Revolutionary Far-Leftists. Who's Who?

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The aim of this is to provide short biographies for left wing revolutionaries and theorists. Links have been provided for further biographical information and collected works.

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Bakunin, Mikhail
"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the People's Stick.'"

1814-1876. A Russian anarchist who is often called the "founding father of anarchism." He served as an officer in the Russian artillary regiment before quiting and studying philosophy. After becoming involved in radical politics he spent a few years in a siberian prison. Escaping, he set up life in various different countries, writing books indlucing 'Marxism, Freedom and the State'and 'God and the State.' He was active in workers revolts around Europe and while in England he became a leading figure in the First International where his opposition to Karl Marx turned him into a bitter rivel. He died of natural causes on 1st July, 1876.

Mikhail Buknin - www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk
Mikhail Bakunin - Spunks Library
Mikhail Bakunin - Collected Writings

Bonanno, Alfredo M.
"We are certain that communities of joy will emerge from our struggle here and now. And for the first time life will triumph over death."

An anarchist from Italy, has had a profound impact on Insurrectionary Anarchism and been an active anarchist for over 30 years. Has written important works such as 'Armed Joy' and spent a number of years in jail for his politics.

http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/ioaa/ioaa.html

Breton, André
"True art, which is not content to play variations on ready-made models but rather insists on expressing the inner needs of man and of mankind in its time - true art is unable not to be revolutionary, not to aspire to a complete and radical reconstruction of society...We recognize that only the social revolution can sweep clean the path for a new culture."

1896 - 1966. A founding member and theorist of the revolutionary art movement called Surrealism. Along with artists like Joan Miro and Louis Aragon, he published many Surrealist journals, participated in the creation of wholly subjective, revolutionary works of art, and pioneered the formulation and application of radical new ways of self-liberation and expression. His outspoken views on society and revolution, as well as his supposedly dictatorial personality, eventually lead to a split in the Surrealist circle, ending with the decisive departure of Salvador Dali from the group. In his Surrealist Manifesto, Breton declared that art loses its authenticity should the artist regard with importance any sort of moral or aesthetic standard. Instead, he advocated the total liberation of the artist from external constraint, for which would be necessary a comprehensive communist revolution entailing the eventual destruction of the state and any other authoritarian social tendencies; the artist, therefore, he argued, is the natural ally of communist revolution. On this subject he co-authored, with Leon Trotsky, a Manifesto Towards a Free Revolutionary Art. Breton's focus on the importance of an irrational, subjective, self-expressive revolution, as well as his vehement opposition to any sort of social authoritarianism (including established notions of "morality" or "logic"), was extremely influential on a number of libertarian socialist movements, most notable the Situationist movement and May 1968 in France.

http://surrealists.classifieds4u.co....ton/breton.php
http://www.surrealist.com/artist.aspx?hell...jiggamonster=54[/QUOTE]

Castro, Fidel
The revolution... is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters.

1926-. The Cuban President and socialist revolutionary leader who led the Cuban guerilla war to overthrow the US backed Batista Regime.

Fidel Castro - Red Biographies
Fidel Castro History Archive - www.marxists.org
Buy a Fidel Castro Biography

Chomsky, Noam
"Moral cowardice and intellectual corruption are the natural concomitants of unchallenged privilege."

1928-. A leading Professor in Linguistics at the American University MIT. He has contributed to libertarian socialist thought with books such as 'Class Warfare,' 'The New Military Humanism' and 'On Power and Ideology.'

Noam Chomsky - Biography, www.marxists.org
Noam Chomsky - Biography from MIA website
The Noam Chomsky Archive - www.zmag.org
Contact Noam Chomsky

Cliff, Tony
'to understand Lenin's concept of the revolutionary party you have to start from two statements by Karl Marx. The first is the emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class. The second is the prevailing ideas in every society are the ideas of the ruling class'

1917 - 2000. A British Trotskyist and founding member of the British Socialist Workers Party he was born in Paelstine and witnessed first hand the treatment by the Zionists. He wrote many pamphlets and books in his life time including 'Trotskyism after Trotsky' and 'State Capitalism in Russia' including extensive biographies on Lenin, Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg. He died of old age on 9th May 2000.

Short Biography and Collected writings - www.marxist.org
Tony Cliff - Red Biographies
MP3's of Tony Cliff talking on 'Lenin and The Party' and 'State Capitalism'

Socialist Workers Party Webstire - www.swp.org.uk

Connolly, James
“You have been told you are not strong, that you have no rifles. Revolutions do not start with rifles; start first and get your rifles after. Our curse is our belief in our weakness. We are not weak, we are strong!”

(June 5, 1868 – May 12, 1916) James Connolly was Born Edinburgh, Scotland of Irish parents – said to have first come to Ireland in his youth as a member of the British Army – married in 1889 – active in The Socialist movement in Edinburgh in the early 1890s – came to Ireland in 1896 and founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party – lectured on socialism in Britain and U.S., 1902 – emigrated to U.S. in 1903 – member of Socialist Labour Party (U.S.) and the Industrial Workers of the World – founded the Irish Socialist Federation in New York, 1907 – returned to Ireland in 1910 as organizer for The Socialist Party of Ireland – Belfast organizer of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, 1910 – acting Gen. Sec. of I.T.G.W.U. and Commandant of the Irish Citizen Army, 1914 – Commandant General of Dublin Division of the Army of the Republic, 1916 – executed following the 1916 Uprising.

http://marx.org/archive/connolly/index.htm

De Leon, Daniel
“Socialism is practical, in the best sense of the term; a living, vital force of inestimable value to society.”

(December 14, 1852 – May 11, 1914) Daniel De Leon is the US academic who joined the Socialist Labor Party (SLP, originally the American Socialist League) and transformed it from a small propaganda group, based in the European immigrants, to a lively, if doctrinaire party, active in the powerful US workers movement. De Leon participated in the founding of the IWW in the USA in 1905. The SLP described itself with the metaphor of a 'beacon', the light from which workers would see when the moment for revolution arrived. De Leon described the aim of the ASL to be elected as a 'shield' to neutralize the power of the state, with the One Big Union (OBU) as the 'sword' to take and hold the means of production and administer the economy of a future socialist society. Cannon said of De Leon: 'with all his great merits and capacities; with his exemplary selflessness, his complete and unconditional dedication to the workers cause; with the enemies he made he is entitled to our love and admiration - with all that, De Leon was a sectarian in his tactics, and his conception of political action was rigidly formalistic, rendered sterile by legalistic fetishism'. The US SLP was the dominant influence on its Sydney and British sister parties of the same name.

http://marx.org/archive/deleon/index.htm

Debs, Eugene
“I am not a Labor Leader; I do not want you to follow me or anyone else; if you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of this capitalist wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I lead you in, some one else would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your present condition.”

(November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) Eugene Victor Debs was one of the greatest and most articulate advocates of workers’ power to have ever lived. During the early years of the labor movement in the United States, Debs was far ahead of his times, leading the formation of the American Railway Union (ARU) and the American Socialist Party.
Debs was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, on November 5, 1855. He left home at 14 to work on the railroad and soon became interested in union activity. As president of the American Railway Union, he led a successful strike against the Great Northern Railroad in 1894. Two months later he was jailed for his role in a strike against the Chicago Pullman Palace Car Company. While in jail, Socialist and future Congressman Victor Berger talked with Debs and introduced him to the ideas of Marx and socialism. When he was released from prison, he announced that he was a Socialist.
He soon formed the Social Democratic Party, which eventually became the Socialist Party in 1901. He became their perennial presidential candidate. He ran on the Socialist ticket in 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920 when he received his highest popular vote—about 915,000 (6%)—from within a prison cell. He had been arrested once again, this time for “sedition”; because he opposed World War I. Many Socialists were imprisoned during this time because they felt that the war was being fought for the profits of the rich, but with the blood of the poor. Debs was fortunately released in 1921.
Debs died in Elmhurst, Illinois, on October 20, 1926, but he is remembered to this day by countless labor activists from all over the political spectrum.

http://marx.org/archive/debs/index.htm


Debord, Guy
“Revolutionary politics thus has as its content the totality of the problems of the society. It has as its form the experimental practice of a free life through organized struggle against the capitalist order.”

(December 28, 1931 – November 30, 1994) Guy Debord was a writer, film maker, hypergraphist and founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situationist International (SI). He was also briefly a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie. Debord was born into a bourgeois family in Paris. His father died early, and he was raised by his grandmother in a series of Mediterranean towns. He was a headstrong youth, and after graduating high school he dropped out of the University of Paris where he had been studying law. He became a revolutionary poet, writer and film-maker in the neighborhood of Saint Germain des Pres in the 1950s. In the 1960s he led the Situationist movement, which influenced the Paris uprising of 1968. His book Society of the Spectacle (1967) was a major ideological catalyst for the uprising. The SI originally participated in the Sorbonne occupations and defended barricades in the riots. The SI distributed calls for the occupation of factories and the formation of workers’ councils but disillusioned with the students left the university to set up the CMDO (The Council For The Maintenance Of The Occupations) which distributed the SI’s demands on a much wider scale. After the end of the movement, the CMDO disbanded. In the 1970s Debord disbanded the Situationist movement, and resumed filmmaking with financial backing from the movie mogul Gerard Lebovici. His two best films date from this period: a film version of Society of the Spectacle (1973) and the autobiographical "In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni". After the dissolution of the Situationist movement Debord became increasingly self-isolated, and his writings more pessimistic. His lifelong alcoholism began to take a toll on his health. Apparently to end the suffering from a form of polyneuritis brought on by his excessive drinking, he committed suicide, by shooting himself in the heart, at his cottage in Champot on November 30, 1994.

http://libcom.org/library/guy-debord
http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/index.html

Dunayevskaya, Raya
“It is true that other post-Marx Marxists have rested on a truncated Marxism; it is equally true that no other generation could have seen the problematic of our age, much less solve our problems. Only live human beings can recreate the revolutionary dialectic forever anew. And these live human beings must do so in theory as well as in practice.”

(1910 – 1987) Raya Dunayevskaya was a Marxist Humanist, born in the Ukraine in 1910 and moved with her parents to Chicago in 1920 to escape famine; she was expelled from the US Communist Party at age 14 as a Trotskyist; she also was the first to decipher and translate Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. Raya was a secretary to Trotsky for a time durng the 1930s, but she developed a position in opposition to Trotsky's "statism". She differs sharply also from "Marxist Humanists" like Fromm and Marcuse and from Lukacs, since from the beginning Raya took a clear stand against Stalinism. Raya was also the translator of Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks, and these notes were an important part of her political position throughout her life. In her final years, she developed criticisms of Lenin over Lenin's theory of the Party.

http://marx.org/archive/dunayevskaya/index.htm

Engels, Frederich
"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory."

1820-1895. He was born in Germany to rich industrial parents and never complete his high school education. In 1842 he moved to Manchester where his father owned a cotton mill. He began his interest in radical politics by 1845 writing a pamphlet called 'The Condition of the Working Class in England.' After becoming close friends with Karl Marx, which lasted their lifetimes, he helped write the 'The Commuist Manifesto.' After Marx moved to England, Engels supported him and his family during a long active political life fighting within the German and English working class struggles. He was active in the First International and died on 5th August 1895 of old age.

Biographical Article on Frederich Engels - V.I Lenin
The Marx and Engels Library - www.marxists.org

Goldman, Emma
'Idealists are foolish enough to throw caution to the winds. They have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.'

1869 - 1940. Born in Russia at the age of 15 her father attempted to marry her off but she refused. She was sent to America where she began to be active in revolutionary politics at the age of 20. During the 1917 Revolution her and Alexander Berkman travelled to Russia to help the Bolsheviks. After becoming disillusioned with the the direction the Bolsheviks were going. She left Russia and settled in Britain were she wrote 'My disllusionment with Russia' and her autobiography 'Living My Life.' During the Spanish Civil war she travelled to Spain to help fight Frano's fascists. After the failure of the Spanish revolution she emmigrated to Canada, where she died in 1940.

Emma Goldman, short biography and a collection of writings - www.marxists.org
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman - www.knowledgerush.com
Emma Goldman - Collected Works

Gramsci, Antonio
"I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will. "

1891-1937. Antonio Gramsci was born on January 22, 1891 in Ales in the province of Cagliari in Sardinia. He was the fourth of seven children born to Francesco Gramsci and Giuseppina Marcias.He was one of the members who created the Italian communist party in 1921. He was sentenced in prison in 1926 in which he lived rest of his life. Gramsci wrote his Prison books in prison.

Biography of Gramsci
Selected Works

Guerin, Daniel
"Revolution - like landing on the moon - has entered the realm of the immediate and possible."

1904-1988. French anarchist author and activist. He is known as one of the first outspoken activist for gay rights. His most famous books are Anarchism: From Theory to Practice; Fascism and Big Business; and No Gods, No Masters, which he compiled and edited. Traveled to Beirut early in his life which gave birth to his hatred for colonialism. He was active in a number of syndicalist trade unions. Traveled to Spain in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War to support the CNT. Later on he traveled to America where he was inspired to write Negroes on the March. He died in 1988 at the age of 84.

Anarchist Encyclopedia Source
Anarchist Archives
Wikipedia source

Guevara, Ernesto 'Che'
"If you tremble indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine."

1928-1967. Began life as Argentinas answer to Jack Kerouac. He graduated from Medical school after completing 7 years in half the time. He moved to Venezula where he worked in a lepor coloney before moving to Mexico where he met the Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro. He was a leading figure in the Cuban Revolution of 1956-59. Soon after their victory he became the Economics Minister and later the head of the cuban bank, positions he kept until 1961. Bored of his jobs he set out to Africa to help the Congolese fight the US baced dictatership of President Joseph Mobutu. The epic journey and subsequent failure of the revolution in the Congo was documented in his book 'The African Dream.' In 1966 he sett of to Bolivia to help fight against the US backed dictatership of President Rene Barrientos. Guevara was captured by the Bolivian Army in 1967 and was executed by CIA operatives on October 9th 1967. He kept a diary while in Bolivia, which is aptly titled, 'The Bolivian Diary.'

Che Guevara Internet Archive - www.marxists.org
Biography of Che Guevara - Wikipedia
Che Guevara biography - Anarchist perspective

Kautsky, Karl
"Not the abolition of all classes but the substitution of new classes for the old has been the outcome of the Bolshevist revolution of 1917, as it was of the French Revolution of 1789."

1854-1938. He was born in Prague to middle class Jewish parents. He attended the University of Vienna in 1874 and joined the Austrian SDP in 1875.In 1883 he founded the monthly Die Neue Zeit in Stuttgart which became a weekly in 1890 and was its editor until 1917. His draft of the SDP Programme was accepted at the Erfurt Congress in 1895. He had a great influence to the II International(1889-1914).

Biography of Kautsky
Selected works

Kropotkin, Peter
"The two great movements of our century --towards Liberty of the individual and social co-operation of the whole community--are summed up in Anarchist-Communism."

1842-1921. Born a Prince at the age of 15 was enrolled in the elite 'Corp of Pages', a military academy for young members of the Russian Imperial Court. By 1862 after being promoted to 'page de chambre' to the Tzar he became disillusioned with royalty as he witnessed their extravagance and wealth. By 1871 her had renounced his Princehood and became interested in the workers movement and the events of The Paris Commune. After spending sometime in Switzerland he moved to London worked as a science writer with many different magazines and societies. Kropotkin was one of the first proponents of anarcho-communist. He wrote many books which included 'Conquest of Bread,' 'Fields, Factories and Workshops' and 'Memoirs of a Revolutionist.' He died in Russia on February 8th 1921 on Lenins approvel. It was the last mass gathering of anarchists in Russia.

Chronology of Peter Kropotkins Life
Kropotkin Archive - www.marxists.org
Peter Kropotkin - Collected Works

Lenin, Vladimir Ilich
"While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State."

1870-1924. Russian revolutionary leader who lead the Russian revolution of 1917 and founder of the Union of Soveit Socialist Republics. As a teenager he became interested in revolutionary politics due to his brtohers membership of a radical movement, 'The Peoples Will.' In 1887 Alexander was arrested and executed by the Tzarsit regime. Lenin was blacklisted after that and found it difficult to attend university but by 1891 however, he had graduated from St Petersburg University as a lawyer. He became heavily involved in politics after that and in 1896 was arrested and sent to Siberia where he remained until 1900. The situation in Russia was beginning to boil over and by 1905 Lenin was involved in a failed revolution. He remained in Exile, travelling Europe and building support for his movement. He returned to Russia in 1917 as leader of the Bolshevik Party. He became the first socialist leader to put Karl Marx's theories into practice. He remained the leader of the newly formed USSR until his death on 21st January 1924. He died of a stroke as a result of failed operations to remove bullets from him after an assasination attempt. Trhoughout his life he wrote many books. The most famous are 'What is to be done?' and 'The State and Revolution,'

Biography of Lenin - www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk
Lenin - Red Biographies
Lenin Archive - www.marxists.org
Lenin, selected works - www.marxists.org
Lenin - A Collected Works

Luxemburg, Rosa
"Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently."

1871-1919. German revolutionary leader. She spent many years in prison during the the first world war and in 1918 led a failed communist revolution. She was arrested and on 16th January was murdered by members of the Freikorp militia. During her short life she contributed to Marxist theory with books such as 'The Mass Strike' and 'The accumulation of capital.'

Biography of Luxemburg - www.kirjasto.sci.fi
Biographical information - Beverly G. Merrick
Shot biography and selected works - www.marxists.org

Makhno, Nestor
“The agricultural most part of these villages was composed of peasants, someone understood at the same time peasants and workers. They were founded first of all on equality and solidarity of his members. All, men and women, worked together with a perfect conscience that they should work on fields or that they should be used in housework... Working program was established in meetings where all participated. They knew then exactly what they had to make.”

(October 27, 1889 – July 25, 1934) Nestor Ivanovich Makhno was an anarcho-communist Ukrainian revolutionary who refused to align with the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution. He helped to organize an enormous experiment in anarchist values and practice, one which was cut short by the consolidation of Bolshevik power. In early 1918, the new Bolshevik government in Russia signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk making peace with the Central Powers, but ceding large amounts of territory to them, including Ukraine. The people living in Ukraine did not want to be ruled by the Central Powers, and so rebelled. Partisan units were formed that waged guerilla war against the Germans and Austrians. This rebellion turned into an anarchist revolution. Nestor Makhno was one of the main organizers of these partisan groups, who united into the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine (RIAU), also called the Black Army (because they fought under the anarchist black flag), "Makhnovists" or "Makhnovshchina" (i.e., "Makhnovism"). The RIAU also battled against the Whites (counter-revolutionaries) and anti-semitic pogromists. In areas where the RIAU drove out opposing armies, villagers sought to abolish capitalism and the state through organizing themselves into village assemblies, communes and free councils. The land and factories were expropriated and self-management implemented. New relationships and values were generated by this new social paradigm, which lead Makhnovists to formalize the policy of free communities as the highest form of social justice. Education was organised on Francisco Ferrer's principles, and the economy was based upon free exchange between rural and urban communities, from crop and cattle to manufactured products, according to the theories of Kropotkin.
Makhno had resisted the White Army's attempts to invade Ukraine from the South-West for three months before the Bolshevik Red Army units joined the war effort of Makhnovshchina. But even after joining forces with the Red Army, the anarchists maintained their main political structures (self-management, elections, voluntarism) and refused to accept Bolshevik-appointed political commissars. The Red Army temporarly accepted these conditions, but soon Bolsheviks ceased to provide the Makhnovists with basic supplies, such as cereals and coal.
There was a new truce between Makhno forces and the Red Army in October 1920 when both forces came close to the territories held by Wrangel's White army. Makhnovshchina still agreed to help the Red Army, but when the Whites were decisively eliminated in the Crimea, the communists turned on Makhno again. Makhno intercepted three messages from Lenin to Christian Rakovsky, the head of the Bolshevik government of Ukraine. Lenin's orders were to arrest all anarchist activists and to try them as common criminals.
In August 1923, an exhausted Makhno was finally driven by the Bolsheviks into exile, fleeing to Romania; then Poland; and finally to Paris. Makhno died in exile in 1934, vindicated in his suspicion of the Bolsheviks by the show trials and purges that were very much on the rise. He was cremated three days after his death, with five hundred people attending his funeral at the famous cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris.

http://www.nestormakhno.info/

Malatesta, Errico
"Not whether we accomplish anarchism today, tomorrow, or within ten centuries, but that we walk towards anarchism today, tomorrow, and always."

1853-1932. Italian anarchist revolutionary and comrade of Bakunin who led anarchist insurrections around the world. He fought in Russia and later with the Egyptions against British colonial rule. In his later life he concedrated on writing for different newspapers in Italy including 'Umanità Nova' and the bi-monthly 'Pensiero e Volontà.' At the outbreak of world war one he was a leading disponent of the war and met other anti-war activists including the the socialist newspaper editor Benito Mussolini. Throughout his life he had been the subject of police harrasment which had forced him earlier to flee Italy to Britain where he worked as an icecream seller and mechanic. He was involved in the first international until his returned to Europe. By 1926 the police put him under house arrest in his appartment where he remained until his death. He died in July 1932 of a respitory problem at the age of 79.

Malatesta Biography
Time line of his life
Collected works

Marx, Karl
"From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need."

1818-1881. The creater of modern day Communism and intellectual farther of Marxism. Born in Trier, Germany he studied law in his early years before changing to philosophy. He was a member of the Young Hegelians. After graduating from the University of Bonn he moved to Paris with his new wife. While there he studied political economy and history of the french revolution. After being expelled from France he moved to Belgium where he continued to study. he published a book entitled 'The Poverty of Philosophy,' a critque of the Anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's book 'The Philosophy of Poverty'. At the outbreak of the February revolution he was expelled from Belgium and invited back to Paris by the new provisionel government. In 1848 he and Frederich Engels wrote the 'The Manifesto of the Communist Party' which was adopted by the workers congress in London. After being expelled from numerous countries for his radical views he finally settled in London where he began to write his epic critque of capitalism documented in thirteen volumes. The most notable was 'Capital - Volume 1' completed in 1867. Marx became one of the leading figures of the First International and remained active in the workers struggle, producing many more writings. Other works include 'The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts', 'Critique of the Gotha Programme' and 'The German Ideology.' He died on March 14th 1883 of bad health and old age.

Biography of Marx - Frederich Engels
Biography of Marx - www.historyguide.org
Karl Marx Collected Works - www.marxists.org

Newton, Huey P.

"There's no reason for the establishment to fear me. But it has every right to fear the people collectively - I am one with the people."

1942-1989. Newton was a co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (the words "for Self Defense" were later dropped from the name), which was formed in October 1966. He served as the Party's Minister of Defense. The Black Panthers monitored police and provided a free breakfast program for children, among other community programs. Huey P. Newton was shot and killed August 22, 1989.

http://www.africawithin.com/bios/huey_newton.htm
http://www.africawithin.com/studies/defense.htm

Trotsky, Leon
"A Permanent revolution versus a permanent slaughter: that is the struggle in which the stake is the future of man."

1879-1941. Communist revolutionary leader who led the Red army to victory during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Born in the Ukraine he was a "bright and capable student." By the age of 18 he was already active in revolutionary politics and was key to the founding of the South Russia Workers Union. A year later he was also instrumental in the creation of the Russian Social Demcratic Labour Party. In 1900 he was arrested and sent to Siberia. He escaped prison and went to London where he met Lenin. After the Tzar abdicated in 1917 Trotsky headed to Russia and joined the Bolsheviks, who he had origanally opposed over tactics, and headed the Red Army against the white invaders. It is argued that Trotsky was the rightful succesor to Lenin but was pushed out by the ambitious Joseph Stalin. After being given menial jobs within the Bolshevik hierarchy he was exiled and in 1937 moved to Mexico. He became the biggest critic of Stalin and the way the USSR had gone. One of his books written in 1936, attacking Stalin was 'Revolution Betrayed.' Stalin saw Trotsky as a threat, even though he was in exile. On 20th August 1941 Trotsky was attacked by a Stalinist supporter. he died the next day.

Biography of Trotsky
Trotsky Internet Library Archive

Stalin, Joseph
Stalin, Joseph
'Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union.'

1879-1953. Russian revolutionary leader who assumed power after Lenins death in 1924. Made some radical economic improvments and advanced the strength of the Russian armed forces. Born in Georgia he attended priests school until deciding to lead a life in radical politics. He served some time in a siberian prison before joining the Bolsehviks. He rose through the ranks of the central committee becoming Lenins Secretary-General. Following Lenin’s death, he assumed leadership of the Party. He sought to remove factional struggles within the party. He aided other nations in realising revolution while he was alive. In world war two German forces invaded the USSR, but were defeated by the Red Army. Following the war the Soviet economy grew even stronger and the USSR became a superpower to match the U.S. He died of a stroke in 1953.

Short biography of Stalin - www.marxists.org
Stalin Reference Archive - www.marxists.org

Winstanley, Gerrard
""Property and single interest divides the people of a land and the whole world into parties, and is the cause of all wars and bloodshed and contention everywhere"

1609-1676 was a soldier and political leader during the English revolution. After the war, disatisfied with the outcome, he helped lead the True Levellers occuaption of St georges hill, arguing for universal voting rights for all, and the common ownership of land and all means of production.

He produced several writings, that focused on the importance of democracy, the abolition of money and property rights, and working together in common.

A history of the True Levellers

Zapata, Emiliano
"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!"

1879–1919. He was a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution of 1910 against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. He is one of the national heroes of Mexico. The Zapatistas, which is a revolutionary movement based in the state of Chiapas, are named after him. He died on April 9th 1919 after being tricked by a General who had told him he wanted to change sides.

Zapata Biography - www.mexconnect.com

Zedong, Mao
"Once all struggle is grasped, miracles are possible."

1893-1976.Chinese Communist revolutionary leader who lead the Communists against the Nationalists in the civil war between 1927 to 1949. Leaving his home village at the age of 17 he joined the revolutionary army which overthrew the imperial government. He went onto to study at the Hunan Provincioal Library. After running out of money he became a teacher. By 1920 he had become a principle at a primary school in Changsha. He went onto to join the Communist Party in 1921 which later formed an alliance with the Nationalist movement. By 1927 however, the Nationalists, under the control of General Chiang Kai-Shek began to kill of the communists in a mass purge. Mao led the communists to victory and became the first Chairman of the Communist Party, effectively bringing China under his control. He implemented many economic changes and strengthened China throughout his reign. He died on 9th of September 1976.

Mao Library Archive - www.marx2mao.org