Waterloo today

Watching the nonsense on morning TV about some sort of 'Napoleonic Help For Heroes' to mark the anniversary of Waterloo today in 1815. It is worth reminding ourselves that the battle  was nothing other than the victory of counter-revoution and marks the beginning of the age of Capital. So  I have re-posted a piece I wrote a while back on 'On This Deity' .

Martin Luther and the spirit of Capitalism

The Marxist and the ex-Catholic in me collide today  - I have a guest post again  at On This Deity.

'A damn near run thing'

I have another guest piece over at Dorian's On This Deity today to mark the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. 

I've tried not to dwell on the military side of things but on the Napoleonic legacy and the struggle to secure the bourgeois revolution.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Holocaust Memorial Day today - and I have a piece over at 'On This Deity' to mark the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. 

I wanted to do it - but I'm also conscious that it's one of those stories so powerful that almost anything that can be written is in danger of being inadequate.

There's nothing I can add to the story of the Holocaust that hasn't already be said better by others, But for any activist who has ever  faced  the inevitable cynics' question  - why struggle when all the odds are stacked against you - the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising does  perhaps provide the ultimate inspiration.

Goodbye to all that.

Today I am celebrating the anniversary of Gutenburg and the print revolution over at 'On This Deity'.

It's quite a personal piece as it coincides with me finding out this week that I will be starting teacher training - and a whole new life - in September. And leaving the world of printing behind me.

I have been in 'the print' for about twenty five years. Although I followed my dad, and come to that my grandfather too, into the trade, it was not an obvious career choice at the time for a graduate. But I was seduced by the romance and history of printing; a proud and quirky closed world of chapels, banging-out - and journeymen. And the Gutenberg anniversary is an appropriate time to step back and reflect on just what an incredibly important part of western civilisation - and its radical opposition - printing has been for six hundred years.

But Murdoch, technology, corporate avarice  and off-shoring slowly eroded all that romance. And at the same time imperceptibly I slid up the greasy pole into a job far removed from the one I signed up for. To the point that when it all went tits up last Autumn and I was laid off - I felt a sense of liberation.

I'm actually pleased that I am now spending my last few weeks in the print in a small trade house - surrounded by the smell of ink and the sound of endless banter. It's an epitaph for a love affair that is over.

Black Jacobins remembered.

Starting the year on an up-lifting note - I'm on a roll at the moment with yet another piece over at On This Deity - the anniversary of the Haitian Revolution of Toussaint L'Ouverture and the Black Jacobins. And a moment too to remember CLR James -  Trotskyist and sportswriter - a true revolutionary renaissance man. 

Rasputin.

I'm to be found again over at Dorian Cope's 'On This Deity'. Today is the anniversary of the murder of Rasputin. 

He's probably had far more historical attention than he deserves - but if nothing else his life is a weather-vane pointing the way to the real story of the Russian Revolution.

Kiel Mutiny 1918

Another guest piece over at the wonderful 'On This Deity' - the anniversary today of the Kiel Mutiny and the start of the German Revolution of 1918.

1945 - Labour's missed opportunity

I've got another guest slot over at 'On This Deity' today. 

Another anniversary of a great radical 'alomost might  have been' moment. And a sort of an epitaph for an increasingly extinct species.

Poll Tax - First time round

Today I've got a guest slot  over at On This Deity  - to mark the anniversary of the Peasant's Revolt of 1381: 

"When Adam delved and Eve span - Who was then the gentleman ?''

John Ball (1338-1381)   

The 'mad priest of Kent' -  itinerant Lollard preacher and possibly the first English socialist.

Kronstadt anniversary

By sheer coincidence,  following my piece about a rapprochement between Anarchists and Marxists, I got asked to write something for On This Deity around the anniversary of Kronstadt.

I attempted to write it in the spirit of 'truth and reconcilliation' - if it pisses off the polemicists from either side of the debate then I'll know I've hit the right note.

The (original) February Revolution

I wrote this piece a few weeks ago as a guest spot for On This Deity.  

I never thought that the mechanics of how revolutions unfold would have been so topical ...

Rosa Luxemburg

Another guest spot yesterday over at 'On This Deity' - to mark the anniversary of the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht and the defeat of the Spartacist Rising in Berlin.  

Thanks again to Dorian for indulging me in a celebration of one of my heroes.

The Decembrist Revolt

Today I've again got a guest piece at 'On This Deity' to mark the Decembrist Revolt; In a senario that sounds horribly topical, the mutinous troops were 'kettled' in St Petersburg's Senate Square before the Czarist authorities let loose with (actual not water) cannons - and killed over a thousand people in less than an hour. The Daily Mail would have been proud.

On This Deity - Victor Serge

I'm honoured to have a guest post today - marking the death of one of my favourite revolutionaries, Victor Serge  - over at the excellent 'On This Deity'.  

For anyone with a taste for radical history Dorian Cope's blog should be in your bookmarks.