History of the Paris Commune of 1871 This book is an excellent history of the Paris Commune. Its author Lissagaray was a direct participant and fought for the Commune on the barricades. He collected testimonies from the survivors in exile in London, Switzerland and consulted all documents available at the time to ensure accuracy. He was assisted by Karl Marx in the writing of this classic, which was translated to English by Eleanor Marx.
[Classics] Fascism: What it is and how to fight it Liberals and even most of those who consider themselves Marxists are guilty of using the world fascist very loosely today. They fling it around as an epithet or political swearword against right-wing figures whom they particularly despise, or against reactionaries in general. But there is a Marxist analysis of fascism. It was made by Leon Trotsky not as a postmortem, but during the rise of fascism. This was one of Trotsky's great contributions to Marxism.
[Classics] The Class, the Party and the Leadership The Spanish Revolution is in many ways a how-to guide for how not to take power and implement a revolutionary workers’ democracy. As we know, the Spanish Revolution failed, and we saw fascist reaction not only gain control of Spain, but ultimately most of Europe. So why did the Spanish Revolution fail? Was this a failure of leadership, or were the workers simply not “mature” enough to carry through a revolution? In this posthumously published article, Leon Trotsky answers that question.
