground-breaking world literary achievement. His books, stories and plays continue to be a touchstone and benchmark for socialist writers all over […]

Culture

Continuing a glorious tradition

One of the tragedies that befell Ireland after its partial independence was that the aspirations for this newly liberated state were almost immediately replaced, as Liam O’Flaherty put it, by the “tyranny of the Irish Church and its associate parasites, the upstart bourgeoisie, the last posthumous child from the wrinkled […]

Culture

A story of commitment and defeat

Michael Ryan, My Life in the IRA: The Border Campaign (Dublin: Mercier Press, 2018) Mick Ryan, a member of the IRA from the age of nineteen, became one of the most active participants in the IRA’s “border campaign,” launched in December 1956 and officially abandoned in February 1962, though its […]

Culture

Hollywood and the Indigenous peoples

Following the American Civil War there was a brief period of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states before the imperialist war was resumed against the Indigenous peoples of America, when the colonialists gave full expression to the policy of “manifest destiny” in both extending the borders of the United States […]

Culture History

“The name is communism”

Cover of the first edition, written in German, published in London in 1848. It reads: “Manifesto of the Communist Party | Published February 1848 | Proletarians of all Lands, Unite! | London | Printed in the offices of the Workers’ Educational Association | By J. E. Burghard | 46, Liverpool […]

Culture

Cocky Abdul

Gabriel Rosenstock introduces and translates another poem from the Indian subcontinent, a poem that sings of man’s hope and despair and the never-ending disparity between the privileged and the poor. [one_half padding=”0 4px 0 4px”] Abdul Sotalach Rahul Rai Samhlaigh le do thoil sotal Abdul bhoicht: Arsa Abdul bocht: “Bead […]

Culture History

From Burns to Liebknecht

Every so often, history presents us with an amazing affirmation of our humanity, a sense of continuity, the passing on of the torch. This applies supremely to Robert Burns’s song “For A’ That.” Burns was highly regarded in the USSR Robert Burns, born on 25 January 1759, lived in an […]

Culture

“When the table came”

Gabriel Rosenstock introduces and translates another poem from the Indian sub-continent, originally written in Konkani, the indigenous language of Goa. We seem to accept “technological progress” and the McDonaldisation of the world as inevitable. Who wants to be called a Luddite? Yet on reading “When the Table Came” one is […]

Culture Socialism

The art of revolution

With the Russian Revolution of 1917 the dispossessed took control over their destiny, for the first time in history. How did artists respond to this liberation? Artists from all artistic movements worked with the Soviet power. The revolution offered the state and the arts a real opportunity to merge their […]

Culture

Where would we be without political satire?

Gabriel Rosenstock introduces and translates another poem from the Indian subcontinent Where would we be without political satire? Writing in Rajasthani, which has a literature stretching back 1,500 years or more, the author Rangrelo Bithu flourished in the sixteenth century. He enjoyed making fun of his king, Rawal Har of […]

Culture Current Affairs

Inventing the future

Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams offers a penetrating and timely critique of the failures of the Western left and puts forward an intriguing hypothesis for creating a society where the drudgery of work has been virtually abolished. The basic premise […]