Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
based on an interview with Karl Döring The unification of Germany in 1990 initially inspired hope but quickly descended into chaos for many in the former GDR. As someone who experienced this transition firsthand, I witnessed the upheaval caused by the shift from a planned economy to a market-driven system. […]
Lenin said, “Revolutions are the festivals of the oppressed and the exploited” and November 7th is the Russian revolution day. The polyonymous revolution is called as October revolution or November revolution due to the change from the Julian calendar to Gregorian calendar which had a difference of 13 days. Every […]
The first part of this article appeared in the September issue of Socialist Voice1. After his handover to the Germans on 15th July 1940, Frank Ryan was sent to Berlin, where he met Chief of Staff of the IRA, Sean Russell. Ryan and Russell were sent by U-boat to Ireland […]
Historical revisionism is a great tool for the bourgeoisie. It shows no nuance when demonising those who fought for the workers, and it can be used to either ignore or heavily downplay the fact a person was a socialist or communist. Frank Ryan is a victim of this, as although […]
Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten, by Maurice J Casey – review Richard Mullen The blurb on the back cover of Hotel Lux reads: “A series of romances wrapped in a detective story, disguised as a narrative history of international communism, Hotel Lux uncovers a world of forgotten […]
On September 28th 1864, a public meeting was summoned by George Odger, president of the London Council of Trade Unions, and Randal Cremer, secretary of the Mason’s Union. The meeting took place at St. Martin’s Hall, now Queen’s Theatre, which had a capacity for 4,000 people. In a letter to […]
On 19th August 1945 the Viet Minh, led by the Indochinese Communist Party, which would later become the Communist Party of Vietnam, took over the capital city of Vietnam, Hanoi. Within two weeks, Viet Minh forces liberated most of the villages and rural towns across north and central Vietnam. Describing […]
James Baldwin was born one hundred years ago in Harlem, New York, 2 August 1924. Baldwin’s stepfather David, a Pentecostal preacher, was a factory worker, earning too little to provide for his family of nine children. His mother Berdis, a migrant from the South, worked in domestic service. The young […]
On the 23rd of July 1803, Robert Emmet led roughly 80 men towards Dublin Castle. They were armed with pikes, pistols and blunderbusses. Emmet wouldn’t see the drunken riot that his revolution would descend into – the lack of discipline amongst the men caused him to leave Dublin and go […]
With the current culture wars focusing on mainly trans people, singling out trans women in particular (and forgetting trans men exist), one would almost forget that Irish feminists were once involved in a feminist journal that had subscribers all over the world. It was revolutionary in its writing, trying to […]
Fifty years ago on April 25th, Portugal’s 41-year-old dictatorship, the oldest in Europe, was overthrown in just 24 hours with only four dead – all shot by the fascist secret police. “The centre of Lisbon was awash with flowers and knots of jubilant groups on every street corner. Soldiers and sailors […]
In 1985, Soviet Belarusian anti-war film Come and See, written and directed by Elem Klimov, was finally released. The film follows the story of a young boy from a rural village. He joins the partisans to fight off the nazi army invading the country and through his experiences, we see […]
The following is a speech given by Cuban Ambassador of Ireland, Bernardo Guanche Henandez, at this year’s James Connolly Commemoration at Arbour Hill in Dublin: “Comrades all, I am very honored this afternoon to pay tribute to a historical figure of the stature of James Connolly, a prominent Marxist and […]
The historical narrative that we are taught has been consciously constructed by the ruling class. This historical narrative is constructed so that those of the ruling class are seen as the driving force of history and those of us who make up the working class are merely dragged along. This […]
The Lao Peoples Democratic Republic came into being in 1975, after a decade of relentless US bombing against the Lao, Vietnamese, and Cambodian peoples. Laos is per capita the most bombed country in the world. 10% of its population were killed directly by US bombs and a similar number left […]
On 2nd April 1914, in Wynne’s Hotel in Dublin, Cumann na mBan was founded. The first provisional committee of the organisation included Agnes MacNeill, Nancy O’Rahilly, Mary Colum, Jenny Wyse Power, Louise Gavan Duffy, and Elizabeth Bloxham, with MacNeill as its president. Its objectives were to advance the cause of […]