History & Tradition

Rethinking the American Revolution with the Communist historian Herbert Aptheker.

A key question for student activists: what is being built in this exuberant phase of the movement, what foundation is being laid?

Today’s student encampments have decades of student struggles to learn from. Here we explore lessons from activism at UC Santa Cruz.

In the 1960s, mass movements for peace and justice changed the world. Activists today can learn a lot from this radical decade, starting with Mike Parker’s reflections, republished here.

Lessons on political organization and the struggle against imperialism.

Bayard Rustin was an immensely talented mass organizer, despite his later rightward turn. A new movie about Rustin’s life packs a punch but, unsurprisingly, erases his socialist politics.

It has been forty five years since a coup d’etat crushed Chile’s socialist experiment. We remember the initial victory of Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity coalition as an important part of the democratic socialist tradition.

The left has a choice: do we believe elites, small groups of activists, or millions of working people have the power to build a better world?