Much of the material broadcast or written to mark the 30th anniversary of the miners’ strike has portrayed their struggle as a brave but tragic attempt to save a dying industry.

No matter how sympathetically the miners, their families and their supporters are portrayed, that view of their battle against Thatcher’s government onslaught does a massive disservice to the momentous struggle they conducted.

It is absolutely vital for the struggles of future generations of trade unionists and socialist militants that a balance sheet of the strike is drawn. Millions of ordinary working-class people, the miners and their families carried out heroic endeavors during the strike. This book shows the miners were right to take the action they did. They could have won a victory which would have raised the sights and confidence of the whole working-class movement.

As Eastern European monoliths crumble, all pre-conceptions must be re-evaluated. Leon Trotsky, fighting the bureaucracy, predicted a new revolution to restore workers' democracy. Fifty years after his assassination, is this being borne out? What are the perspectives for genuine socialism in the USSR?

Elizabeth Clarke and Richard Peters visited the Soviet Union in October/November 1989. Their fascinating account tells of the feelings of the ordinary Russian worker, the independent trade unions, striking miners, daily life in the streets, shortages and queues. Their interviews and discussions provide a penetrating insight into the mood of the Russian people and an invaluable key to understanding the momentous events now unfolding.

Pamphlet by Leeds Socialist Party containing articles on the Leeds Gasworkers strike 1890, the Manningham Mills strike 1890-1, the Old Dog Strike 1909, the Yeadon lockout 1913 and the Leeds Corporation strike 1913. Includes a foreword by Joel Heyes, Secretary of Leeds TUC

"The past few years have seen a resurgence of the trade union movement, with one of the largest ever trade union organised demonstrations and large public sector strikes, as well as growing unrest in the private sector. The theme of this pamphlet is the upsurges of the union movement in the past, particularly around the textile and gas industries in West Yorkshire."

- From the introduction.

A collection of the key writings of Ted Grant, one of the founders of the Militant - includes Will There Be a Slump?, The Chinese Revolution and Against the Theory of State Capitalism amongst others.

What happened to the Communist International established in the aftermath of the Russian revolution? Written in June 1943, this pamphlet is especially relevant today in light of the deepening crisis of capitalism internationally and the sharpening of the splits in many Communist Parties internationally, between old style pro-Moscow Stalinists and the "Eurocommunists".

Ted Grant's original article is republished together with a new introduction by Alan Woods, and the article "The Evolution of the Comintern" written by one of Trotsky's collaborators in 1936.

"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

Lenin's April Theses was written when he arrived back in Russia in April 1917. He argues that the working class, leading the exploited peasantry, should take power and begin to carry out a socialist transformation of society. All other options would end with a brutal counter-revolution.

Now new revolutions are taking place. Millions have risen up across the Middle East demanding democracy and an end to poverty. Imperialism is colluding with the national capitalist classes to ensure that no regime comes to power that threatens their interests. These ongoing revolutions demonstrate beyond doubt that capitalism does not offer a way forward. The main ideas outlined by Lenin apply just as much to Tunisia and Egypt today as they did to Russia in April 1917.

A speech by Marx to the First International Working Men's Association, June 1865.
Written: between end of May and June 27, 1865; First published: 1898; Edited: by Eleanor Marx Aveling

Although delivered as a speech, this paper remained unpublished until after Marx's death. It reads like a condensed version of Capital Volume 1, and contains Marx's essential arguments about the workings of capital. Although we highly recommend reading Capital Volume 1 for a thorough understanding of capitalist economics, this volume provides and excellent introduction to Marx's ideas.

The ancient Greek philosopher Anaximander once wrote that the heavens and the worlds within them began in a "sphere of fire", arising from some unbounded chaos. Some 2,400 years later, Friedrich Engels echoed Anaximander's dialectic: "Everything that comes into being must pass away."

Science, Marxism and the Big Bang discusses some of the great philosophies and scientific discoveries of cosmology - including those of Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Kant, Hegel, Engels and Einstein. This discussion dispels the misconceptions of Reason in Revolt - the book by Ted Grant and Alan Woods that claims to expound the fundamentals of Marxism - in particular that the Big Bang theory is just another "creation myth".

Engels praised Immanuel Kant's theory of the "origin of all existing celestial bodies". Peter Mason argues that Engels' outlook is compatible with modern theories of our universe.

In the Middle of the Road: The ILP and the Fourth International