Articles By Topic from 1987

Socialist History and Theory

Fear of Corporatism.  Racism as Anti-Racism.  H. G. Wells Vision of Benevolent Dictatorship.
Parliamentary Democracy Downplayed in the Communist Manifesto.  Marx and Engels excluded Parliamentary Democracy from the Communist Manifesto.

Charter 88 – the British Left demand for a written constitution.   How the British Left defeated itself.  Full Employment – a lost ideal.  Poverty and Its Causes.  The Post-1956 Failure of Pro–Moscow Communism.  Trade Unions – Industrial Democracy.  Was Modern Industry a Mistake?

Student Politics Remade the Left in Britain (1 of 3).  Student Politics (2 of 3).  Student Politics Remade the Left(3 of 3).  When Marxism Was Made Fashionable  (comment by Brendan Clifford).

 

Socialist of the Past

Noted British Socialists: Anthony Crosland.    R. H. Tawney.     Clement Attlee.     Hugh Dalton.  Kier Hardy – Labour’s First MP.

Interview with Barbara Castle.  In Place or Strife was a lost opportunity.  This and refusing various other schemes paved the way for Thatcher.
1991 interview with Eric Heffer, considering Labour’s likely future.Tribute to Eric Heffer.  Eric Heffer autobiography reviewed.
Jack Jones on Ernest Bevin.

 

British Politics and Political History

Brixton Riots of 1987.    The British Monarchy (why socialists should tolerate it).   Child Benefit.   British Spies.   1688 and Socialism.   Thatcherite Selfishness (Loadsamoney).
Education Reform, Criticising Britain’s Green Party in 1989.  Why British socialist should not be hostile to the monarchy (criticising Christopher Hitchens).

British Literati bravely defending Rushdie in 1990 over the Satanic Verses.  The 1990 Poll Tax Riot.  Evil in Return (causes of the 1990 Poll Tax riots).  Racism in London in 1990.  Full Employment – a lost ideal.  Churchill.  The Politics of Britain’s Bonfire Night.  How John Major Almost Restored Conservatism; lost possibilities from 1991.

Force-Labour Camps in 1930s Britain.  Tories Claim a Classless Society.  Adam Smith Had Alien Social Values.  Blasphemy for Atheists? Why Bother?. The Post-1956 Failure of Pro–Moscow Communism.  Neglect of the Mentally Ill (in 1991).  British Government Under John Major Disrupts the European Union.   ‘Marxist Today’ smugly winds itself up amidst the ruins of left-wing politics.  ‘Bomber’ Harris in 1920s Iraq.

 

The Soviet Collapse

Scepticism in 1987 about Gorbachev’s Reforms.    Remembering in 1988 the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia (which with hindsight doomed the Soviet Bloc to stagnation and death).   Thatcher and Gorbachev as Soulmates (in 1989, before both fell).  Flux in the Europe that Stalin Made (written before the Warsaw Pact collapse).

The collapse of East European Leninism, written in March 1989.  Fall of Romania’s Ceausescu.  Poland in 1991 With Lech Walesa as President.  The Post-1956 Failure of Pro–Moscow Communism.  The Soviet Collapse (written just after the failed 1991 coup).

Kleptocracy in Yeltsin’s Russia.  Russia past and present (in 1992).

 

The Soviet Past

Soviets Since Stalin.  Misunderstanding Stalin.  The 1930s Moscow Trials.    Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy.

 

The British Labour Party

Harold Wilson.   Labour and the Bomb (in 1989), Housing in Britain.   Labour and the Atomic Weapons (in 1989).  Debate with the Socialist Party of Great Britain on the 1945 Labour government.  Americanizing the Labour Party (in 1990).
Interview with Barbara Castle.  In Place of Strife was a lost opportunity.  This and refusing various other schemes paved the way for Thatcher.
Sovereignty and a Single European Currency; considered in 1991.  1991 interview with Eric Heffer, considering Labour’s likely future.  Green Policies for Labour.   Jack Jones on Ernest Bevin.   Black Sections in the Labour Party.    Eric Heffer.   Labour and the Unions.  Labour Needs a Working Class Section.  Kier Hardy – Labour’s First MP.

 

The Conservative Party

Thatcherism in 1989 coming apart at the seams.   Thatcher’s Rise to Power, considered in 1989.  The economic destructiveness of Thatcherism, noted in 1990.  Churchill.  How John Major Almost Restored Conservatism; lost possibilities from 1991.  How Thatcher Repeatedly Rewarded IRA Violence.    How Thatcher boosted Welfarism.  Tories Claim a Classless Society.  British Government Under John Major Disrupts the European Union.

 

Trade Unionism

The Building Industry and the role of Trade Unions in it.   1990 interview with Jimmy Knapp, General Secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen.   Letter on Frank Chapple and the Electricians Union Scandal of the 1950s.  The US Teamsters Union.  1991 interview with Jack Jones.   1991 interview with Bill Morris.  Trade Unions – Industrial Democracy.   Jack Jones on Ernest Bevin.

 

Culture

Review of the French films Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources.  Racism as Anti-Racism.   Why Pornography does not cause Rape.   In Defence of Pornography.  People of the Black Mountains (Book Review),  How Modern Pagans Celebrate Christmas.   Gender-neutral language.   British Literati bravely defending Rushdie in 1990 over the Satanic Verses.  Does Pornography Cause Violence?.   Against Modernist Architecture.

Evil in Return (causes of the 1990 Poll Tax riots).  Morality and Modern Christian Failure.   Review of a Biography of Bertrand Russell.  The Politics of Britain’s Bonfire Night.  Star Trek begun again in 1990.  Blasphemy for Atheists? Why Bother?.  Hunter-gatherers in a world of machines.  Sicilian Godfathers in Fact and Film.  The novel ‘How Green Was My Valley’.  Football as Culture.

 

Europe (Including Ireland)

Belfast and the French Revolution.  The 1789 French Revolution and Its Unstable Politics.  The IRA as criminals or warriors?.  Sovereignty and a Single European Currency; considered in 1991.   How Thatcher Repeatedly Rewarded IRA Violence.   Poland in 1991 With Lech Walesa as President.  Sicilian Godfathers in Fact and Film.  A Misleading History of Ireland.  The Irish Labour Party.  Serbs and Croats – who was anti-Nazi?  Serbs in 1991 Allowed to Crush Albanian Kosovo.  How Charles Haughey Transformed Ireland.

 

Islamic World

The West in 1987 saved Saddam Hussein after his failed war on Iran.  USA in 1988 neglecting Afghanistan.  (Before the emergence of the Taliban and other Sunni Islamic extremists).

The 1989 row over Islam and ‘Satanic Verses’: Multiculturalism and the Rushdie Dispute, Protecting Islam Within Britain (History ), and The Social Origins of Islam.  British Literati bravely defending Rushdie in 1990 over the Satanic Verses.

Iraq – just after the Invasion of Kuwait.  Warning that Iraq could not be ruled except by someone just as brutal as Saddam Hussein.  Further 1990 warnings Against a Gulf War.  Iraq and International Law (from 1990).    Morality of a Gulf War  (from 1990). Warning Against a Gulf War (in January 1991).  The First Bad Gulf War (March 1991).  The USA Forced a War Over Kuwait.    Saudi Arabia Encouraged the Gulf War.   Hunter-gatherers in a world of machines.   Iraq Tricked Into Invading Kuwait.  The United Nations and the 1991 Gulf War – unjust but working just as its creators intended.  Gulf War Lies & Callousness to Arabs.  ‘Bomber’ Harris in 1920s Iraq.

 

China

Chinese demonstrations in 1987 that anticipated of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest.    The Tiananmen Protests (predicting in 1989 that Communist Party rule would continue for many years).    Mao’s Achievements – success in two out of three ‘impossible tasks’.

 

United Nations and International Law

Nations in Conflict (a round-up of the conflicts happening round the world in 1988).  War Crimes Trials – Only for the Defeated.   Iraq and International Law (from 1990).   War Without Law (following the 1991 war on Iraq).  The United Nations and the 1991 Gulf War – unjust but working just as its creators intended.  America’s unjust hegemony (as it was in 1991).  Eric Heffer.  The USA’s New World Order.  The USA’s New World Order.

 

Other International

Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’.   The wider Turkish world (in 1990).    A hopeful 1990 forecast that South Africa under Mandela would work, contrary to what most people said. How Vietnam Won the War But Lost the Peace.     The US Teamsters Union.  Making peace in South Africa (prospects in 1991).

 

Economics

Friedrich List, the German economist whose ideas were closer to reality than those of Adam Smith.   The economic destructiveness of Thatcherism, noted in 1990.  Sovereignty and a Single European Currency; considered in 1991.  Adam Smith Had Alien Social Values. 

 

Science and Technology

Climate Change needing urgent action (written March 1990).  Why US Electronics Succeeded.  Hunter-gatherers in a world of machines.    Was Modern Industry a Mistake?  Darwinism – a Creed Needing Correction.

 

Other

Morality and Modern Christian Failure.   Review of a Biography of Bertrand Russell.  Blasphemy for Atheists? Why Bother?.

Star Trek begun again in 1990.

 

All of these are from the old magazines which I am scanning and posting.
Note that some articles are listed in two or more sections, where they are connected to more than one category.