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Al Richardson (historian)
Alec Stuart "Al" Richardson (20 December 1941 – 22 November 2003) was a British Trotskyist historian and activist. Biography Born in Woolley Colliery, a pit village near Barnsley in Yorkshire, Richardson studied theology at the University of Hull before becoming a lecturer at the University of Exeter. He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain, but left after reading Isaac Deutscher's biography of Leon Trotsky. Convinced of Trotskyism, Richardson joined the Socialist Labour League (SLL), and resigned from the faculty at Exeter to become a history teacher at Forest Hill School, South London. He soon quit the SLL to join the rival International Marxist Group (IMG), and became prominent in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. Despite having hitchhiked to Paris to join the events of May 1968, Richardson was part of a small group that rejected the IMG's turn away from trade unions and the labour movement to work in the student movement. He became a founding member of the brea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trotskyist
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a revolutionary Marxist, and Bolshevik–Leninist, a follower of Marx, Engels, and 3L: Vladimir Lenin, Karl Liebknecht, and Rosa Luxemburg. He supported founding a vanguard party of the proletariat, proletarian internationalism, and a dictatorship of the proletariat (as opposed to the " dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", which Marxists argue defines capitalism) based on working-class self-emancipation and mass democracy. Trotskyists are critical of Stalinism as they oppose Joseph Stalin's theory of socialism in one country in favour of Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution. Trotskyists criticize the bureaucracy and anti-democratic current developed in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Vladimir Lenin and Trotsky, despite their ideological disp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vietnam Solidarity Campaign
The Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) was originally set up in 1966 by activists around the International Group with the personal and financial support of Bertrand Russell. Ralph Schoenman acted both as Director of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and as Executive Director of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. Marxist activists including Tariq Ali, Ernie Tate, Al Richardson, David Horowitz, John La Rose and Pat Jordan also played a key role. Members of the International Socialists participated in the foundation of the VSC, but for the first year of its existence its presence was a token one only. It organised a demonstration of 20,000 people in October 1967 that for the first time ignored police warnings not to enter Grosvenor Square, where the United States Embassy in London was then located. In March and October 1968 two major demonstrations in London, sponsored by the VSC, drew more than 100,000 participants. Serious police violence was captured by press and television c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Popular Front
A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition especially of leftist political parties against a common opponent". The term was first used in the mid-1930s in Europe by communists concerned over the ascent of the ideology of Fascism in Italy and Germany which they sought to combat by coalescing with non-communist political groupings they had previously attacked as enemies. Temporarily successful popular front governments were formed in France, Spain, and Chile in 1936. Not all political organizations who use the term "popular front" are leftist or coalitions formed to defend democratic norms (for example Popular Front of India), and not all leftist or anti-fascist coalitions use the term "popular front" in their name. Terminology and similar groups When communist parties came to powe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Militant Tendency
The Militant tendency, or Militant, was a Trotskyism, Trotskyist group in the British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party, organised around the ''Militant'' newspaper, which launched in 1964. According to Michael Crick, its politics were based on the thoughts of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and "virtually nobody else". In 1975, there was widespread press coverage of a Labour Party report on the infiltration tactics of Militant. Between 1975 and 1980, attempts by Reg Underhill and others in the leadership of the Labour Party to expel Militant were rejected by its National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, National Executive Committee, which appointed a Militant member to the position of National Youth Organiser in 1976 after Militant had won control of the party's youth section, the Labour Party Young Socialists. After the Liverpool Labour Party adopted Militant's strategy to set an illegal deficit budget in 1982, a Labour Party commission found Milit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Workers Action
The Workers' International League (WIL) was a British Trotskyist organisation that split in early 1987 from the Workers' Revolutionary Party (WRP) which had been led by Sheila Torrance. The League soon started to publish ''Workers' News'' as its monthly publication. Initially, the group around leading WRP adherents Richard Price and Ian Harrison defended the Healyite tradition, albeit in a critical way. However, during and after a nine-month faction struggle against a minority section in the organisation who supported the idea of joining David North's ICFI, the group began to abandon the Healyite tradition and came to the conclusion that the Fourth International had degenerated by the late 1940s, needing to be rebuilt afresh. Due to a physical altercation between a leading member of the WIL, then in Torrance's WRP, with a leading member of the Workers Press faction of the WRP during the 1986 printers' dispute in Wapping, east London, there was great hostility between the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Workers Liberty
The Alliance for Workers' Liberty (AWL), also known as Workers' Liberty, is a Trotskyist group in Britain and Australia, which has been identified with the theorist Sean Matgamna throughout its history. It publishes the newspaper ''Solidarity''. History Workers' Fight The AWL traces its origins to the document ''What we are and what we must become'', written by the tendency's founder Sean Matgamna in 1966, in which he argued that the Revolutionary Socialist League – by then effectively the Militant tendency – was too inward-looking, and needed to become more activist in its orientation. The RSL refused to circulate the document; hence, with a handful of supporters, he left to form the Workers' Fight group. Espousing left unity, they accepted an offer in 1968 to form a faction within the International Socialists (IS) as the Trotskyist Tendency. Trotskyist Tendency The Trotskyist Tendency clashed with the leadership of the International Socialists over many issues; for examp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-Stalinist Left
The anti-Stalinist left is an umbrella term for various kinds of left-wing political movements that opposed Joseph Stalin, Stalinism and the actual system of governance Stalin implemented as leader of the Soviet Union between 1927 and 1953. This term also refers to the high ranking political figures and governmental programs that opposed Joseph Stalin and his form of communism, like Leon Trotsky and other left wing traditional Marxists. In recent years, it may also refer to left and centre-left wing opposition to dictatorships, cults of personality, totalitarianism and police states, all being features commonly attributed to regimes that took inspiration from Stalinism such as the regimes of Kim Il-sung, Enver Hoxha and others, including in the former Eastern Bloc. Some of the notable movements with the anti-Stalinist left have been Trotskyism and Titoism, anarchism and libertarian socialism, left communism and libertarian Marxism, the Right Opposition within the Communist mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Revolutionary History
''Revolutionary History'' was a British journal covering the history of the far left. It was established in 1988 by Sam Bornstein and Al Richardson and maintained an editorial board representing many strands of British Trotskyism. '' Weekly Worker'' 506, Thursday November 27, 2003 In its articles it also covered other communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophic ...
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Sam Bornstein
Sam Bornstein (1920 - 1990) was a British Trotskyist historian and activist. Bornstein was a member of the ILP Guild of Youth, but eventually moved towards Trotskyist ideas and joined the Workers' International League (1937), Workers International League, helping to build their branch in Stepney. With Al Richardson (historian), Al Richardson, published three books on the history of Trotskyism in United Kingdom, Britain through their "Socialist Platform" publishing house. In 1988 they founded the journal ''Revolutionary History'', dedicated to the history of the anti-Stalinist left. Publications * * * References External links Obituary by Sam Levy 1920 births 1990 deaths British Trotskyists British Marxist historians Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1944) members British Marxists Historians of communism {{UK-historian-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Revolutionary Communist League (UK)
The Revolutionary Communist League was a small Trotskyist group in Britain. It was founded in 1970 by two small groups, one who split from International Marxist Group, after failing to persuade the group to turn away from work in the student movement and towards the trade unions and entryism in the Labour Party, and one which had split from Militant.Andrew Hosken (2008), ''Ken: The Ups and Downs of Ken Livingstone'', Arcadia Books The League promoted the ''Socialist Charter'' initiative of Tribunite Labour MPs which published the ''Chartist'' paper, and were consequently nicknamed the Chartists. They took over this initiative, and based their work around the Charter on a conception of transitional politics taken from Leon Trotsky. They were also active around The Soldiers' Charter, an attempt to influence the armed forces. By 1973 most of the group were moving to the right, while others (including Al Richardson) had left. A split developed and the Right of the group kept t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Student Movement
Student activism or campus activism is work by students to cause political, environmental, economic, or social change. Although often focused on schools, curriculum, and educational funding, student groups have influenced greater political events. Modern student activist movements vary widely in subject, size, and success, with a variety of students in various educational settings participating, including public and private school students; elementary, middle, senior, undergraduate, and graduate students; and all races, socio-economic backgrounds, and political perspectives. Some student protests focus on the internal affairs of a specific institution; others focus on broader issues such as a war or dictatorship. Likewise, some student protests focus on an institution's impact on the world, such as a disinvestment campaign, while others may focus on a regional or national policy's impact on the institution, such as a campaign against government education policy. Although stu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labour Movement
The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other. * The trade union movement (trade unionism) consists of the collective organisation of working people developed to represent and campaign for better working conditions and treatment from their employers and, by the implementation of labour and employment laws, from their governments. The standard unit of organisation is the trade union. * The political labour movement in many countries includes a political party that represents the interests of employees, often known as a " labour party" or " workers' party". Many individuals and political groups otherwise considered to represent ruling classes may be part of, and active in, the labour movement. The labour movement developed as a response to the industrial capitalism of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, at a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
