"The document of Comrade Cliff entitled The Nature of Stalinist Russia at first sight gives the impression of erudition and scientific analysis. However, upon careful examination, it will be observed that not one of the chapters contains a worked-out thesis. The method is a series of parallels based on quotations, and its basic weakness is shown by the fact that conclusions are not rooted in the analysis. From his thesis it is not possible to conclude whether Stalinist Russia remains a progressive system (despite its deformations), or whether for Cliff it has now assumed the same reactionary role as ‘individual’ capitalism or fascism. The weakness is sharply brought out by the fact that no practical conclusions emerge. Is Russia to be defended, or is the revolutionary party to be defeatist? Instead of the answer being rooted in and flowing from the analysis, it has to be worked out a posteriori.

"Despite the fact that Comrade Cliff asserts that the Stalinist bureaucracy is a new class, nowhere in his thesis is a real analysis made or evidence adduced as to why and how such a class constitutes a capitalist class and is not a new type of class.

"And this is not accidental. It flows from the method. Starting off with the preconceived idea of state capitalism, everything is artificially fitted into that conception. Instead of applying the theoretical method of the Marxist teachers to Russian society in its process of motion and development, he has scoured the works to gather quotations and attempted to compress them into a theory."

- Excerpt from the text

Resolutions and conclusions of the 7th World Congress of the Committee for a Workers' International

This book is the result of a discussion between Peter Taaffe, General Secretary of the Socialist Party in England and Wales, and a member of the International Secretariat of the Committee for a Workers' International, and an Italian Marxist, Yurii Colombo.

It tackles head on vital contemporary issues: war, including the Lebanese conflict, the future of Israel/Palestine, the environment, China and its future, economic prospects for world capitalism and many more controversial issues. This provides a vital Marxist analysis for all those who wish to understand how Marxism can affect the worldwide ideological struggle between capitalism and socialism and lay the basis for a new world of human solidarity.

2nd edition with a new 8-page introduction dealing with new developments since Marxism in Today's World was first published in 2006.

Read the review in the Socialist no.800

Read the review of the 1st edition of this book in the Socialist no.464

This book is intended to reveal the main contending forces that drove historical events in Sri Lanka - with the aim of developing a strategy and tactics for the struggle to come.

- From the back cover

2nd edition includes introductory chapter, map, glossary and photos.

Student groups please contact us directly for special discounts.

A reprint of the main articles from the original 1988 pamphlet:

A history of the union - the seafarers stormy past
Lessons of the P&O strike
Fighting for unions democracy
The need for a fighting trade union leadership
Putting ship safety before bosses profits
Dover - from moderates to militants, and more

- From back cover

Land of Whose Fathers? takes the reader from the very start of the industrial revolution in Wales right up to the turn of the 21st century in bite sized pieces and will certainly whet the appetite for deeper study. It also brings into perspective the inception to the decline of the Labour Party as a mass party of the working class.

Read the review in the Socialist no.800

A compilation of articles by campaigners fighting to stop the destruction of the NHS

Dec/Jan 2013/14 issue

Contains articles on:
Profit-Driven Climate Change
Socialist Victory in Seattle
Action against austerity
Tony Benn diaries
Middle East

DSM and the Struggle for a Working Peoples' Political Alternative is a compilation of the written ideas and perspectives of the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) for the liberation of the working and poor masses of Nigeria, Africa and internationally, from capitalist and imperialist exploitation.

These are not just dry treatises but political, agitational and programmatic statements and articles published in the organs of our political tendency - first known as Labour Militant, then Militant from 1995 and Socialist Democracy from 1998.

As mobilization and mass education documents, they were used to intervene at barricades and protests as well as during strikes and meetings of workers and youth activists at different stages in the development of the oppressed and exploited peoples of Nigeria. These struggles were waged at one point - and indeed for a prolonged period - against military despotism and then since 1999, against the anti-poor capitalist civilian ruling elite who took over power from their military counterparts.

The compilation covers the 27-year period of our Marxist tendency, its role and interventions in the struggle of Nigeria's working masses. It was a period hall-marked by the offering of appropriate perspectives, slogans and programmes in the course of the struggle aimed at ending capitalism and enthrone socialism in Nigeria.

November 2013 issue

Contains articles on:
How Red is Ed?
Post-Chavez Venezuela
Students fightback
US Shutdown
Germany