my little stories

Women were at the forefront of the Russian Revolution

by Martin Empson

As the centenary of the Russian Revolution progresses, shelves in bookshops are beginning to groan under the weight of books about 1917.

Some of these are openly hostile to the revolution, arguing that Stalin’s dictatorship was inevitable and any attempt to build an alternative to capitalism is doomed to fail.

But Dave Sherry’s new book stands out because it is one of the few that is written by a revolutionary socialist.

It has the explicit aim of learning the lessons of 1917 for the fight for socialism today. As Dave writes, “It aims to show that what began in 1917 is unfinished business.”

It begins with the strike by women workers on International Women’s Day 1917 that started the revolution, leading to the fall of the Tsar a few days later.

Throughout the book there is a focus on the role of the workers “who, for a time, became the freest people in the whole world”.

Unlike those who see the events of 1917 as a coup, this book celebrates the central role of working people.

We see this in the account of the start of the revolution, as thousands of women march through the capital Petrograd, bringing the city to a halt.

As police blocked the bridges, women slid down the river banks and crossed the ice, then blocked the tram tracks encouraging tram drivers to join the strike. They even persuaded Cossack troops not to fire on the demonstrations….

Hispanic Federation

Direct Relief

One America Appeal

There’s no politician quite like Charlie Angus. He pulls no punches and doesn’t give a damn about the status quo.

“In Nepal, 150 people have been killed and 90,000 homes have been destroyed in what the UN has called the worst flooding incident in the country in a decade.

According to the Red Cross, at least 7.1 million people have been affected in Bangladesh - more than the population of Scotland - and around 1.4 million people have been affected in Nepal.

International aid agencies said thousands of villages have been cut off by flooding with people being deprived of food and clean water for days.”

THIS SHOW IS SO PURE!

Of course I had to show the best part:

1) CI kids aren’t able to slide down on the plastic slides or their CIs would break.

2) Cannot use heart defib machine on a CI person or their CIs would break