These are writings by me from International Socialism journal in the 1970s to be found on the Marxist Internet Archive. Some originally appeared under the nom-de-plumes Colin Humphries or Stuart Morgan. Editorial pieces will often have been written in collaboration with others:
There Election and Us was an editorial analysis to the background of the 1970 election, which took place after six years of Labour government
Students, an editorial piece from the sping of 1970s analyses a wave of student struggles that was bigger than anything Britain had known in 1968
On the Pilkington Glassworks strike of 1970.This was an editorial piece
The Tory government --- a perspective editorial after the election of the Heath Tory government in the spring of 1970
Cuba: the end of the road, an analysis of the limits to Castro regime's attempt at economic independence in the aftermath of its failure to achieve its aim of a 10 million tonne sugar harvest
The Industrial Relations Bill - an editorial analysis of the Heath government's anti-union legislation
Bother on the Baltic - an analysis of the strike in Poland's shipyard in 1970-71
Two offensives - an editorial analysis in the aftermath of the Tory government inflicting a serious defeat on a national postal workers strike
The trade union bureaucracy in Britain: the years of revolt, about the years of struggle before 1926, written jointly by Joan Smith and me,
The general strike - about 1926 in Britain, it later appeared with an article by Duncan Hallas as a pamphlet
The Common Market -- my first attempt to analyse the prospects of the different national capitalism's in Europe uniting together
Hue and Cry -- a critical analysis of Maurice Brinton's (aka Chris Pallas) attacks on Bolshevism together with a favourable, although critical, review of Paul Avrich's book Kronstadt 1921
Reply A reply to a critical letter from Maurice Brinton
Two Marxes or One(under name Colin Humphries) - an extremely critical review of Althusser's For Marx, together with a favourable reception to the selections from Marx's Grundrisse edited by David McLennan
A review of Dubcek, about the leader of the Czechoslovak regime during the "Prague Spring" of 1968
review of the first English edition of selections from Gramsci's prison notebooks (also using the nom-de=plume Colin Humphries)
Hungary and the failure of economic reform from mid-1972 focused on something then ignored in the media generally but which, it argued was of "enormous significance for the whole future of the state capitalist countries"
On Chile early 1973 -worries about Chilean general entering the Popular Unity government
Russia in crisis? looks at the problems facing the USSR as a result of its agricultural failings and suggests "The economic props are being knocked out from under the Russian regime. The days of the monolith could well be numbered."
A review of Roy Medvedev's Let History Judge
A review of Hahn's The Politics of Soviet Agriculture - I argued that the failure lay in agriculture's subordination of state capitalist accumulation
A piece on British steel in crisis, written in collaboration with Rob Clay
An editorial piece on the Yon Kippur between Israel and the Arab states in October 1973. It concludes: "There is only one way to real peace in the Middle East and that is through the destruction of the Zionist state with its preferential citizenship rights along racial lines, and its replacement by a Palestinian state, in which Jews and Arabs have equal rights. And the state of Israel is not going to be destroyed by the existing Arab regimes. Its final demise will only come as part of a socialist revolution throughout the Arab world
Fire down below- an editorial analysis on the problems facing the Heath government as it confronted global crisis on the one hand and working class resistance on the other at the end of 1973
review of "The revolution and the civil war in Spain" by Broue and Temime
A review of the Czechoslovak novelist Ludwik Vaculik's novel The Axe
A very critical review of Stan Newens' adulatory book about the Romanian Stalinist dictator Ceausescu
Capitalism in crisis from the beginning of 1974 analyses the deepest crisis up to then that global capitalism had known since the Second World War --the crisis that we now know marked the end of the Long Boom --and prospects for the class struggle
Danger Tory Crisis from February 1974 analyses the situation after miners had voted for strike action
The Labour government from March 1974 analyses post miners strike prospects
The Labour government again, from April 1974
Students from April 1974 analyses a sudden revival of the student movement with occupations in Oxford, Essex and Kent
Scottish nationalism attempts a Marxist analysis of the phenomenon after the nationalists' successes in the February general elections May 1974, yet more and once again on the Labour government
A review of the left wing East German scientist Robert Havermann's account of his harassment by the regime
After phase three -- on the Labour government's attempts to deal with the collapse of the Tory wage controls
The international context - on the developing world crisis
Fists against fascists - on how to deal with the Nazi National Front in the aftermath of the police killing of anti-Nazi demonstrator Kevin Gately in London's Red Lion Square
Portugal June 1974 --my first attempt at analysing the aftermath of the overthrow of Portuguese fascism by the coup of 25 April 1974
Northern Ireland: Background to the crisis - an analysis of the overthrow of the power sharing Sunningdale executive by a Loyalist "strike" -- accompanied by on-the-spot coverage by Mike Miller from Belfast
A new election - an anslysis of the political situation on what was to be the eve of the October 1974 Labour electoral victory "Majority Labour govenrment"
On the aftermath of the Labour's Ocotber 1974 electoral victory
Ireland and the British crisis -- on the meaning of "unconditional but not uncritical support" for those fighting imperialism
Portugal: the first six months-- on the prospects for a revolutinary outcome in Portugal
ReplyA reply to Monty Johnstone of the Communist Party on that party's inflated membership figures
A review of The private sector in Sovietagriculture by Wadekin which focuses on the importance of small private plots in feeding the agricultural workforce, so allowing all the collective's harvests to go towards accumulation
Portugal May 1975 challenges the notion then prevalent amng some that Portugal could move to an East European Stalinist type regime
One small mistake - from 1977 on productivity in British industry
A review of Paul Preston's Spain in crisis and other books on Spain
Better a valid insight that a false theory - a critique of a piece by Mike Kidron in which he retreated from some of his own previous theoretical advances
critique of Santiago Carrillo's Eurocommunism and the State from September 1977
About Me
- Chris Harman
- Editor of International Socialism journal and previously editor of Socialist Worker (1976-7; 1982-2004). Author of How the Revolution was Lost; Bureaucracy and Revolution in Eastern Europe; How Marxism Works; The Lost Revolution-Germany 1918-23; Gramsci against Reformism; The Fire Last Time, 1968 and After; Why Labour Fails; Explaining the Crisis; Essay in Class Structure (with Alex Callinicos);The Prophet and the Proletariat; The People's History of the World; Revolution in the 21st Century; Zombie Capitalism.