Revolutionary History

Last updated

Journal scope

Alongside the history of Trotskyism Revolutionary History articles also covered other anti-Stalinist communist traditions. Most issues were themed and consisted of documents that had either never appeared in English or had been out of print for many years, together with contextual and introductory materials. Some issues consisted of original studies of episodes of revolutionary struggle or studies of specific individuals or organisations. Revolutionary History has been described as the English equivalent of the French journal Cahiers Léon Trotsky. [3] The journal gained a reputation for its inclusive approach to the history of Trotskyism, having a wide representation of Trotskyist groups on its board, which, at one point, even included a representative of the Socialist Workers Party. Initially focusing on the obscure or unpublished Trotskyist sources from the Balkans, Scandinavia, and Southern and Eastern Asia, it later broadened its scope, covering such topics as the history of the communist movement in France. [4]

Revolutionary History used the motto ‘Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it’, paraphrasing the philosopher George Santayana in The Life of Reason . The motto was chosen to reflect the publication’s aim to highlight and explore the contribution of small non-conformist groups in revolutionary history. [5]

Publication history

Revolutionary History was founded in 1988 as an English-language quarterly by the Trotskyist historians Bornstein and Richardson. Later, the journal would appear approximately once a year and was published through Merlin Press. [3] The editorial board was staffed by several well known Trotskyists including Edward Crawford and Paul Flewers, [6] the former of whose archived correspondence as editor of Revolutionary History is held at the University of London's Senate House. [7] Despite being a British publication, Revolutionary History gained greater recognition in Argentina, France and Sri Lanka. [8] Following the death of founding editor Richardson in 2003, the journal was edited by various visiting editors, alongside the editorial board including the academic Esther Leslie. [9] The first series of Revolutionary History finished in 2013 on volume 11, the journal began a second series in 2015 but thereafter ceased publication. [3] In 2018 the journal’s editorship issued a statement via its Facebook page stating that the publication was floundering due to a lack of direction and failure to adapt to a contemporary audience. The proposed solution was to further broaden the scope of Revolutionary History beyond the topic of Trotskyism. [10]

Reception

Whilst Revolutionary History was praised for opening up the histories of the international Trotskyist movement, it was also critiqued for presenting such primary sources uncritically. [11] The journal has also been lauded for bringing Trotskyists back into the history of the workers struggle in the twentieth-century, its ambitious translations of non-English material, championing previously ignored individuals such as Victor Serge, and Marguerite and Alfred Rosmer, as well as largely avoiding the more insignificant history of disputes within various Trotskyist groups. [12]

In an exchange with its editor Richardson, the Marxist historian Ian Birchall once criticised the journal for not living up to its motto, quoting the lyrics of the song Bill Bailey to suggest it was too sectarian. Richardson defended the journal, replying “…learning from history can be ‘simple’ – providing you are allowed to get to know about it in the first place.” [13]

Supplements and side publications

Unpublished articles were also provided as a digital supplement to Revolutionary History. [14]

Related Research Articles

Evelyn Reed was an American Marxist, Trotskyist, and women's rights activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Broué</span>

Pierre Broué was a French historian and Trotskyist revolutionary militant whose work covers the history of the Bolshevik Party, the Spanish Revolution and biographies of Leon Trotsky.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Breitman</span> American political activist (1916–1986)

George Breitman was an American communist political activist and newspaper editor. He is best remembered as a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and as a long-time editor of that organization's weekly paper, The Militant. Breitman also supervised and edited several important publishing projects as the head of the SWP's publishing house in the 1960s and 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aleksandra Sokolovskaya</span> First wife of Leon Trotsky

Aleksandra Lvovna Sokolovskaya was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and Leon Trotsky's first wife. She died in the Great Purges no earlier than 1938.

Charles Curtiss was an American communist.

The International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency was an international Marxist group based in France led by Michel Pablo, also known as Michael Raptis, the former secretary of the Trotskyist Fourth International. It resulted as a regroupment of activists expelled from the Fourth International over their opposition to the 1962 re-unification process with the so-called "International Committee of the Fourth International"(ICFI) which had split from the Fourth International in 1953 over the question of entrism sui generis, a form of entryism which involved eschewing overt organisation building efforts in favour of long term participation in social democratic and communist parties. The re-unification process was rushed while Pablo was imprisoned in the Netherlands for illegal activities in support of the Algerian revolution.

Jimmy Deane was a British Trotskyist who played a significant role in building the Revolutionary Socialist League. Along with Jock Haston and Ted Grant, he played a role during the Second World War in the Revolutionary Communist Party, the British section of the Fourth International.

Alec Stuart "Al" Richardson was a British Trotskyist historian and activist.

Harry Wicks was a British socialist activist.

Sam Bornstein was a British Trotskyist historian and activist.

Joseph "Usick" Vanzler, best known by the pseudonym John G. Wright, was a Jewish-American socialist, activist and translator. Vanzler is best known as the translator of a number of the important works of Leon Trotsky — materials which helped to establish to expand the influence of the Trotskyist movement in the English-speaking world.

Denzil Dean Harber was an early British Trotskyist leader and later in his life a prominent British ornithologist.

The Workers' International League (WIL) was a Trotskyist group that existed in Britain from 1937 to 1944.

Michel Pablo was the pseudonym of Michalis N. Raptis, a Trotskyist leader of Greek origin.

Joseph Leroy Hansen, was an American Trotskyist and leading figure in the Socialist Workers Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Frank</span> French Trotskyist leader (1905-1984)

Pierre Frank was a French Trotskyist leader. He served on the secretariat of the Fourth International from 1948 to 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Cliff</span> Jewish-British socialist activist (1917–2000)

Tony Cliff was a Trotskyist activist. Born to a Jewish family in Ottoman Palestine, he moved to Britain in 1947 and by the end of the 1950s had assumed the pen name of Tony Cliff. A founding member of the Socialist Review Group, which became the International Socialists and then the Socialist Workers Party, in 1977. Cliff was effectively the leader of all three.

The Revolutionary Communist Party was a British Trotskyist group, formed in 1944 and active until 1949, which published the newspaper Socialist Appeal and a theoretical journal, Workers International News. The party was the ancestor of the three main currents of British Trotskyism: Gerry Healy's Workers Revolutionary Party, Ted Grant's Militant and Tony Cliff's Socialist Workers Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ted Grant</span> Founder-leader of Militant then Socialist Appeal

Edward Grant was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain. He was a founding member of the group Militant and later Socialist Appeal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Far-left politics in the United Kingdom</span>

Far-left politics in the United Kingdom have existed since at least the 1840s, with the formation of various organisations following ideologies such as Marxism, revolutionary socialism, communism, anarchism and syndicalism.

References

  1. ↑ Obituary of Al Richardson, Weekly Worker 506, Thursday November 27, 2003
  2. ↑ "Comrade Al Richardson remembered". Weekly Worker. No. 520. 18 March 2004. Retrieved 29 May 2024.
  3. 1 2 3 Lubitz, Petra; Lubitz, Wolfgang (2004). "Revolutionary History". trotskyana.net. Journals. Retrieved 26 April 2024.
  4. ↑ "Shocking Loss". Weekly Worker . No. 506. 27 November 2003. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  5. ↑ Lubitz, Petra; Lubitz, Wolfgang (2004). "Revolutionary History". trotskyana.net. Journals. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
  6. ↑ Fishman, Nina (1 December 2004). "CPGB History at the Centre of Contemporary History: A Rejoinder to Alan Campbell and John Mcilroy". Labour History Review. 69 (3): 381. ISSN   0961-5652.
  7. ↑ "Edward Crawford papers". archives.libraries.london.ac.uk. Retrieved 28 May 2024.
  8. ↑ McIlroy, John (24 January 2004). "Al Richardson: Teacher on a quest for the history of British Trotskyism". The Guardian . Retrieved 27 May 2024.
  9. ↑ "Editorial". Revolutionary History. 1. 9 (2): 1–2. 2006. ISSN   0953-2382.
  10. ↑ Parker, Lawrence (8 May 2021). "Is Trotskyist history writing in crisis?". Communist Party of Great Britain History. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  11. ↑ Robinson, Bruce (8 December 2003). "Al Richardson: An "unorthodox orthodox" Trotskyist". workersliberty.org. Retrieved 29 May 2024.
  12. ↑ Birchall, Ian (January 2001). "Revolutionary History". London Socialist Historians Group Newsletter. No. 11. Retrieved 29 May 2024.
  13. ↑ "Al Richardson Exchange with Ian Birchall, (1995)". marxists.org. Retrieved 27 April 2024.
  14. ↑ "Revolutionary History: Unpublished articles". marxists.org. Retrieved 26 April 2024.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.