The Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky's very extensive writings on World War I, the vast majority of which have been unavailable in English, contain invaluable lessons for socialists and are also essential reading for those studying the history of the period. The 100th anniversary of the start of a war that Trotsky from the start denounced as imperialist, marks a fitting time to begin the publication of his writings from the period. Nearly all material is from two Parisian Russian emigre newspapers, Golos (The Voice) and Nashe Slovo (Our Word), and from the Kievskaya Mysl' (Kieven Thought), a mainstream mass circulation paper published in Kiev.

Apart from the first article, The War and the International, all the articles are translated into English for the first time by Pete Dickenson.

This book gives a glimpse of the confrontations that took place in massive well-organised unionised car plants and the wider struggles of industrial workers with firstly a Tory government, attempting to act as the agency for the bosses. The Tory prime minister, Edward Heath, had brought in anti-union legislation in the form of the Industrial Relations Bill. The ‘Kill the Bill’ slogan has been revived by the National Shop Stewards Network in the campaign against Cameron’s ‘anti’-Trade Union Bill. Union activists would do well to study the lessons of the struggles of the early 1970s to arm themselves for the battles against the Tories now.

The book also deals with the developments around the succeeding Labour government nationalising the companies that made up the state-owned British Leyland. Bill and other Militant stewards along with leading supporters of the Militant, worked out a socialist programme of the car industry to fight back against the attacks on BL workers’ jobs and conditions mainly under a Labour government.

From the foreword