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Councils of Action Cover

The Councils of Action 1920 and the British Labour Movement’s Defence of Soviet Russia - John Foster

£4 (plus £1.50 p&p)  ISBN 978-1-907464-28-7

When, close to a century ago, the labour movement in Britain prepared to take industrial action in defence of the young Soviet Union, the ruling class was terrified.

On 7 August 1920 the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress and the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party jointly convened a Council of Action with the aim of preventing the British government from declaring war on Soviet Russia or of supplying troops or munitions to its enemies. Over 300 local Councils of Action were subsequently called into being to provide the organisational base for a general strike.

Two days later the government abandoned its plans and instead backed Soviet proposals for a peace treaty with the principal aggressor, Poland. This was the first occasion on which the leadership of the British Labour movement had formally countenanced industrial action to bring pressure to bear on a ‘constitutional’ government. Its success in doing so provided both precedent and rationale for the 1926 General Strike.

John Foster examines the Councils of Action against the background of a rising militancy and in the political context of a government divided over how to restore Britain’s power, the ideological challenges to right-wing Labour arising from the Irish national movement and Soviet power and the formation of the Communist Party.

 

        

Arnot Cover

The Impact of the Russian Revolution on Britain - Robin Page Arnot

£8 (plus £1.50 p&p)  ISBN 978-1-907464-30-0

First published for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution, this book documents the immediate and lasting effects on Britain of the events in Russia in 1917. Robin Page Arnot describes the varying reactions of Britain’s press, its established political parties and its Labour movement, from the February Revolution all the way through to the Wars of Intervention.

He reveals just how much the British ruling class sought to destroy the world’s first workers’ state, and the struggles by Britain’s working class to prevent that.

On the occasion of the Centenary of the October Revolution, Manifesto Press is proud to make this work of scholarship, long out of print, available for a new generation of readers and students of history.

        

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International Women’s Day by Alexandra Kollontai

£2.50 (plus £1.50 p&p)  ISBN978-1-907464-21-8

 

Following the Russian Revolution, International Women’s Day was established as a national holiday and Alexandra Kollontai became head of the Women’s Department and People’s Commissar for welfare and led the campaign to improve women’s living conditions, eradicate illiteracy and establish a new legal and social framework for women’s liberation. International Women’s Day is now celebrated throughout the world and its close links to the revolutionary struggles of the 20th century become more relevant as systemic crisis grips the capitalist world.
 
Manifesto Press publishes this reprint of Alexandra Kollontai’s writing on International Women’s Day as part of its
programme to mark the centenary of the October Socialist Revolution.

      

PIIGS Cover 2PIIGS awakening by Luciano Vasapollo with Rita Martufi and Joaquìn Arriola 

£5 (plus £1.50 p&p)  ISBN 978-1-907464-20-1

PIIGS awakening is the second in a Manifesto Press series dealing with the crisis of the European Union.

The writers are each established authorities with distinguished reputations within both the academic and the labour movement and their proposals carry the endorsement of the most militant sections of Italy’s trade union movement.

In describing the distinctive features of the Italian economy and its capitalist development they present a sharp analysis of the problems of the eurozone and of the particular ways in which the European Union places Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Greece at a disadvantage.

They go beyond analysis to propose a project that would disrupt the relations of power and subordination in the European Union and weaken the dominance of the euro.

Drawing on the experience of Latin American states and of Kerala in India they propose a changed monetary system.

The authors do not disguise the profound political obstacles that confront such a project and assert that without a radical class confrontation, and an organised subjective force actually able to search for solutions, the system will find new ways to keep the capitalist mode of production alive.

The transition to another mode of production, or, better, the transition to a socialist society implies not only a dramatic crisis, but an organised revolutionary subjectivity, to lead the class towards the way out of the capitalist mode of production.