 |
 Socialist Review, January 2010 | |
| Editor | Sally Campbell |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Monthly |
| First issue | 1950 |
| Final issue | 2020 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Website | http://www.socialistreview.org.uk |
The Socialist Review was a monthly magazine of the British Socialist Workers Party. As well as being printed it is also published online.
The Socialist Review was set up in 1950 as the main publication of the Socialist Review Group (SRG). It began as a duplicated magazine, the parent group only being able to afford to have it printed from 1954 onwards. In its last years it lost its central importance to the SRG due to the launch in 1960 of a new journal International Socialism and in 1961 a newspaper, Industrial Worker that then became Labour Worker and subsequently the weekly Socialist Worker . Socialist Review was discontinued in 1962 – the year in which the SRG became the International Socialists.
In 1978 the title Socialist Review was launched by the Socialist Workers Party, as the IS had become known. The monthly magazine was renamed Socialist Worker Review in the 1990s later reverting to the better known title and has remained the monthly magazine of the SWP.
In 2003, the selling of the SWP's in-house printing press, for which they give the reason that it was outdated technology that was too expensive to replace, forced them to find new printers for the magazine; Warners Midlands plc. This opened up the opportunity of full colour throughout and of a more professional appearance generally. This has helped to further the push for wider readership particularly outside the ranks of the SWP. The final issue in this format, number 302, was published in December 2005.
The final editor of SR in this format was Chris Nineham. The magazine was edited by Lindsey German, who is convener of the Stop the War Coalition, till May 2004 and from June 2004 to October, 2005 by Peter Morgan.
At the SWP conference in January 2006, a plan was put forward to radically change the format of Socialist Review, turning it into a monthly supplement for Socialist Worker, though retaining the cover price so it could continue to be sold separately. The stated reason for the change was: "The new magazine would draw upon the strengths of both Socialist Worker and Socialist Review and will use the better sale and distribution of the paper to reach a wider audience." [1] The first issue in this format appeared in February 2006.
Socialist Review reverted to being a separate magazine in May 2007, edited first by Judith Orr, and now Sally Campbell. Regular writers include Mark Serwotka, Billy Hayes and Lindsey German. Since the relaunch it has carried interviews with figures such as Naomi Klein, George Galloway, Tony Benn, Tom Morello and Howard Zinn, and features by Francis Beckett and István Mészáros.
The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of world socialism via international revolution. The Fourth International was established in France in 1938, as Trotsky and his supporters, having been expelled from the Soviet Union, considered the Communist International as effectively puppets of Stalinism and thus incapable of leading the international working class to political power. Thus, Trotskyists founded their own competing Fourth International.
Max Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist. He went from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL–CIO President George Meany.
Alexander Theodore Callinicos is a Rhodesian-born British political theorist and activist. An adherent of Trotskyism, he is a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and serves as its International Secretary. He is also editor of International Socialism, the SWP's theoretical journal, and has published a number of books.
Lindsey Ann German is a British left-wing political activist. A founding member and convenor of the British anti-war organisation Stop the War Coalition, she was formerly a member of the Socialist Workers Party, sitting on its central committee and editor of its magazine, Socialist Review.
The New International is a magazine of Marxist theory published first by the Socialist Workers Party of the United States (SWP) from 1934 to 1940, then by the Workers Party from 1940 to 1958, and then revived by the SWP since 1983.
Bert Cochran, born Alexander Goldfarb was an American Communist politician and writer. A Trotskyist, he was a member of the Socialist Workers Party from the 1930s to the 1950s.
The history of the Socialist Workers Party begins with the formation of the Socialist Review Group in 1950, followed by the creation of the International Socialists in 1962 and continues through to the present day with the formation of the Socialist Workers Party in 1977.
Colin Barker was a British sociologist as well as a Marxist historian and writer. A former long-standing member of the Socialist Workers Party in Manchester, he was the author of numerous articles and works on Marxism, including a history of the Polish trade union Solidarity, Festival of the Oppressed.
The Left List, later renamed the Left Alternative, was a political party active in the United Kingdom between 2008 and 2010. A minor party, it never had any of its candidates elected at any level of UK government although it inherited several local councillors who had defected to it from the Respect Party.
The Socialist Workers Network (SWN) is an Irish Trotskyist organisation.
The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) is the name of two Trotskyist internationals; one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site, and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in the UK.
The Fourth International (FI), founded in 1938, is a Trotskyist international. In 1963, following a ten-year schism, the majorities of the two public factions of the Fourth International, the International Secretariat and the International Committee, reunited, electing a United Secretariat of the Fourth International. In 2003, the United Secretariat was replaced by an Executive Bureau and an International Committee, although some other Trotskyists still refer to the organisation as the USFI or USec.
Hal Draper was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement. He is known for his extensive scholarship on the history and meaning of the thought of Karl Marx.
Chris Harman was a British journalist and political activist, and a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party. He was an editor of International Socialism and Socialist Worker.
The International Socialist Organization (ISO) was a Trotskyist group active primarily on college campuses in the United States that was founded in 1976 and dissolved in 2019. The organization held Leninist positions on imperialism and the role of a vanguard party. However, it did not believe that necessary conditions for a revolutionary party in the United States were met; ISO believed that it was preparing the ground for such a party. The organization held a Trotskyist critique of nominally socialist states, which it considered class societies. In contrast, the organization advocated the tradition of "socialism from below." as articulated by Hal Draper. Initially founded as a section of the International Socialist Tendency (IST), it was strongly influenced by the perspectives of Draper and Tony Cliff of the British Socialist Workers Party. It broke from the IST in 2001, but continued to exist as an independent organization for the next eighteen years. The organization advocated independence from the U.S. two-party system and sometimes supported electoral strategies by outside parties, especially the Green Party of the United States.
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a far-left political party in the United Kingdom. Founded as the Socialist Review Group by supporters of Tony Cliff in 1950, it became the International Socialists in 1962 and the SWP in 1977. The party considers itself to be Trotskyist. Cliff and his followers criticised the Soviet Union and its satellites, calling them state capitalist rather than socialist countries.
Socialist Worker is the name of several far-left newspapers currently or formerly associated with the International Socialist Tendency (IST). It is a weekly newspaper published by the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the United Kingdom since 1968, and a monthly published by the International Socialists in Canada. It was a monthly published by the International Socialist Organization (ISO) in the United States from 1977–2019, and a biweekly published by the Socialist Workers Party in Ireland, a quarterly published by the International Socialist Organisation in Zimbabwe and a monthly published by the former International Socialist Organisation in Australia. Socialist Worker was also the name of an IST political group in New Zealand.
Tony Cliff was a Trotskyist activist. Born to a Jewish family in 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 International Socialist Tendency (IST) is an international grouping of unorthodox Trotskyist organisations espousing the ideas of Tony Cliff (1917–2000), founder of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Britain. It has sections across 27 countries; however, its strongest presence is in Europe, especially in Britain.