Brinton, Maurice
Recommended Author Index

Clicking on the title of an item takes you to the bibliographic page for the resource, which typically also contains an abstract, a link to the full text if it is available online, and links to related topics in the subject index. You can find items through the Title, Author, Subject, Chronological, Dewey, Library of Congress, and Format indexes.
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  1. The Belgian General Strike
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1961
    The strike of 1960-61 was the culmination of a growing movement of social protest that had been building up over many years. The economic situation of Belgium had been slowly deteriorating. The last and most drastic attempt to improve it, at the expense of the working class, was the introduction of the loi unique, which cut into workers' purchasing power and threatened their conditions of work. On December 14, 1960, a one-day demonstration was called by the Socialist Party and the trade unions to protest against this law. It met with tremendous success. On December 20, the day the debate on the law began in Parliament, the municipal workers came out on official, nationwide, strike. While most of the other unions were discussing what to do next, a spontaneous movement of unparalleled extent swept the country like a tidal wave.
  2. The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control 
    The State and Counter-Revolution
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1970
    A pamphlet exposing the struggle that took place over the running of workplaces in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution. In doing so not only does it demolish the romantic Leninist "history" of the relationship between the working class and their party during these years (1917-21) but it also provides a backbone to understanding why the Russian revolution failed in the way it did. From this understanding flows alternative possibilities of revolutionary organization.
  3. Capitalism and Socialism
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1968
    The revolution must of course start with the overthrow of the exploiting class and with the institution of workers' management of production. But it will immediately have to tackle the reconstruction of social life in all its aspects. If it does not, it will surely die.
  4. Capitalism and Socialism: A Rejoinder
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1969
    Those who seem frightened of new ideas might at least rearrange their prejudices once in a while. But even this seems to be asking too much. In argument, they defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.
  5. "Dialectical Materialism and Psychoanalysis" -- A Review
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1972
  6. Factory Committees and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1975
    It is a tragic fact, for which Leninists of all kinds (Stalinists, Trotskyists, Maoists, and the advocates of various theories of "state capitalism", i.e. International Socialists, Bordigists, "Marxist Humanists", etc.) must carry their full share of responsibility, that we know less today about the early weeks of Russian Revolution than we do, for instance, about the history of the Paris Commune.
  7. For Workers' Power
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1965
    The road to socialism - and socialism itself - means the conscious and independent action of workers. It means the end of the division between leaders and led. By their rigid, hierarchical structure most "revolutionary" organizations encourage precisely those divisions. A socialist society will be one in which decisions will be taken by workers' councils, composed of elected and revocable delegates, and where the workers themselves will manage production.
  8. The Irrational in Politics 
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1970   Published: 1975
    The Irrational in Politics examines the way in which we have been programmed by social and sexual patterns of the dominant ideology. The result is mass produced individuals incapable of automous thought and perpetually craving authority and leadership. In this light he looks as well at the sexual revolution and the failure of the Russian Revolution. His aim is to allow the ordinary individual to aquire insight into their own phychic structure and in doing so become harmonised with their own deep aspirations and desires.
  9. The Malaise on the Left 
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1974
    Let us take it for granted that meaningful activity needs to be collective, that social transformation needs emancipated individuals, and that the institutional framework of any new society will probably be based, in part at least, on those forms which the struggle itself has repeatedly thrown up at its moments of deepest insight and creativity. What we now need to think about - and to discuss widely throughout the libertarian left - is the political content of an activity that consciously seeks both to avoid recuperation and to be relevant to the conditions of today.
  10. Paris: May 1968
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1968
    This is an eyewitness account of two weeks spent in Paris during May 1968. It is what one person saw, heard or discovered during that short period.
  11. Revolutionary Organization 
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1961
    We here wish to examine one of the most fervently adhered to dogmas of the "Left": the need for a tightly centralized socialist party, controlled by a carefully selected leadership. The Labour Party describes this type of organization as an essential feature of British democracy in practice. The Bolsheviks describe it as a "democratic centralism". Let us forget the names and look below the surface. In both cases we find the complete domination of the party in all matters of organization and policy by a fairly small group of professional "leaders".
  12. Socialism Reaffirmed 
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1960
    "The emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves". The working class cannot entrust its historical task to anyone else. No "saviours from on high" will free it. The class will never achieve power, its power, if it entrusts the revolutionary struggle to others. Mass socialist consciousness and mass participation are essential. The revolutionary organization must assist in their development and must ruthlessly expose all illusions that the problem can be solved in any other way. Moreover the working class will never hold power unless it is prepared consciously and permanently to mobilize itself to this end.
  13. "What is Class Consciousness?" -- A Review
    Resource Type: Article
    First Published: 1972