The four wagers of Lenin in 1917

The Bolshevik decision to make revolution was based on four key predictions, or ‘wagers’, says Lars T Lih: international revolution, soviet democracy, peasant followership and progress towards socialism. This is an edited version of the third speech he gave to the CPGB’s Communist University

I am going to talk about the fate of the ‘four wagers’ made by Lenin in 1917. They are: the wagers on international revolution, on soviet democracy, on steps toward socialism, and on what I call ‘peasant followership’. ... more

Letters
Consent confusion; No place; Prejudice; No surprise; Safety valve; Contradiction; Hit first; Prison letter; Free Mahir; Support Sheida

Spot the difference
Some people cannot distinguish a revolutionary alliance from class collaboration. Peter Manson looks at the South African Communist Party’s contradictions

Revolution - sexual and digital
Eddie Ford sees an advance in Downing Street’s belated apology

Farcical and reactionary
Even by the standards of ‘paedo panic’ hysteria, writes James Turley, plans to vet 11 million adults who come into regular contact with children are absurd

Labour and mini-Labour
The Trade Union Congress saw a bit of prime ministerial honesty, a lot of hot air, but nothing in the way of concrete measures to protect workers from the effects of the ongoing economic crisis. Phil Ritchie reports

Salmond banks on Tories
The Scottish National Party has called for a referendum on independence, writes Sarah McDonald. How should the left respond?

Appreciation
Robbie Rix urges you to use the now-working button to show it

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Fighting Fund

Keep you posted!

Robbie Rix welcomes another increase in our internet readership

The success of the last few months' fighting funds looks set to continue in November. I can announce a brilliant start, with no less than £387 already in the kitty.

Of course, a good slice of this takes the form of start-of-the-month standing order donations (17 of them, totalling £262, in fact). But there will be rather less of those for the next few weeks. In addition I've just received TR's usual monthly £60 cheque - it's so regular (even with the postal strikes) that it's as good as a standing order.

Finally, we got four handy contributions via our website - £20 each from JS and PJ, £15 added to his subscription to the paper from MZ, plus a tenner from MP. PJ tells me: I've been meaning to make this donation for a while, but have been at the mercy of the capitalists. I know the feeling, comrade. For his part, JS specifies that his is a donation towards the new hardware. I'll be down PC World over the weekend, comrade.

Further good news comes with another increase in our internet readership - we had 16,249 visitors last week. This figure has been increasing steadily since our old website was hit early in the year, but, with the new site gradually being filled out, more and more web readers are now returning.

Most of our archives will be back up hopefully within the next week or so, but unfortunately there is a period of about 18 months that will be missing at first. Their restoration will require a period of "grunt work" from a team of comrades.

Perhaps I shouldn't say this during the current CWU dispute, but I'll keep you posted!

Click here to download a standing order form - regular income is particular important in order to plan ahead. Even £5/month can help!
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