We have added some new articles to the ‘ideas‘ section of the website. Foreword by Chris Kane
The national question remains of particular concern to communists and socialists in the 21st century. One of the principle sources on the national question remains the writings of the Russian communist Lenin. Here is a critical examination of Lenin’s theory of the national question by the Ukrainian Marxist Andrij Karpenko, from the Ukrainian socialist journal META. We have also reproduced a pamphlet by the theorist of the then newly formed and at that time genuine Communist Party of Great Britain, William Paul, on the Irish question and its relationship to the world revolution.
Indeed, since the launching of The Commune many on the traditional left have been searching for ways to categorise us: we have been branded ‘anti-Bolsheviks’ by the Trotskyists and ‘Leninists’ by the anarchists. We recognise Lenin, with other communists of his generation, as an vitally important revolutionary of the 20th century. As critical Marxists, we neither demonise Lenin nor raise him to the figure of a Pope. On The Commune we have published a number of writers who have critically engaged with Lenin’s ideas such as Paul Cardan (Castoriadis). Here we reproduce a defence of Lenin against Cardan by Raya Dunayevskaya, the founder of Marxist-Humanism in the USA. Dunayevskaya was critical of Lenin, in particular his views on the leading role of the vanguard Party, but she was equally critical of anti-Leninists. The Scottish Marxist-Humanist edited by Harry McShane first published this article.
the commune 