Socialist Standard
 |
This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (May 2011) |
 Socialist Standard, February, 2008 |
|
| Frequency | Monthly |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Socialist Party of Great Britain |
| First issue | 1904 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Based in | London, UK |
| Language | English |
| Website | www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/standardonline |
| ISSN | 0037–8259 |
The Socialist Standard is a monthly socialist magazine published without interruption since 1904 by the Socialist Party of Great Britain. The magazine is written in a simple, direct style and focuses mainly on socialist advocacy and Marxian analysis of current events, particularly those affecting the United Kingdom.
[edit] History
It was placed on a secret list of papers and magazines banned for export during World War I, for its call for workers to refuse to fight for their countries and instead join the class war. In 1915 it published an article written by a member of the Bolshevik party calling for a socialist solution to the war.
In 1918, however, the paper voiced the first doubts of the SPGB regarding the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.
In the 1930s it drew on the reports from Spain to produce articles on the looming menace of aerial warfare.
During World War II the magazine evaded the censor largely by producing a series of articles on the Peloponnesian and similar ancient wars as a cover for the Party's opposition to the current one.
[edit] Present
The SPGB maintains that it is not a left-wing organisation nor the Socialist Standard a left-wing journal. "Left-wing", it contends, has simply become an umbrella designation for protest groups and organisations demanding amendments and reforms to capitalism. The SPGB and the World Socialist Movement (with which the SPGB is associated) contrary to the views and aspirations of these myriad groups and organisations that would claim to be left-wing, affirms that capitalism is incapable of meaningful reform;that quintessentially the basis of the exploitation of the working class is the wages/money system.
According to Richard Montague,
- The SPGB holds that the limping democracy extant in most countries today, and certainly, in the developed countries, can be used as a weapon of social revolution; if the majority desired a socialist society, a wageless, classless, moneyless condition wherein goods and services were produced solely for need, there is no power capable of resisting its demand.
[edit] External links
  |
This United Kingdom newspaper-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
