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Briefing
Periyar and socialism
Self-respect and socialism
One of the earliest propagandists of socialism from the non-Left camp in southern India was the patriarch of the Dravidian movement, E.V.R. Periyar, a ...
Science
Shining achievements
Decades of state investment in planning and science propelled the Soviet Union to the forefront in a wide spectrum of fields, notably mathematics, physiology, geology, aerodynamics and space, and proved that science could be planned and its fruits made available to society at large.
Women
Road to emancipation
Women were a significant force in the mass uprising that culminated in the revolution and were instrumental in shaping the attitudes and policies of the nascent Soviet state, which recognised the urgent need for their emancipation.
Capitalism today
What is to be done?
World capitalism has entered a period of protracted crisis, pushing the working population into acute distress, unemployment and insecurity. As at the time of the October Revolution, there is once more a historic opportunity before the Left to forge worker-peasant alliances in order to bring about a change in the nature of the state that would lead to socialism.
What they said on science in Soviet Russia
Tagore, in “Letters from Russia”: “In Russia, finally. What I see, bewilders me. Not like any other country. The difference is in the roots. They ...
Cover Story
Red October in retrospect
With the October Revolution, the locus of the revolutionary dynamic began to shift towards the East and more generally towards lands that were struggling against imperialism. This symbiosis between communism and anti-imperialism may well turn out to be the more lasting legacy of Red October.
Controversy
Khilji as villain
The protests against the film "Padmavati" and the vilification of Alauddin Khilji are part of the Hindu right-wing’s scheme to distort history in order to make electoral gains.
Asembly Elections/Gujarat
The communal card again
The BJP once again takes recourse to communal propaganda in a desperate bid to recapture the initiative on the campaign front from the opposition, comprising the Congress and the three young community leaders Hardik Patel, Alpesh Thakor and Jignesh Mevani.
Decolonisation
Comrades in arms
The October Revolution had a profound impact on the developing world. The people of the global South, in Africa, Asia and Latin America, looked to Moscow for support in their struggle to free themselves form the yoke of colonial rule.
What does socialism in India mean?
ONLY after the establishing people’s democracy and completing the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, anti-monopoly capital tasks can the Indian people ...
Publications
Reading the Revolution
At a time when a wary colonial regime ensured that news of the Russian Revolution was blocked out in India, it was left to small bands of socialists to provide information that they gathered from their networks about events in the northern half of Asia.
Cinema
On the silver screen
The creative urges of the pioneers and innovators of cinema in the Soviet Union surged in the heady aftermath of the October Revolution and through the period of Lenin’s New Economic Policy, whatever the political and economic arguments about that tactical policy retreat into a short stretch of free market and capitalism supervised by the state.
Planning
Success and slowdown
The conceptual case for a system of social ownership combined with planning was transformed into a reality in the Soviet Union and proved immensely successful in many senses. However, these advances could not be sustained when all labour resources had been absorbed and growth entered the intensive phase after the 1950s.
Literature
Vibrant and heterogeneous
The Soviet literary scape had a variety of literature from the officially feted to the critical to the dissident; even under the official canon of socialist realism, many different styles, including that of an “adapted” modernism, flourished and great literary works were produced within the Soviet Union.
Legacy
A new epoch
The October Revolution had a universal significance. For the first time, socialism came on the agenda of world history as a concrete alternative to capitalism.
Art & architecture
Celebration or reflection?
Commemorating the October Revolution raises the problem of understanding the relationship between the political revolution and the creative arts.
Impact on India
Imprint on freedom struggles
The October Revolution must be seen as an event that profoundly changed the character of the Indian people’s struggle for freedom and for carrying forward the struggle of transforming the political independence of the country towards the economic independence of its people.
Book Extracts
On Lenin
Why Lenin? First, because this is the centenary year of Europe’s last great revolution. Unlike its predecessors, the 1917 October Revolution ...
Letters to the Editor
Gujarat elections FOR the first time in 22 years, the Congress, which has been out of power in Gujarat, is trying to give the BJP a tough fight ...
End of Exile
Train to Petrograd
The journey that took Lenin and other revolutionaries from Zurich to the Finland Station in Petrograd and changed the history of Russia and the world forever.
What they said on science in Soviet Russia
Tagore, in “Letters from Russia”: “In Russia, finally. What I see, bewilders me. Not like any other country. The difference is in the roots. They ...
Cover Story
Red October in retrospect
With the October Revolution, the locus of the revolutionary dynamic began to shift towards the East and more generally towards lands that were struggling against imperialism. This symbiosis between communism and anti-imperialism may well turn out to be the more lasting legacy of Red October.
Book Extracts
On Lenin
Why Lenin? First, because this is the centenary year of Europe’s last great revolution. Unlike its predecessors, the 1917 October Revolution ...
Decolonisation
Comrades in arms
The October Revolution had a profound impact on the developing world. The people of the global South, in Africa, Asia and Latin America, looked to Moscow for support in their struggle to free themselves form the yoke of colonial rule.
What does socialism in India mean?
ONLY after the establishing people’s democracy and completing the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, anti-monopoly capital tasks can the Indian people ...
Publications
Reading the Revolution
At a time when a wary colonial regime ensured that news of the Russian Revolution was blocked out in India, it was left to small bands of socialists to provide information that they gathered from their networks about events in the northern half of Asia.
Cinema
On the silver screen
The creative urges of the pioneers and innovators of cinema in the Soviet Union surged in the heady aftermath of the October Revolution and through the period of Lenin’s New Economic Policy, whatever the political and economic arguments about that tactical policy retreat into a short stretch of free market and capitalism supervised by the state.
Planning
Success and slowdown
The conceptual case for a system of social ownership combined with planning was transformed into a reality in the Soviet Union and proved immensely successful in many senses. However, these advances could not be sustained when all labour resources had been absorbed and growth entered the intensive phase after the 1950s.
Literature
Vibrant and heterogeneous
The Soviet literary scape had a variety of literature from the officially feted to the critical to the dissident; even under the official canon of socialist realism, many different styles, including that of an “adapted” modernism, flourished and great literary works were produced within the Soviet Union.
Legacy
A new epoch
The October Revolution had a universal significance. For the first time, socialism came on the agenda of world history as a concrete alternative to capitalism.
Art & architecture
Celebration or reflection?
Commemorating the October Revolution raises the problem of understanding the relationship between the political revolution and the creative arts.
Impact on India
Imprint on freedom struggles
The October Revolution must be seen as an event that profoundly changed the character of the Indian people’s struggle for freedom and for carrying forward the struggle of transforming the political independence of the country towards the economic independence of its people.
End of Exile
Train to Petrograd
The journey that took Lenin and other revolutionaries from Zurich to the Finland Station in Petrograd and changed the history of Russia and the world forever.