Lecture 10: world-revolutionary situations

Lecture 9: Revolution, skills and theory

Revolutions are complicated and difficult human practices, which involve effective communication and cooperation between a wide range of different groups while simultaneously manoeuvring successfully against powerful institutions. How can revolutionaries develop the necessary skills outside of revolutionary periods? And how can ordinary people learn to become effective political agents within the short time-periods and intense pressures of revolutions? This lecture looks at the role played by theory within Marxist organisations and working-class revolutions.

· Colin Barker, "Perspectives" in Revolutionary rehearsals (London: Bookmarks, 1987)

· Marshall Berman, Adventures in Marxism. London: Verso, 1999

· Paul Blackledge, "Understanding the defeat last time". In Colin Barker and Mike Tyldesley (eds.), Seventh international conference on Alternative futures and popular protest. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University, 2001

· Carl Boggs, The socialist tradition: from crisis to decline. New York: Routledge, 1995

· Alex Callinicos, The revenge of history: Marxism and the East European revolutions. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State UP, 1991

· Virginia Coover et al, Resource manual for a living revolution. Philadelphia: New Society, 1985

· Laurence Cox, "Gramsci, movements and method: the politics of activist research". Alternative futures IV. Available online at http://www.iol.ie/~mazzoldi/toolsforchange/afpp/afpp4.html

· Antonio Gramsci, The modern prince and other writings. New York: International Publishers, 1967 [other collections may also contain this]

· Russell Jacoby, Dialectic of defeat: the contours of western Marxism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981

· Sheila Rowbotham, Lynne Segal and Hilary Wainwright, Beyond the fragments: feminism and the making of socialism. London: Merlin, 1980

· EP Thompson, The poverty of theory. London: Merlin, 1977

· Raymond Williams, The long revolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965

· Workers Solidarity Movement, Capitalism won't fall by itself! Dublin: WSM, 1998

The global relationships brought about by capitalism over the past half-millennium have produced equally globalised "moments of resistance" - arguably we are living in one right now (see lecture 14). These involve both local processes of resistance and imagining alternative worlds, and international processes of forging links and tackling global systems. This lecture takes the example of 1968 to examine some of the mechanisms involved.

· Giovanni Arrighi, Terence Hopkins, Immanuel Wallerstein, Anti-systemic movements. London: Verso, 1989

· Laurence Cox, "Structure, routine and transformation: movements from below at the end of the 20th century." In Colin Barker and Mike Tyldesley (eds.), Fifth international conference on Alternative futures and popular protest. Manchester: Manchester Metropolitan University, 1999

· Also available online on these pages Carole Fink, Philipp Gassert and Detlef Junker (eds.), 1968: the world transformed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1998

· Ronald Fraser, 1968: a student generation in revolt. London: Chatto and Windus, 1988

· Annie Gottlieb, Do you believe in magic? Bringing the Sixties back home. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988

· Chris Harman, The fire last time: 1968 and after. London: Bookmarks, 1998 (2nd edition)

· George Katsiaficas, The imagination of the New Left: a global analysis of 1968. Boston: South End, 1987

· Peter Linebaugh, The many-headed hydra: sailors, slaves, commoners and the hidden history of the revolutionary Atlantic. Boston: Beacon, 2000

· Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The communist manifesto. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967 [other collections may also contain this]

· George Rudé, Revolutionary Europe, 1783 - 1815. Malden: Blackwell, 2000

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