Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-64) is often described as the “founder of German social democracy”. But his influence on the German workers’ movement was mostly disastrous.
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets—and arguably the greatest. The critic Harold Bloom described him as “a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem”. But he was much more than that: he was also a passionate revolutionary.
Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Archie Roach’s sons, Amos and Eban, have given permission for their father’s name and image to be used “so that his legacy will continue to inspire”.
'Pravda', the newspaper indelibly associated with the Bolshevik Party and the Russian Revolution, means 'truth'. It’s an appropriate name for a publication that set out to relate and generalise the experiences and struggles of the Russian working class, which was numerically small and scattered over a vast area in the early twentieth century.
The carnage of World War I was ended by revolution in Germany. It began in November 1918 with a mutiny of sailors in Kiel. The revolt spread like lightning among Germany’s war-weary and increasingly rebellious workers. All over the country, workers’ and soldiers’ councils were elected and held effective power. Within a matter of days, the monarchy collapsed.