Larissa Reisner and the German revolution of 1923
In a vain effort to escape from the disgusting trivia of the New Zealand elections, I have been reading Hamburg at the Barricades, Larissa Reisner’s1 account of the failed German […]
Category Archives: working class history
Workers, farmers and war: New Zealand in 1914
Of all the questions confronting the working class in New Zealand in the decade beginning 1912, as it set itself on a course toward political independence, none was more decisive […]
The socialism of mining villages, lumber camps and company towns
The capitalist mode of production comes into existence by uprooting people from the land and drawing them into urban industrial concentrations. Great industrial cities are a characteristic feature of capitalism, […]
Apology, anthropology, and colonial genocide
A review of Terra Nullius, A Journey Through No One’s Land, by Sven Lindqvist Terra Nullius – a Latin expression meaning ‘no one’s land’ – was a legal fiction used to clear […]
The Twitter Bonaparte casts a shadow: two articles on Bonapartism
Part 1: the second Bonaparte (and the first) In 1848 the continent of Europe was engulfed in the flames of revolution. Absolute monarchies, princes and dukes were overthrown in Denmark, […]
Why the founding of the Labour Party was a historic advance
“The first great step of importance for every country newly entering into the [working class] movement is always the constitution of the workers as an independent political party, no matter […]
A city built on the bones of prisoners
Komsomolsk-na-Amur is an industrial city in the Russian Far East. Founded in 1932, it was from 1937 unmarked on maps and off limits to foreigners – not just in Soviet […]
The difficult birth of independent Mongolia
“Let every Mongolian, Russian, Tibetan, and Chinese person know that we have heard that the Chinese have revolted against the Manchu and the Qing empire is presently in collapse. Mongolia […]
Shanghai and the holocaust
Jewish communities have existed in China for at least a thousand years, since they arrived as traders along the silk road. The European explorer Marco Polo, visiting Beijing in the […]
A visit to the museum of propaganda posters in Shanghai
I have never been very keen on Maoist poster art – not even in the period of my life when I was attracted to Maoism – and I probably would […]
