An Empty Tale
The foreign policy establishment is responding to Trump-era brutalities by demanding more, not less, aggression and empire.
Search Result(s) for: “China”
Where Are They Now?
We went looking for our favorite Obama and Clinton campaign alums. We found them in corporate America.
The Day That Shook the World
The story of November 7, 1917 — the day the Bolsheviks changed world history.
Assessing Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was one of the most important Communist leaders of the twentieth century. Celebrated by the West for his pro-market reforms, leftists should be more skeptical of his accomplishments.
Capitalism Is Not a “Free Labor” System
Apologists for capitalism like to point to its historically progressive aspects, like its supposed use of “free labor” rather than older forms of labor compulsion. But throughout its history, as the system has conquered new territories for capital accumulation, it has embraced and depended on the most coercive forms of “premodern” production relations.
Inside the Rebellion
Chinese auto workers are becoming increasingly militant, but lack mass, independent organizations.
“A Communist Doesn’t Whine — He Shows His Teeth”
Theodor Bergmann, the last surviving member of the pre–World War II German Communist movement, spoke to Jacobin.
Maoism and Its Complicated Legacy
Despite its massive length, Julia Lovell’s Maoism: A Global History doesn’t offer us a clear way to understand Maoism and its legacy.
John Pilger Was a Tireless Critic of Western Imperialism
The reporter John Pilger, who died at the end of 2023, showed what a life committed to attacking the powerful through journalism and taking the side of the oppressed looks like.
Is This a Turning Point for Israel’s Standing in the World?
Writing in Jacobin, Ecuador’s former foreign minister under Rafael Correa analyzes the cracks in Israel’s international standing that seem to be emerging — even in the United States.
Bring American Communists Out of the Shadows — and Closets
In the 20th century, American Communist Party members were portrayed as the Red Menace, an enemy within. In reality, they were ordinary people with extraordinarily complex intellectual, political, social, and romantic lives that deserve to be chronicled.
Communism in Words
A brief history of Esperanto, the language intimately tied to the common destiny of the working class.
Communism in Words
A brief history of Esperanto.
Australia’s Rulers Know They Need American Imperialism to Dominate the Pacific
When it comes to foreign policy, Australia has long been in thrall to US interests. This isn’t because Australia is an American client state but because the Australian establishment knows that its own interests are best served by US empire.
Inflation Didn’t Have to Doom Biden
Economist Isabella Weber explains in a long-form interview where the inflation surge came from and how the Biden administration struggled to take necessary measures to combat it.
Max Weber Was a Class-Conscious Champion of the Bourgeoisie
During the Cold War, US sociologists lionized Max Weber as a superior alternative to Karl Marx. For all his brilliance, Weber’s social theory glosses over the violent, exploitative nature of capitalism and serves as a pessimistic defense of the status quo.
Inflation Kills Governments
Economist Isabella Weber explains where the inflation surge came from and why the Biden administration struggled to beat it.
India’s M. N. Roy Was the Pioneer of Postcolonial Marxism
M. N. Roy was a revolutionary activist across national borders, from his home country of India to Mexico and the USSR. Roy rejected Eurocentric versions of Marxism, and his ideas about the postcolonial state are strikingly relevant to Indian politics today.
How Yugoslavia’s Partisans Built a New Socialist Society
Yugoslavia’s partisan movement singlehandedly defeated Nazi occupation and paved the way for a radical transformation of society. Yet socialist Yugoslavia was ultimately broken by its own internal contradictions — and its unwillingness to push that transformation further.
A Rough Night at the Opera
John Adams and Peter Sellars’s Girls of the Golden West is bland, poorly staged liberalism.