Being Red and Green

A well attended meeting in New Mills on Monday night ( September 3rd) was given an insight into the huge problems and injustices associated  with the implementation of Universal Credit , which is happening in High Peak next week. It also heard from activists in areas where Universal Credit has already been introduced, who are campaigning against it whilst at the same time giving practical support to those affected by its impact. Universal Credit ( UC) combines  a number of existing benefits into a single payment. Not a bad idea in itself and generally welcomed in principle when it was first suggested. The disaster that it has become has been largely due to the fact that its implementation has had the primary intention of saving money rather than having it better spent. This has meant that the original promise to ‘make work pay’ has been heavily diluted whilst those with children and/or disabilities are facing severe cuts to their payments. In addition those in part t...

Anyone who is sceptical about claims made of the Bolshevik Revolution by its supporters ,but who has also been reluctant to accept the accounts of it by right wing and Cold War historians, will find much of value in John Medhurst’s ‘ No Less Than Mystic ’ ( 2017 )  An active socialist and trade unionist, Medhurst takes the title of the book from Martov’s description of the Bolshevik Revolution . Martov was the  leader of the Mensheviks, opponents of the revolution and advocates of a more gradualist approach. Medhurst summarises Martov's view of Bolshevik political strategy as  "a cocktail of utopian desire and adventurism lacking solid plans for creating a socialist society and likely to degenerate into its opposite" and concludes that it “is a judgment supported by history". For Medhurst the real revolution of 1917 took place in February not October, " led by a wide alliance of socialists, trade unionists, peasants and populists in which the Bolshe...