Monthly Archives: April 2020

Investigator of Morbid Symptoms

This day in 1937, Antonio Gramsci, Marxist thinker and revolutionary, passed away after prolonged illness at the age of 46 in Rome—an optimist to the very end. Journalist, historian and Chief Editor of LeftWord Books, Vijay Prashad, looks back at the life of this brilliant investigator of the morbid symptoms that appear as a capitalist society, scared stiff by social upheaval, attempts to perpetuate the oppression it gives rise to. ☭ ☭ ☭ For a diagnosis of our very own—i.e. Indiaâ€[...]

Marxism-Leninism and the Bourgeois Judiciary

In February 1968, the High Court of Kerala held E.M.S. Namboodiripad in contempt for certain ‘offensive’ remarks about the judiciary he had made publicly on November 9, 1967. Soon after, EMS challenged his conviction in an appeal to the Supreme Court, which gave its decision on July 31, 1970. The apex court upheld the HC judgment, noting that ‘as regards sentence we think that it was hardly necessary to impose heavy sentence. The ends of justice in this case are amply served by exposing th[...]

Frankenstein and the Monster

The note we share today was written by Aijaz Ahmad as an added preface to his Iraq, Afghanistan and The Imperialism of Our Time (LeftWord, 2004). Saddam Hussein’s capture was touted as a big win for the forces of freedom by the international press. The author, however, advises caution. The trial by an Iraqi court was going to be, as it did turn out to be, a sham. And though Hussein was a mass murderer himself, there was an even bigger monster than him. Saddam in US Captivity On 14 December[...]

Emergence of Left Forces in Madras

For anyone seeking to understand the early years of the labour movement in India, D. Veeraraghavan’s The Making of the Madras Working Class (2013) is an indispensable book. In the chapter ‘Emergence of Left Forces, 1933–1937’ he discusses at length the role of the socialists and communists. In the extract below, one can get an idea of their militant interventions for the protection of workers’ rights in that period in Madras. While acknowledging the active participation of the Congress[...]

For Comrade Lenin on his 150th Birth Anniversary

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870–1924) was known by his pseudonym—Lenin. He was, like his siblings, a revolutionary, which in the context of tsarist Russia meant that he spent long years in prison and in exile. Lenin helped build the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party both by his intellectual and his organizational work. Lenin’s writings are not only his own words, but the summation of the activity and thoughts of the thousands of militants whose paths crossed his own. It was Lenin’s re[...]