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[Karl Weiss]
VISITORS flocked to Marx House on London’s Clerkenwell Green on Saturday to mark 100 years since Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin died.
The Marx Memorial Library held a conference on the founder of the Soviet state and Lenin’s connection to London and the building itself, from which he edited the underground Bolshevik newspaper Iskra (the Spark) from 1902 to 1903.
Library director Meirian Jump opened the day by describing Lenin’s links to the historic building and inviting guests to visit the Lenin room, from which he edited the paper, while historian Robert Henderson, former curator of the Russian collection at the British Library, spoke of Lenin’s time as a political exile in London, Lenin and his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya’s lives in the British capital and the organisation of Bolshevik congresses there, themes of his recent book The Spark that Lit the Revolution.
The selection, analysis and interpretation of historical ‘facts’ always takes place within a paradigm, a model of how the world works. That’s why history is always a battleground, declares the Marx Memorial Library
The newly catalogued News International Dispute Archive ensures the history of the Wapping dispute – and the solidarity it inspired – is preserved, accessible and alive for future generations, says MATT DUNNE
BEN CHACKO says in different ways, the centenary of the General Strike and that of Fidel Castro’s birth point to priority tasks for the British left in the coming year
From hunting rare pamphlets at book sales to online panels and courses on trade unionism and class politics, the MML continues connecting archive treasures with the movements fighting for a better world, writes director MEIRIAN JUMP