http://wspus.org Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:50:15 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= Copyright © World Socialist Party (US) 2010 joinwspus@wspus.org (World Socialist Party (US)) joinwspus@wspus.org (World Socialist Party (US)) 1440 http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4016/4261195043_233c9929ca_o.jpg http://wspus.org 144 144 World Socialist Party (US) World Socialist Party (US) joinwspus@wspus.org no no http://wspus.org/2013/06/big-pharma-pushing-harmful-drugs/ http://wspus.org/2013/06/big-pharma-pushing-harmful-drugs/#comments Wed, 12 Jun 2013 21:50:15 +0000 Stefan http://wspus.org/?p=2884 http://wspus.org/2013/06/big-pharma-pushing-harmful-drugs/feed/ 0 http://wspus.org/2013/05/book-review-the-alternative-to-capitalism/ http://wspus.org/2013/05/book-review-the-alternative-to-capitalism/#comments Sun, 26 May 2013 17:17:42 +0000 Stefan http://wspus.org/?p=2879 http://wspus.org/2013/05/book-review-the-alternative-to-capitalism/feed/ 0 http://wspus.org/2013/05/what-we-are-up-against/ http://wspus.org/2013/05/what-we-are-up-against/#comments Mon, 20 May 2013 16:19:22 +0000 Joe Hopkins http://wspus.org/?p=2875 http://wspus.org/2013/05/what-we-are-up-against/feed/ 0 http://wspus.org/2013/04/profit-hotel%e2%80%a8-dirty-gossip-about-the-capitalist-mode-of-production/ http://wspus.org/2013/04/profit-hotel%e2%80%a8-dirty-gossip-about-the-capitalist-mode-of-production/#comments Thu, 25 Apr 2013 06:16:07 +0000 ROEL http://wspus.org/?p=2866 http://wspus.org/2013/04/profit-hotel%e2%80%a8-dirty-gossip-about-the-capitalist-mode-of-production/feed/ 0 http://wspus.org/2013/04/%e2%80%98surplus-theory%e2%80%99-versus-marxian-theory/ http://wspus.org/2013/04/%e2%80%98surplus-theory%e2%80%99-versus-marxian-theory/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2013 05:34:02 +0000 SPGB http://wspus.org/?p=2857 http://wspus.org/2013/04/%e2%80%98surplus-theory%e2%80%99-versus-marxian-theory/feed/ 0 http://wspus.org/2013/04/north-korea-is-the-crisis-real/ http://wspus.org/2013/04/north-korea-is-the-crisis-real/#comments Sat, 13 Apr 2013 11:04:27 +0000 Stefan http://wspus.org/?p=2849 http://wspus.org/2013/04/north-korea-is-the-crisis-real/feed/ 0 http://wspus.org/2013/03/falling-rate-of-profit/ http://wspus.org/2013/03/falling-rate-of-profit/#comments Thu, 21 Mar 2013 01:15:41 +0000 SPGB http://wspus.org/?p=2794 http://wspus.org/2013/03/falling-rate-of-profit/feed/ 0 http://wspus.org/2013/03/world-socialism-in-ireland-an-interview/ http://wspus.org/2013/03/world-socialism-in-ireland-an-interview/#comments Sun, 17 Mar 2013 19:30:46 +0000 FN Brill http://wspus.org/?p=2835 http://wspus.org/2013/03/world-socialism-in-ireland-an-interview/feed/ 0 0:00:01 Below is an interview with a comrade of ours who explains his progression from being a member of the IRA, through Trotskyism to a World Socialist position. Discussion between Richard (Dick) Montague and Ciaran Crossey Belfast, 21 November 19[...] Below is an interview with a comrade of ours who explains his progression from being a member of the IRA, through Trotskyism to a World Socialist position. Discussion between Richard (Dick) Montague and Ciaran Crossey Belfast, 21 November 1987 CC I was given your name as a socialist activist in the ’40s by Vincent McDowell. What I’m trying to uncover is information about the minor socialist groupings in Ireland during the ’30s and ’50s. RM Vincent McDowell had been interned in Belfast during WWII. He came out wiser but he was not prepared to publicly say so. He broke with the IRA but missed a chance to openly separate. Myself, I had broken with the IRA before going to prison. I’d gone on the run, got caught and convicted. I was released in ’45-’46. I imagined myself as a socialist, some vague unidentified idea. In 1946 I was reading a lot and in town one day I attended a street meeting at Blitz Square. There were in fact two Blitz Squares, on either side of Bridge Street, at the corner with High Street. There were fantastic public meetings going on there. Well at this meeting there were a few people, the group had a banner, the Revolutionary Socialist Party. I later found out that they were a Trotskyist group. I’d a rather personal view of Trotsky as a rather ugly man with glasses who’d attacked Kronstadt. This view came from my opposition to the Communist Party and its position on Russia. I thought that socialism which did not involve individual freedom was untenable. At this public meeting the speaker was Jim McCleen. The leader of the group was Bob Armstrong, a Scotsman who’d been wounded with the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. Bob was a charismatic character, personally very nice. He took the view, consistent with Trotskyism that the revolution requires violence. This meant that they orientated towards the IRA members, and ex-members as a potential base for the armed revolution. The RSP looked for links with IRA people for when the revolutionary situation occurred from the crisis of capitalism. The task of the Party was cadre building to prepare the revolution and lead the masses in struggle. At the meeting I asked a few questions of McCleen, I was perceptive but politically ignorant. As they did not disagree with anything I said I joined. I later found that was something they did with everyone. I became associated with them, sort of evolved into membership without being asked or being moved as a member. There was very little democracy in the movement, decisions were taken by the ‘fuhrer’, Bob Armstrong. There was a paper, Workers’ Republic which occasionally appeared. At this time the membership was at best 8-9. I remember Bob and Elsie, Betty Graham, J McCleen, the Hanna brothers, and Johnny Casey who was a member for a while. Vincent McDowell was associated with the RSP but he never joined. He personally distanced himself, he’d be around for a few days, then disappear for weeks. He took Betty Graham away, he later married her. This was a bombshell to this little insular group. For alleged Marxist materialists they gave off a lot of personalised flak about this, as Betty had been another comrades friend. In the Trotskyist movement there were several strains of thought. The primary group was JP Cannon’s who argued that Russia was a degenerate workers’ state. He was the one who sent a telegram to Stalin the day the Germans invaded Russia calling upon Stalin to release the Trotskyists from the camps so that they could take their place in the front against fascism. The other trend was the Shachtmanites, who believed Russia was a bureaucratic collectivist state. I’d only known the RSP for one or two weeks when I was asked to speak at one of the street meetings. After the meeting, my first public meeting, I was selling the Socialist Appeal, edited by Ted Grant, when I noticed the ‘what we st[...] Ireland joinwspus@wspus.org no no http://wspus.org/2013/03/argh-the-movie/ http://wspus.org/2013/03/argh-the-movie/#comments Sat, 16 Mar 2013 18:33:44 +0000 ROEL http://wspus.org/?p=2783 http://wspus.org/2013/03/argh-the-movie/feed/ 0 http://wspus.org/2013/03/remembering-marx/ http://wspus.org/2013/03/remembering-marx/#comments Fri, 15 Mar 2013 01:00:07 +0000 SPGB http://wspus.org/?p=2790 http://wspus.org/2013/03/remembering-marx/feed/ 0