SIMON DUFF recommends a recording of Arvo Part that takes the listener on a pilgrimage through seemingly distant times and events of the Bible
Midwives of socialist transformation
MARY DAVIS recommends a book revealing the indispensable – and frequently ignored – role played by women in the Bolshevik Revolution
Leading to revolution: International Women’s Day in Petrograd, 1917
[State Museum of Political History of Russia]
JENNY FARRELL relishes an intimate memoir about growing up in the household of the great Irish communist and playwright Sean O’Casey
SIAN LEWIS relishes a comprehensive account of high rise social housing in Britain by prize-winning social and political historian Holly Smith
SIMON PARSONS feels a little overwhelmed by the joke count of an ebullient production that manages to convey Stoker’s Dracula without corpsing
SYLVIA HIKINS enjoys a varied Scouse alternative to traditional pantomimes
Rereleases from The Pentangle, The Charlie Daniels Band, and Cousins and Willoughby
The Women’s Revolution: Russia 1905-1917
by Judy Cox
(Haymarket Books, £16.99)
PREMISED on the indisputable fact that women’s role in the revolutions in Russia of 1905 and the two revolutions of 1917 have been largely hidden from history, Judy Cox’s book redresses the imbalance in the torrent of publications two years ago marking the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution which largely ignored it.
Her slim volume is thus a welcome antidote. Using secondary sources, she challenges the dominant narrative from a socialist-feminist perspective and introduces the reader to many lesser-known Bolshevik women.
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ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
Corbyn and Sultana’s ‘Your Party’ represents the first attempt at mass socialist organisation since the CPGB’s formation in 1921, argues DYLAN MURPHY
RON JACOBS recommends a painstaking study of the communists and revolutionaries who congregated in Moscow after 1917
Author RACHEL HOLMES invites readers to come to her talk in London about the great foremother of the working-class women’s movement – Eleanor Marx