By Roger Silverman, April 2025 The world is reeling with shock and disbelief. Its dominant power has abruptly abandoned eight decades of economic orthodoxy, diplomatic consensus, strategic alliances and liberal pretensions. At home this means the shutdown of entire government agencies, mass redundancies, defiance of judicial rulings, incarceration, deportations, concentration camps; … [Read more...]
Roger Silverman addresses Pakistan’s ‘The Struggle’ April 2025 Conference
The Workers’ International Network has for several decades had links with the Pakistani Marxist group The Struggle. This weekend they are held a conference of 1,500 supporters! Here is our greetings message to them. See the recording HERE. … [Read more...]
A NEW ERA HAS BEGUN
by Roger Silverman The return to power of Donald Trump in the USA marks the beginning of a new era in world history. In its former strongholds of North America, western Europe and Japan, capitalism is decaying, prone to periods of stagnation punctuated by slumps and weak recoveries, and dominated by a shrinking elite of super-billionaires indulging in largely parasitic, corrupt and … [Read more...]
THE RETURN OF DONALD TRUMP
by Roger Silverman Trump’s return to power marks the beginning of a new era. From his first day in office, he has broken with an eighty-year long consensus. He has released hundreds of far-right thugs from the Capitol riots; shut down entire government agencies; demanded the resignations of 2.3 million government employees (65,000 of whom have already accepted a derisory bribe of eight … [Read more...]
Counter-revolution in Chile by Roger Silverman
We have passed the fiftieth anniversary of the Chilean coup – an event that shocked worker activists the world over. The Junta surrounded mines and factories with tanks. Sickening descriptions were given by eye-witnesses of sadistic beatings and tortures. Tens of thousands were executed: summarily shot, bludgeoned, mutilated and tortured to death, or hurled into the sea from helicopters. Witnesses … [Read more...]
WIN ARCHIVE LIBRARY – THE LESSONS OF CHILE
by Roger Silverman - 11th September 2023. It is the fiftieth anniversary of the Chilean coup – an event that shocked worker activists the world over. The Junta surrounded mines and factories with tanks. Sickening descriptions were given by eye-witnesses of sadistic beatings and tortures. Tens of thousands were executed: summarily shot, bludgeoned, mutilated and tortured to death, or hurled … [Read more...]
WIN ARCHIVE LIBRARY – UNDERSTANDING SHAKESPEARE
by Roger Silverman. First, I can at last reveal the true identity of Shakespeare: the plays of Shakespeare were written by a man called William Shakespeare. It is sheer reactionary snobbery to suggest that his poetry and plays could only have been written by an aristocrat. On the contrary: an aristocrat of that time would have written from a very different perspective. He was the son of a … [Read more...]
WIN ARCHIVE LIBRARY – RUSSIA: LITERATURE AND REVOLUTION
by Roger Silverman. In Russia, literature and revolution are inextricably intertwined. There is a proud and unbroken Russian tradition of defiance of successive autocratic regimes by artists and writers. It happened under the Tsars; it happened under the tyranny of Stalin and his successors; and it happens still today under the Putin dictatorship. There is no country with a richer … [Read more...]
WIN ARCHIVE LIBRARY – THE BOLSHEVIKS AND PARLIAMENT
by Roger Silverman. We revolutionaries are often misrepresented as enemies of democracy. Didn’t the Bolsheviks ban opposition parties, shut down the Constituent Assembly, impose war communism, create a one-party police state…? On the contrary. For instance, far from imposing a one-party state, the first Soviet government was not even a one-party government: it was a coalition with the left … [Read more...]
WIN ARCHIVE LIBRARY – WHAT WAS STALINISM?
by Roger Silverman. Socialists today still find themselves under the dark shadow that Stalinism has cast over the history of the twentieth century. It is more than ten years since the collapse of the Stalinist regimes of Russia and Eastern Europe – overthrown in many cases by workers’ uprisings. These were hideous, corrupt, vicious regimes, and workers rightly celebrated their downfall as … [Read more...]