Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
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 […]
The first British military governor of Palestine, Ronald Storrs, wrote that the purpose of the 1917 Balfour Decleration was to create a “loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.” The settler-colony of Israel was created by the same imperialist interests which colonised Ireland and brutalised our people. […]
One of the major drawbacks to radical and transformative actions by activists involved in struggle, is the hoary old chestnut of a lack of class consciousness out there in the wider population… or so we like to believe. We say it constantly: why is it that there appears to be […]
One of the most interesting anecdotes in the history of the 1916 Rising is the picture of Pearse telling the British of the surrender alone. We know he did not stand alone but Elizabeth Farrell was there with him, a vital messenger airbrushed out of history. Many women throughout history […]
When Mussolini’s Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, most nations did little to help the Ethiopians. Britain and France, for example, were still appeasing Fascism in hopes it would head east and bring the free market back to the Soviet Union. Anthony Eden, then minister for the League of Nations affairs, […]
The Business Post of 14th January 2024 claimed that Sinn Féin had been on “an outreach programme” with big business to reassure them that Sinn Féin in government would not “rock any boats.”17 As the entrance fee to government under capitalism is to support the system, this “revelation” comes as […]
There’s a saying on the Isle of Man, “Cha jean oo cosney ping lesh y Ghailick”, which roughly translates as “You won’t make a penny with Manx”. This perfectly illustrates how every minority language struggles to financially justify its existence. It’s hard enough to make a living as a writer […]
Nadezhda Krupskaya and her accomplishments are often forgotten about and overshadowed by her husband, Vladimir Lenin. Krupskaya was a feminist, teacher and revolutionary who participated in the October Revolution and the building of socialism in the USSR. This year is the centenary of Lenin’s death, but while we celebrate him […]
Thomas Sankara was born on 21st December 1949 in Upper Volta, which was a French colony, and like all African colonies at the time, the white colonisers exploited the natives by forcing them to build infrastructure so that they could more efficiently exploit the resources of the nation. Upper Volta […]
Illustrated with an interesting and refreshing selection of photographs, posters, paintings and newspaper clippings, John Ellison’s new book “World War Two A People’s War?” puts a long and complex story of World War Two into a brief and accessible narrative. Coming from the British perspective on the war and dominantly […]
The official podcast of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “The Langley Files: CIA’s podcast” recently had an episode about Operation Argo and gave some background to the CIA and the coup in Iran in 1953 against the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh A few minutes in, the CIA historian […]
… Once a fortnight the train comes through the Kuyan-Bulak railway station. …Then the whole of Kuyan-Bulak, Hare Spring in the local language, gathers on the platform. The cobbler Vasily Solntse and the community leader’s wife in an antediluvian smock, Semen Nikitish Trobka and the Red Army soldiers … Two […]
In a recent interview with the Irish Times, arch-revisionist historian Roy Foster opined that Irish reunification is nearer than he would have thought a couple of decades ago. A week earlier the Irish News published results of an opinion poll indicating a majority of Alliance Party voters believed that, in […]
No historical Irish political figure sums up the politics of the Irish establishment today as much as John Redmond. The class and political interests Redmond embodied during his life have strengthened over recent decades and now appear to dominate most elements of the state, media, and political parties. Politics is […]
The Central Intelligence Agency has a long history of fighting against progressive movements and supporting the most reactionary regimes ever seen. This can be seen by the CIA-backed coups against the democratically elected governments of Mohammad Mosaddeg in Iran, Salvador Allende in Chile, and Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala, among dozens […]