The Italian communist Antonio Gramsci left behind a rich and complicated legacy of thought on socialist strategy for transforming the world. Historian Michael Denning guides us through the great — and misunderstood — thinker.
French socialist leader Jules Guesde established the first working-class party in modern history and popularized the ideas of Karl Marx at a crucial time. It’s impossible to imagine the subsequent history of Marxism and the French left without Guesde.
Right-wing governments around Europe are funneling state funds to reactionary lobbies in the name of resisting “gender ideology.” Their supposed anti-elitism is a fraud.
We spoke to writer Kenan Malik, whose new book, Not So Black and White, interrogates race and its relationship to class struggle today, tracing the rise of identity politics alongside the decline of the labor movement and universalism.
Capitalism may not be producing “bullshit jobs” in the way David Graeber argued. But our working lives are indeed full of bullshit: marked by the petty despotism of the boss and directed to ends no one would freely choose to pursue.
Livio Maitan belonged to a lost world of professional revolutionaries whose struggles and sacrifices left a deep mark on twentieth-century history. Historian Enzo Traverso pays tribute to one of the Italian left’s most creative activist-intellectuals.
Telling the story of a slave revolt in ancient Rome, the 1960 film Spartacus was penned by two blacklisted Communist writers. Its arrival in theaters was a middle finger to the McCarthyist witch hunt in Hollywood and publishing.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is pushing an agribusiness model on Africa that has failed. Rather than relieving the ongoing hunger crisis, it has undercut Africans' ability to solve their own problems, free of do-gooder philanthropists.
Capitalism’s proponents often defend it by pointing to the virtues of markets. But capitalism isn’t defined by the presence of markets — it’s defined by capitalists’ domination of workers.
Marxist philosopher Étienne Balibar sits down with Jacobin to discuss freedom and democracy — and why socialists need to reclaim those words from the Right.
The diverse mosaic of European socialism engaged both reformists and revolutionaries, often driven by not just intellect but also profound religious conviction. Together, these elements shaped the democratic socialist tradition.
Daniel Bensaïd rejected the idea of historical inevitability, seeing history as a series of crossroads, not a single path. For Bensaïd, class struggle will remain central as long as capitalism exists, but the outcome is always unpredictable.
David Riazanov was a brilliant scholar who pioneered the study of Marxism while playing an active part in Russia’s revolutionary movement. But Ryazanov and the Marx-Engels Institute he founded both fell victim to Stalin’s purges in the 1930s.
Both the Left and the Right used to articulate radically different visions of the future. Today the entire political spectrum looks backward, aiming to restore the past.
German police shut down a Palestine solidarity conference last week, the latest in a long line of repressive moves. The anti-Palestinian witch hunt is rooted in a political culture that stigmatizes left-wing radicalism while indulging the far right.
Holocaust scholar and pro-Palestine activist Norman Finkelstein expresses his support for the student protests, insisting on the importance of free speech and uniting the majority of Americans around solidarity with Gaza.
Despite vicious attacks by the Labour Party establishment, left-winger Jeremy Corbyn easily retained his seat in the recent British election. He spoke to Jacobin about his successful campaign and how he’ll put pressure on Keir Starmer’s government.
The Hamas attack on October 7 shook Israeli society. But to its powerful settler movement, it was an opportunity to realize its expansionist vision.
Viktor Orbán has ruled Hungary for most of its post-1989 history. Far from just a weird outlier, his rule is a product of Hungary’s integration into globalized capitalism — and increasingly sets an example for other EU member-states.
The translators and coeditors of a new edition of Karl Marx’s Capital spoke to the political theorist Wendy Brown about the significance of their undertaking and what this historic text has to offer in the 21st century.