By Randolph Oechslein, People's World The final sequences of Kenneth Bowser’s moving 2011 documentary Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune are painful. Family members, artists who were friends of Ochs’, such as Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, and others, speak about the last phase of his life. He was only 35-years-old. It was a suicide with some warning. Beforehand, he revealed to the writer Bruce Pollock why it had become increasingly difficult for him to write songs. The reasons were h

Leslie Goonewardene as General Secretary of the LSSP in the early days of the party -- image via A S Goonewardene - Fair use, via Wikimedia Commons By Shiran Illanperuma Ninety years ago, on 18 December 1935, a handful of young people came together to establish the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). Leslie Goonewardena, General Secretary of the LSSP from 1935 to 1977, later wrote that the party was founded because “there was a void to be filled”. On th

Via the Communist Party of Cuba, translated from the Spanish The First Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC), which began December 17, 1975, marked a transcendent moment in Cuba's history, serving to solidify the Revolution's institutional framework and chart the country's political, economic, and social direction for the future. It was not only a very successful congress, it was a living embodiment of the continuity of the ideals of independence, sovereignty, and soc

From the Soviet Press, June 1960: THE DEPARTMENT store in Maryita Roshcha, which was once a run-down section in an outlying part of Moscow, has been growing with the neighborhood. Maryina Roshcha in the last few years has mushroomed with new houses, schools, clubs and shops. Look at the attractive window display of the department store and it is apparent that the Soviet purchaser has more goods to buy and more money to buy with than was true even a few months ago. The quantit

Revolutionary Monument at the Kaysone Phomvihane Museum in the city of Vientiane, the capital of the Lao People's Democratic Republic December 2 is Laos National Day commemorating the founding of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in 1975, marking the end of the monarchy and the beginning of modern socialist Laos. This event marked the beginning of the country's socialist transformation led by the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) and the great Marxist-Leninist revolu

Cosmonaut Gherman Titov and Hero of Socialist Labor Nikolai Mamai from the Donbas at the Twenty-Second Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1961 The whole world knows that socialism was the launching pad from which spaceships Vostok I and Vostok II were shot. Socialism created the necessary conditions for cosmic flight. My friends and fellow cosmonauts are getting ready for new ventures. The era of space exploration has only just begun. Yuri Gagarin and I are

Joint Statement on the 108th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, November 24, 2005 The Communist and Workers’ Parties signing this Joint Statement wish, among other means, to honour the October Revolution, which illuminated the strength of the revolutionary class struggle — the power of the exploited and oppressed — when they surge to the forefront and turn the wheel of history forward, towards social emancipation. It was a Revolution inseparably linked wit

Haitian monument honouring the battle By Guillermo Barreto This year marks the 222nd anniversary of the Battle of Vertières. It took place on November 18 south of Le Cap, in what was then known as Saint Domingue. In that battle, which lasted five hours, Napoleon Bonaparte’s elite troops were defeated by battalions of former slaves led by Jean Jacques Dessalines, who consolidated the independence of what would henceforth be called Ayti or Haiti. Haiti is always mentioned in th

Amid US threats of an attack on Venezuela, we look back at some of the most infamous chapters in the history of US military invasions in Latin America and the Caribbean. US Marines outside a destroyed Panamanian Defense Force building during the US invasion of Panama, 1989 By Pablo Meriguet, People's Dispatch The administration of US President Donald Trump began carrying out extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea under the auspices of waging a war on drug trafficking ove

Gagarin in 1961 From the Soviet Press, November 1961: Yuri Gagarin, known to people the world over as the first man to venture into space, was elected a delegate to the Party Congress from the Leningrad District of Moscow by acclamation. The 27-year old cosmonaut is a newcomer to the Party, having applied for membership a year ago when he was training for his pioneering flight. At that time he wrote, "I ask to be enrolled in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It is my w

Dr. Bethune with an Eighth Route Army sentinel. An article about a journey to the grave of Norman Bethune from China Reconstructs, 1972. Editor's note: Shihchiachuang is now more commonly translated as Shijiazhuang. By Chen Han-Seng The grave of Dr. Norman Bethune, the Canadian surgeon who gave his life to aid the Chinese army in the fight against Japanese aggression, has already been visited by more than two million people. During the years 1937-1945 when Japanese militarism

From the Soviet Press, 1962, a moving account of the great John Reed. Yelizaveta Drabkina was only 16 years old when she took part in the October 1917 Revolution. She met and spoke to Lenin on many occasions. Her book Black Crusts, which is widely read in the Soviet Union, centers on the period. In 1961 she published The Story of an Unwritten Book, in which she describes John Reed's part in the Russian Revolution. She was a close friend of the American journalist. REVOLUTIONA

The Workers Party of Ireland, together with our comrades across the world, celebrates the 108th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution led by Lenin and the Bolshevik Party, on 25 October (7 November) 1917. The October Revolution remains a seismic moment in the history of the world. For the first time in human history, workers proved their ability to overthrow the capitalist order and establish a workers’ state. By establishing the world’s first socialist state

By Roberto Morales Ojeda, member of the Political Bureau and the Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba ( translated from the Spanish ) Today we commemorate an event that forever changed the course of history: the Great October Socialist Revolution. On November 7, 1917 (October 25 in the Julian calendar), the Russian working class and people, guided by the light of Marxism and Lenin's leadership, demonstrated that a new world was not

On the 108th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution ( translated from the Spanish ) 108 years ago, on November 7, 1917, the Great October Socialist Revolution triumphed, which opened for humanity the historic transition from the outdated capitalist mode of production to socialism. We pay homage to Lenin and the cadres of the Bolshevik Communist Party. Following the example of the Paris Commune of 1871, the proletariat led by the Bolshevik Party conquered power,

Revolution is Your Right! -- Communist Party of Turkey Today, 700 million people live in extreme poverty, while 3.5 billion more struggle to survive below the poverty line. In contrast, just 3 thousand capitalists now control a total wealth of 16 trillion dollars. Our people, too, suffer deeply from this greatest assault of impoverishment in human history. While millions of workers live below the hunger and poverty thresholds, the ten richest capitalists have increased their

American Socialist leader, presidential candidate and legend Eugene V. Debs was born November 5, 1855. Debs campaigned against US participation in WWI and was sentenced ten years in jail for a speech he gave. He had his sentence commuted by president Warren G. Harding in December, 1921 but died in 1926 of cardiovascular issues that were a result of his time in prison. Debs was the Socialist candidate for president of the United States five times, one of those runs being in 19

The young Georg Lukács in 1913 By Rüdiger Dannemann. Neues Deutschland / ND Online, October 30, 2025. Translated by Helmut-Harry Loewen. Georg Lukács died in 1971. In the same year, the archive of the Hungarian philosopher and founder of Western Marxism was established in his apartment in Budapest. For decades, it served as a gateway and resource to his work and thus to fundamental questions of Marxist theory. This institution has now been closed for over 2,700 days. Its decl

From the original Soviet card (translated): Moskvich-400v (1947-1954): A compact car produced at MZMA. This model and its modernized version, the Moskvich-401v, were manufactured in quantities of 250,000 units. Engine displacement is 1074 cm9, power is 23 hp, length is 3.86 m, curb weight is 855 kg, speed is 90 km/h, seats - 4/5 Additional research information: The Moskvich-400v, introduced in 1946–1947, was a compact Soviet car based on the German Opel Kadett K38, designed f

The USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements, 1959 Part II The second in a new series looking at the USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements in Moscow from the Soviet Press, 1959. By Vladimir Novakovsky, Deputy Director, USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements FIVE hundred and twenty acres in the northwest of Moscow have been converted into a mammoth fairground for the USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements. The broad avenues are lined with 71 strikingly designed pavilion