Tomás Ó Flatharta

Looking at Things from the Left

Posts Tagged ‘marxism

Rosa Luxemburg – “one of the most brilliant minds ever drawn to the socialist movement” – Plus Leninist Days – 100 Years Without Him, 100 Years With Him CIEN AÑOS SIN LENIN – CIEN AÑOS CON ÉL

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We thank Paul Le Blanc for advertising this series of valuable online meetings.

More about Paul Le Blanc : Paul Le Blanc has for many years been a teacher and activist in Pittsburgh. His writings include “Lenin and the Revolutionary Party” and “A Short History of the US Working Class”. Source ; https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?auteur181

Socialism or Barbarism – Why Rosa Luxemburg Matters Today

With Paul Le Blanc & Helen Scott, co-editors of the acclaimed Rosa Luxemburg: Socialism or Barbarism collection of writings. Rosa Luxemburg was one of the most brilliant minds ever drawn to the socialist movement – an outstanding theorist & a political activist. This forum will look at the relevance of her ideas for transforming a world in crisis today – & how her work was broad in scope tackling capitalism and socialism; globalisation & imperialism; war and peace; social struggles, unions & parties; class, gender, race; the interconnection of humanity with the environment & more. Part of the Socialist Ideas Series – presented by Arise – a Festival of Left Ideas & Labour Outlook.

Why Rosa Luxemburg Matters Today

LENINIST DAYS / JORNADAS LENINISTAS

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A Leon Trotsky, a Chara – A short post(card) and festive greetings

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Thanks to Maurice Casey for this story : a postcard from Paul Kirchoff to Leon Trotsky, sent from Ireland in May 1933. Source ; Paul Kirchoff to Leon Trotsky, Dublin, May 23 1933


My final piece of work before I turned on the ‘out of office’ for Christmas was to return to some sources I accessed in the Leon Trotsky papers, now stored in Harvard, and partly digitised.

Among the documents I looked through were postcards sent to Leon Trotsky from Paul Kirchoff, a German revolutionary and anthropologist who spent part of the early 1930s working with the Harvard-Irish study.

One of Kirchoff’s letters to Trotsky from Ireland stood out because it opened with the Irish-language greeting ‘A Chara’, meaning ‘Dear friend’ (more-or-less). It was sent in May 1933 and is otherwise written in German:

I don’t have any deep analysis of this document for you.

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