The In Defense of Marxism series is designed to help explain basic concepts of Marxism and the history of the working class. We will continually be adding new pamphlets, so keep checking back for the latest ones. Email us for info on which titles are currently available! Shipping and handling is calculated at the end of the checkout process.

China's Long March to Capitalism. By the International Marxist Tendency.

From a Marxist point of view the 1949 Chinese Revolution, in spite of its bureaucratic deformations, was the second most important event in human history after the Russian Revolution. It led to the abolition of landlordism and capitalism and the end of imperialist domination. Now, however, capitalism dominates in China. How did this happen? This booklet traces the history of China from before the Revolution to the modern era, with perspectives for future revolutionary developments in the country. It is the result of an extensive discussion throughout the IMT. 32 pages, illustrative images and a full color cover.

Another World is Possible: Socialism. By Alan Woods.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the defenders of the old order were jubilant. They spoke of the end of socialism, and even the end of history. They promised us a new era of peace, prosperity and democracy, thanks to the miracles of the free market economy. Now, only fifteen years later, these dreams are reduced to a heap of smoking rubble. Not one stone upon another remains of these illusions. The magnificent movement of the Latin American masses is the final answer to all those who argued that revolution was no longer possible. It is not only possible, it is absolutely necessary, if the world is to be saved from impending disaster.

The cynics and skeptics have had their day. It is time to push them out of our road and carry the fight forward. The new generation is willing to fight for their emancipation. They are looking for a banner, an idea and a program that can inspire them and lead them to victory. That can only be the struggle for socialism on a world scale. The choice before the human race is socialism or barbarism.

This pamphlet is based on a speech by Alan Woods presented in Rome at the Fourth Gathering of Intellectuals and Artists in Defense of Humanity.

How to Win Strikes. By Harry DeBoer.

Harry DeBoer was born in 1903 in Crookston, MN. In the early 1930s he began working in the coal yards in Minneapolis and became part of the initial organizing committee that led the famous Teamsters' truckers strike in 1934. DeBoer is credited with developing the "cruising pickets", a tactic that successfully stopped scab trucks.

DeBoer remained true to his principles throughout his life, and in his later years counseled many young trade unionists on labor issues and strike strategy. The following essay captures with crystal clarity the lessons that DeBoer and his revolutionary comrades learned from years of experience. It serves as a beacon of light for the working class today in its struggle to abolish exploitation and establish a genuinely free society.

The Tet Offensive: The Turning Point in the Vietnam War. By Alan Woods.

On the night of January 31, 1968 the North Vietnamese army and the National Liberation Front launched the Tet Offensive. The NLF broke the truce they had made for the New Year festivities and fought its way into more than one hundred cities, including the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon. Throughout the country provincial capitals were seized, garrisons simultaneously attacked. Vietnamese irregular soldiers stormed the highland towns of Banmethout, Kontum and Pleiku, they then simultaneously invaded 13 of the 16 provincial capitals of the heavily populated Mekong Delta. The dimension and sweep of the offensive astonished U.S. army generals, one of whom commented that tracking the assault pattern on a map was like a pinball machine, lighting up with each raid.

The Tet Offensive was one of the most daring military campaigns in history. It was the real turning point in the Vietnam War. On its 40th anniversary, Alan Woods analyzes the events that led to the Vietnam War and the significance of the Tet Offensive in bringing about the defeat of U.S. imperialism, and draws some parallels with the war in Iraq.

In Defense of Marxism #1 - In Memory of Leon Trotsky. By Alan Woods.

Lev Davidovich Trotsky was, alongside V.I. Lenin, one of the two greatest Marxists of the twentieth century. His whole life was entirely devoted to the cause of the working class and international socialism.

He alone provided a scientific Marxist analysis of the bureaucratic degeneration of the Russian Revolution in works like The Revolution Betrayed, In Defense of Marxism, and Stalin. His writings of the period 1929-40 provide us with a veritable treasure-house of Marxist theory, dealing not only with the immediate problems of the international labor movement (the Chinese revolution, the rise of Hitler in Germany, the Spanish Civil War), but of all manner of artistic, philosophical and cultural questions.

This 40 page booklet is an introduction to his life and times.

In Defense of Marxism #2 - What Is Dialectical Materialism? By Rob Sewell, Leon Trotsky, V.I. Lenin, and Frederick Engels.

This 40 page booklet is an invaluable introduction to the philosophical world-view of Marxism: Dialectical Materialism.

In Defense of Marxism #3 - The Communist Manifesto. By Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

This 40 page booklet is the founding document of the Marxist movement and is a must-read for all students of socialism. It includes all the prefaces by Marx and Engels.

In Defense of Marxism #4 - What is Historical Materialism? By Mick Brooks.

The study of Marxism falls under three main headings, corresponding broadly to philosophy, social history and economics - Dialectical Materialism, Historical Materialism and Marxist Economics. These are the famous Three component parts of Marxism of which Lenin wrote.

In this study of Historical Materialism, we present an introductory article by Mick Brooks. While this is a good beginning to the subject, there is no substitute for proceeding from there to tackle the historical works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Plekhanov and others. Marx and Engels wrote extensively about Historical Materialism from the German Ideology onwards. The Communist Manifesto is a masterpiece in this regard.

Marxism &Anarchism: The Philosophical Roots of the Marx-Bakunin Conflict

The tempestuous relation between Marx and Bakunin is a wellknown legacy of the history of western socialism. For some, the intensity of the confl ict has been puzzling, given that the two authors seem to be struggling for identical goals. Convinced that capitalism is predicated on the exploitation of workers by capitalists, they were equally dedicated to fi ghting for a socialist society where economic classes would be abolished and all individuals would have the opportunity to develop all of their creative capacities. Their most profound point of disagreement centered on their confl icting analyses of the State. The proper form of a revolutionary organization was also a point of dispute. The two also contested the proper role of the peasants in a revolutionary movement. Bakunin argued that they might play a leading role while Marx designated the proletariat as the exclusive, leading revolutionary agent.

In this pamphlet, Ann Robertson investigates the profoundly divergent philosophical frameworks that served as the points of departure for their respective political analyses. She shows that their foundational concepts are so incompatible that even their points of agreement are rendered more illusory than substantive.

In Defense of Marxism #5 - The Venezuelan Revolution

The Venezuelan Bolivarian Revolution is a living, breathing, moving, and constantly changing and developing process. Over the course of the last few years, the process has accelerated, on the basis of the rising activity and participation of the Venezuelan masses in determining their own futures. The heroic efforts of millions of Venezuelan men and women to improve their lives proves in practice that it is possible to build a better world. For this reason, their struggle is our struggle! It is vital that we counteract the lies and distortions of the U.S. government and their corporate media. They are not interested in the truth about Venezuela and will stop at nothing to demonize the struggle of the Venezuelan people to improve their lives. Having been defeated during the coup, during the oil sabotage and repeatedly at the polls, the Venezuelan oligarchy and their friends in Washington are now threatening to resort to terrorism and even the assassination of Chávez himself.

In this booklet we provide a major theoretical work by Alan Woods on the Venezuelan revolution written in May of 2004, which retains all of its validity today. We also provide a first hand account from a young visitor to revolutionary Venezuela, an article comparing Bush’s vs. Venezuela’s response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and an update the ongoing nationalizations of factories under workers control, and the distribution of land to the peasants. Only a Marxist analysis - a class analysis - of the Bolivarian process can allow us to fully understand, and more importantly, participate in this process, which has implications for all of Latin America and the World. The Venezuelan revolution is just the beginning of the world revolution.

Socialism: What it is, What it isn't

Socialism! The mere uttering of the word conjures up the most horrifying nightmare for a small, extremely rich minority who, because it monopolizes the productive forces of society-the factories and businesses that make up our economy - succeed in pursuing unlimited profit and unimaginable riches by allotting to the rest of humanity an increasingly smaller share of society’s wealth. Having created an objectively unstable system because of the perilously lopsided distribution of wealth, these rich people are compelled to manufacture on a daily basis massive doses of propaganda to serve as their life-support system, with the earnest hope of convincing their victims that this is, after all, the best of all possible worlds. Socialism, a doctrine which threatens to pull the plug on their perverse system before it succeeds in destroying us, the environment, and the future of humanity, is deservedly the foremost target of this campaign of lies, deceit, and slander.

In this pamphlet, Ann Robertson counters the lies and distortions that surround any discussion of socialism and explains just what it really is - and what it is not.

In Defense of Marxism #6 - An Introduction to the Theory of Permanent Revolution. By Ted Grant and Alan Woods.

In the years before the Russian Revolution of 1917 there was quite a heated debate between the different tendencies of the Russian labor movement on what would be the character of the Russian Revolution, and the relation between the different classes in the revolution. Undoubtedly, the theory that brilliantly anticipated and explained what actually took place in 1917 was worked out by Trotsky.

The theory of the Permanent Revolution was first developed by Trotskyas early as 1904. The permanent revolution, while accepting that the objectivetasks facing the Russian workers were those of the bourgeois democraticrevolution, nevertheless explained how in a backward country in the epoch ofimperialism, the "national bourgeoisie" was inseparably linked to the remainsof feudalism on the one hand and to imperialist capital on the other and wastherefore completely unable to carry through any of its historical tasks.The situation is even clearer today, especially in the case of countries likeVenezuela.

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