May 2006 marked the eighteeth anniversary of the 1926 General Strike in Britain - the most important and earth-shattering moment in the history of the British working class. To commemorate it and, more importantly, to draw out the lessons from this movement, Peter Taaffe has written this book outlining the course of the nine days that shook British capitalism to its foundations.

It is more than a narrative and chronology of the events themselves, although this will be important for those newer to the movement. Following the public-sector workers' strike during March 2006, the biggest strike of the British working class since 1926, it discusses the use of the demand for a general strike. But it particularly deals with the revolutionary possibilities of the General Strike and the question of whether the fledgling Communist Party of Great Britain had the right strategy, programme and tactics to take full advantageof the strike and the period.

See interview with the author '1926 General Strike: 9 Days That Shook Britain' in the Socialist 438

"Using the method of contrasts, we compare their ideas and ours on how best to take the left forward. But our arguments are not directed solely at the SWP and its supporters in the British and international labour movement. There are also organisations and groupings which have a similar approach. This book is a critique of what we believe are wrong methods in general, which in the crucial task of forging a new Marxist force can be a barrier to building a new mass workers' left party in Britain. Our task above all is to seek to educate the new generation of workers and young people who will be moved into action by the great events that impend in Britain and worldwide. Many will investigate the credentials - including the history of all organisations - before engaging with them. A serious examination - which we aim for here - would show that the SWP in its fundamental ideas, its approach and, above all, its method has been found wanting. Unless they change, they can still have a negative effect in the battles to come."

- From the preface

See the review in the Socialist 560

The great French revolution signalled the end of feudalism in France and laid the basis for modern capitalist society. Yet today the historians of the ruling class try to deny their own heritage. They are petrified of new revolutionary upheavals - this time led by the powerful working class towards the overthrow of capitalism.

The true history of the revolution is still rich for the working class today: on the heroic will of the sans-cullotes to do away with the old order, on the ebbs and the flows of the revolutionary process, on the development of Bonapartism - the forerunner of modern military dictatorships and on the revolutionary tasks in societies where elements of feudalism remain.

This book, first published in 1989, above all unearths the true history of the struggle of the oppressed and draws out vital lessons for the class struggle today.

Read the review 'The Masses Arise: The French revolution and today's struggles' in the Socialist 583

Celebrating the activity and contribution of the CWI to the workers’ movement internationally over the last 30 years. Republished 1997 pamphlet 'History of the CWI' with a major update by Peter Taaffe

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

• What consequences will the economic crisis and its aftermath have for women?
• Will the important changes that have already taken place withstand the effects of this dramatic new period?
• Or will the film of history begin to unwind?
• Are inequality, discrimination and oppression inevitable part of our lives?

Christine Thomas was the Socialist Party's national women's organiser from 1994 to 2006. She has written extensively on the question of women's oppression for the Socialist newspaper and the Socialist Party's theoretical magazine Socialism Today.

This updated second edition contains a new appendix.

Read an interview with the author 'Women and the struggle against oppression' in the Socialist 638.

The propertied classes have often accused socialists in struggle against exploitation of 'terrorism' while the terror of capitalist rulers provokes resistance. Trotsky shows that the working class is the only social force capable of changing societ

A million seller in the USA, Out of the Night was originally published in four English editions and five other languages. Acclaimed and attacked, it was outlawed in Germany, Italy and Russia. Valtin, who is both an heroic and a tragic figure, takes the reader to the upheavals of Germany 1918-23, then to the four corners of the globe following his travels as a revolutionary sailor.

Through his eyes, it is possible to re-live the hopes and the the agonies of a whole generation of German workers as fascism crushed them in its terrible vice. Valtin's description of the barbarous tortures of the Gestapo after his capture makes the blood run cold. Despite the persecution of the author at the hands of both the Gestapo and the Kremlin secret police, Out of the Night above all shows the power and self-sacrificing heroism possessed by workers in struggle. It is republished now in English for the first time since the 1940s.

Local general strikes, demonstrations of 100,000, open splits in the bureaucracy - a new epoch has opened up in the Soviet Union - that of the political revolution. Can Gorbachev's reforms work?

This pamphlet covers these issues and the background to the present crisis. In addition we are proud to re-print the statement made by Esteban Volkov, to the Militant rally in June 1988, demanding the political rehabilitation of his grandfather, Leon Trotsky.

In 1936 200 unemployed men from Jarrow marched 300 miles against joblessness, poverty and starvation. The road they took led them not only to London but into the history books. In October 2011, the Youth Fight for Jobs campaign (YFJ) took this road once again. The modern day ‘Jarrow March’ was no historical re-enactment. 2011’s marchers did not make the long Journey to the steps of Downing St out of a mere reverence for those forced to take the same route all those years ago. This was a march against the modern day blight: mass youth unemployment.

"If the trade union movement doesn’t stand by the young people in the frontline of the Con-Dem attack on jobs and services, we will witness a re-run of the Thatcher government’s cynical dumping of a whole generation onto the scrap heap.

"This ideological government of millionaires, backed by big business, could not care less for those who get trampled in their dash to drive a bulldozer through our communities.

"The betrayal of Bombardier shows in graphic terms what’s at stake – apprentices and a state-of-the-art training centre sacrificed in order to appease global finance capital and the EU. RMT’s fight for the future of manufacturing jobs in train building, and the apprenticeships that run alongside them, rages on.

"RMT is totally behind the Youth Fight for Jobs Jarrow march and will support it in the towns, villages and cities as it heads down from the North East. RMT will not be found wanting when it comes to solidarity with the youth, and any other sections of our community, in the frontline of the fight back."

Bob Crow, General Secretary of the RMT Union

"Three-quarters of a century on, the young people recreating this famous march are sending an important message that our communities must never again be abandoned to pay for an economic crisis they did not cause.

"Instead of cutting jobs, pay and working conditions – and hacking away at our public services and our welfare state – the government should be investing to provide work and clamping down on the wealthy tax dodgers who deprive our public finances of tens of billions of pounds a year.

"As we prepare for the largest public sector strike in decades as part of our fight against these cuts, on behalf of PCS, I send solidarity to the marchers and wish them well on their journey for justice."

Mark Serwotka, General Secretary of the PCS Union

" 'Lazy’ or ‘scrounger’ are two unfair labels used all too often of the unemployed. But as we write, around 30 unemployed youths are on a 330-mile Jarrow-to-London march. And lazy they certainly are not.

"As trade unionists we fully support these young marchers’ demands, including a massive government scheme to create socially useful jobs. They stand in the proud tradition, laid down by the 200 men who completed this same route in 1936, of fighting for the right to work.

"That’s why we will be joining the final leg of the Youth Fight for Jobs Jarrow March on 5 November in London, starting at noon at Temple Embankment."

Mark Serwotka PCS,

Sally Hunt UCU,

Bob Crow RMT,

Matt Wrack FBU