John Wojcik pays tribute to a black US activist who spent six decades at the forefront of struggles for voting rights, economic justice and peace – reshaping US politics and inspiring movements worldwide
Latest editorial
Isabel Crook: an appreciation
JENNY CLEGG pays tribute to a remarkable woman who was a pioneer in bringing about greater understanding between China and the West
Isabel Crook in 1940
In the fifth and final part of a series of articles, Storming the Heavens author JENNY CLEGG explains how the Communist Party of China’s approach demonstrates how Marxism, rooted in concrete conditions and mass participation, can shape history
In times of genocide, art is not a refuge from politics but a weapon against injustice, says ROGER McKENZIE, highlighting three of his own favourite political truth-tellers
As members elect their first leadership, a deeper battle is unfolding over what democracy should mean in practice, says CASSI BELLINGHAM
The language of humiliation is a step towards a second civil war, argues RAMZY BAROUD
ANDREW MURRAY says switching the prime minister on and off again is no substitute for new political approach we need
ISABEL CROOK (1915-2023) was a pioneering anthropologist, committed communist and rare bridge between the West and China. She was renowned, with husband David, for the study Ten Mile Inn: Mass Movement in a Chinese Village, an invaluable record of the Communist Party of China’s mass line in action.
Isabel spent most of her life in China and was to witness its remarkable transformation from a war-torn land of beggars, bandits and people in rags under a corrupt Kuomintang (KMT) government to a country set on a path to prosperity, overcoming the problems of poverty, unemployment and instability, under communist leadership.
During the Cultural Revolution, she was kept in confinement by Red Guards for three years, receiving an apology from Zhou Enlai in 1973. In 1989, with David, she called on the government not to use force against the Tiananmen protesters. Isabel nevertheless was to remain optimistic about China’s future under CPC leadership.
Similar stories
In Part 4 of her look at the Chinese revolution JENNY CLEGG addresses the relationship between the Peasant Movement and the National Movement
BEN CHACKO welcomes a masterful analysis that puts class struggle back at the heart of our understanding of China’s revolution
STEPHEN BELL reports from a delegation that traced the steps of China’s socialist revolution from its first modest meetings to the Red Army’s epic 9,000km battle to create the modern nation that today defies every capitalist assumption
JENNY CLEGG reports from a Chinese peace conference bringing together defence ministers, US think tanks and global South leaders, where speakers warned that the erosion of multilateralism risks regional hotspots exploding into wider war