Proceedings and documents of the First Congress March 1919. Edited by Riddell, Pathfinder 1987, Reviewed by Peter Mason Read more...

We reprint here an English translation of ‘Draft theses on the Jewish Question today’, first published in Fourth International in the January/February 1948 issue. They are dated January 1947 and the available evidence suggests that they were drafted by Ernest Mandel (‘Walter’) and first discussed by the International Secretariat in Paris at its 16 December 1946 meeting. Read more...

‘The war is no longer just a conflict between two ruling classes fighting for domination of the region . . . The war now is one in which Iran faces the world’s mightiest imperial power (the USA—WP) and its European and Arab allies. Under these circumstances socialists are not neutral... We are with the Iranians—for the defeat of the whole coalition of forces, including Iraq, that is ranged against them.’
(Socialist Worker Review December 1987). Read more...

1. The India Sri Lanka Accord of July 1987 represents the latest attempt at imposing a reactionary settlement on the national struggle of the Tamil people. The accord proposed autonomy which demanded the disarming of the only force enjoying the support of the Tamil people and reliance on Indian troops responsible for the repression of national groups inside India. It proposed a referendum in the Eastern Province in late 1988 to decide whether to continue links with the Northern Province. Read more...

Mikhail Gorbachev, and those politically close to him, face a most daunting political prospect. He has staked his political future on reversing the tendency to stagnation and decline in the growth of the Soviet economy. But he has gone further than this. The means to that end promise a major attack on the economic privileges and political authority of a significant section of the state bureauracy. In order to deliver that blow Gorbachev is courting limited mobilisations of rank and file workers and party members against those who resist pressure for change. Read more...

Dave Stocking reviews Karl Kautsky by Dick Geary (Manchester University Press 1987, 146pp, £4.95) Read more...

Paul Mason reviews The Meaning Of The Second World War by Ernest Mandel (Verso 1986 pbk £6.95)

Except for the Russian Revolution no event has shaped the modern class struggle more than the Second World War. The basic outlines of every contemporary war and revolutionary struggle were drawn during World War II. Yet despite its importance, the war remains a virtual closed book for the British labour movement. Read more...

We print below an exchange on the question of the anti imperialist united front between the Gruppo OperaioRivoluzionario (GOR) of Italy and Stuart King from Workers Power Read more...

For the past six months in Sri Lanka political attention has been fixed on the fate of discussions between the various Tamil guerrilla groups and the United National Party (UNP) government. Also involved in these talks was Rajin Ghandi’s government in India. Neither the ‘ceasefire’ that accompanied the discussions, nor the discussions themselves were a success from the Tamils’ point of view. Read more...

Leon Trotsky’s article The Programme for Peace , written during 1915-16 is a landmark in the develop­ment of Trotsky’s political method. Read more...

What Is a Peace Program?

What is a peace program? From the viewpoint of the ruling classes or of the parties subservient to them, it is the totality of the demands, the ultimate realization of which must be ensured by the power of militarism. Hence, for the realization of Miliukov’s 1 “peace program” Constantinople must be conquered by force of arms. Vandervelde’s “peace program” requires the expulsion of the Germans from Belgium as an antecedent condition? Bethmanll-Holweg’s plan were founded on the geographical war map. From this stand point the peace clauses reflect but the advantages achieved by force of arms. In other words, the peace program is the war program. Read more...

Throughout the 1984 miners' strike, Workers Power has fought for the TUC to call a general strike. We have argued that it is necessary in order to secure a victory for the miners and to smash the entire Tory offensive that the MacGregor closure plan is merely one part of. We have been justified by events. Read more...

July’s carnage on the streets of the capital Colombo was neither a new nor an unexpected event. Attacks on the 2.8 million minority Tamil population have been regularly aided and abetted by Sri Lanka’s 30,000 strong police force and army 98% of whom are drawn from the 11 million strong Sinhalese majority population. Read more...

“We Marxists differ from both pacifists and anarchists in that we deem it necessary to study each war historically (from the standpoint of Marx’s dialectical materialism) and separately.” (Lenin-Socia Read more...

From Workers Power issue 3 Read more...

In the 1970s, Dave Hughes, a founder member of Workers Power and the Movement for a Revolutionary Communist International, wrote a series of articles on party and programme to explain the importance of programme in Marx, Engels and Lenin. Part one deals with the debate in Germany during Marx's lifetime Read more...