Marxists’ Internet Archive

Chris Harman

(1942 – 2009)

If we look at the way society is developing today in many parts of the globe we can see, all too vividly, the face of barbarism. But we can also see struggles against the system that repeatedly throw up notions of real advance, based on solidarity, on cooperation, on people caring for each other as they consciously and collectively work out their own futures. Those who preach halfhearted reform of the existing system preach a capitulation to barbarism. Those of us who look to revolution see in these struggles the possibility of going forward, not back. There is still, as Marx and Engels wrote at the end of the Communist Manifesto, ‘a world to win’. Economics of the Madhouse, 1995

Biography:

Born in 1942, Chris Harman joined the Socialist Review Group – predecessor to the International Socialists (IS), which became the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) – as a schoolboy in Watford. After studying at Leeds University in 1962-5, he went on to pursue doctoral research at the London School of Economics (LSE). However, he became a leading activist in the struggles at LSE in the late 1960s and abandoned his academic career.

For the rest of his life he worked full-time for IS and the SWP, initially as editor of International Socialism and a journalist on Socialist Worker. He edited Socialist Worker in 1975-7 and then again between 1982 and 2004. Finally he returned to edit International Socialism until his death. He died on the eve of his 67th birthday while attending a socialist conference in Cairo. He was one of the most important theoreticians of the International Socialist Tendency (IST).

In addition to his journalistic work he was a prolific writer. He wrote The Fire Last Time, a study of the significance of 1968 and the following years for revolutionary politics, The Lost Revolution, 1918-1923, a study of the German Revolution, The Prophet and the Proletariat, a controversial study of radical Islam, A People’s History of the World, an ambitious survey of the history of humanity, and Explaining the Crisis, Economics of the Madhouse and Zombie Capitalism, attempts to show the relevance of Marxism to understanding the recurrent economic crisis of recent decades, as well a innumerable articles in International Socialism, Socialist Review and Socialist Worker and other publications.

Obituaries

Works:

Winter 1964/5:	Osagyefo Pensant (book review)
Winter 1964/5:	Nobly Wrong (book review) (written as Colin Humphrey)
Summer 1965:	Sociological Strivings (book review)
Summer 1965:	Stalin’s Great Shadow (book review)
Summer 1965:	Tribune of the People (Part 1)
Summer 1965:	Working Classes (book review)
Autumn 1965:	Return to Utopia (book review)
Winter 1965:	Irish Problems (book review)
Spring 1966:	The Restoration (book review)
Spring 1966:	Tribune of the People (Part 2) – The Wasted Years
Autumn 1966:	Looking Glasses (book review) (written as Colin Humphries)
Autumn 1966:	Categorically Thinking (book review) (written as Colin Humphries)
Winter 1966/67:	Australian Mirrors (book review) (written as Colin Humphries)
Winter 1966/67:	Liberal Evasions (book review) (written as Colin Humphries)
Winter 1966/67:	Join and Collapse (book review)
Spring 1967:	Italian Theory (book review)
Spring 1967:	Mud Cannot Split (book review)
Autumn 1967:	Russia – How the Revolution was Lost (pamphlet)
Autumn 1967:	Marxist Morals? (book review)
Autumn 1967:	Paper Radicals (book review)
Winter 1967/68:	Success and Failure (book review)
Spring 1968:	Gramsci (book review)
Autumn 1968:	Vietnam (book review)
Winter 1968/69:	Party and Class (pamphlet)
June 1969:	Czechoslovakia
June 1969:	Ruling Ideas (book review)
December 1969:	The Inconsistencies of Ernest Mandel (extended book review)
February 1970:	Their Election and Us (editorial)
February 1970:	Prospects for the Seventies – The Stalinist States
April 1970:	Students (editorial)
July 1970:	The Pilkingtons Strike (survey)
July 1970:	Capitalism Eastern Style (book review)
November 1970:	Tory Government Policy (editorial)
November 1970:	Cuba – The End of a Road? (survey)
February 1971:	[Industrial Relations Bill] (editorial)
February 1971:	Bother on the Baltic (survey)
April 1971:	Two Offensives (editorial)
June 1971:	The Years of Revolt (written with Joan Smith as Christopher Smith)
June 1971:	The General Strike
Autumn 1971:	The Common Market
Autumn 1971:	Hue and Cry (book review)
Autumn 1971:	Two Marx’s or One? (book review) (written as Colin Humphries)
Autumn 1971:	Bounced Czech (book review) (written as Colin Humphries)
April 1972:	Antonio Gramsci (book review) (written as Colin Humphreys)
July 1972:	Hungary – Failure of Economic Reform (survey)
July 1972:	Reply to M. Brinton on the Bolsheviks & Workers’ Control
January 1973:	Russia in Crisis?
January 1973:	US Arms for Chile’s Generals (survey)
March 1973:	Let History Judge (book review)
April 1973:	The Politics of Soviet Agriculture (book review)
May 1973:	British Steel in Crisis (with Rob Clay)
October 1973:	Middle East (notes of the month)
November 1973:	[Phase 3 – Fire Down Below] (notes of the month)
November 1973:	In Brief (book review)
November 1973:	The Axe (book review) (written as Stuart Morgan)
November 1973:	Romania’s Ceausescu (book review)
November 1973:	The Spanish Civil War (extended book review)
December 1973:	[Capitalism in Crisis] (notes of the month)
February 1974:	Danger Tory Crisis (notes of the month)
March 1974:	[The New Labour Government] (notes of the month)
April 1974:	[Labour Government] (notes of the month)
April 1974:	Students (notes of the month)
April 1974:	Scottish Nationalism (notes of the month)
May 1974:	An Alienated Man (book review) (written as Colin Humphreys)
June 1974:	[After Phase 3] (notes of the month)
June 1974:	Fists Against Fascists (notes of the month)
June 1974:	Portugal (notes of the month)
June 1974:	Northern Ireland – Background to the Crisis
September 1974:	[A New Election] (notes of the month)
October 1974:	[The New Labour Government] (notes of the month)
October 1974:	Ireland and the British Crisis (notes of the month)
October 1974:	Portugal – The First Six Months
October 1974:	The Private Sector in Soviet Agriculture (book review) (written as Colin Humphreys)
March 1975:	Marxist Economics and the World Today
March 1975:	Note of Qualification
May 1975:	Portugal
November 1975:	Portugal – The Latest Phase
November 1976:	Poland – Crisis of State Capitalism (Part 1)
January 1977:	Poland – Crisis of State Capitalism (Part 2)
March 1977:	One Small Mistake (letter)
April 1977:	The Politics of Spain (book review)
May 1977:	Gramsci versus Eurocommunism (Part 1)
June 1977:	Gramsci versus Eurocommunism (Part 2)
July 1977:	Better a Valid Insight Than a Wrong Theory
27 August 1977:	The day we stopped the Nazis ... and the police ran amok (with John Rose)
September 1977:	Eurocommunism – The State and Revolution (extended book review)
Spring 1979:	Crisis of the European Revolutionary Left
May 1979:	How Marxism Works (book)
February 1980:	Afghanistan – Only a Pawn in Their Game
October 1980:	Marxism and the Missiles
Autumn 1981:	The Summer of 1981 – a post-riot analysis
Autumn 1983:	Philosophy and Revolution
Autumn 1981:	The revolutionary press (pamphlet)
Summer 1985:	1984 and the shape of things to come
1986:	Imperialism – East and West
March 1986:	Haiti – Pawn in their game
Summer 1989:	The Market and the Future of Eastern Europe (notes for a speech)
Spring 1990:	The Storm Breaks – The Crisis in the Eastern Bloc
1991:	The state and capitalism today
1992:	The Return of the National Question
October 1993:	Red letters (book review)
October 1993:	The workers’ weekly (interview)
November 1993:	Unholy alliance
December 1993:	The Frankenstein monster
1994:	Islamism – An Analysis (draft of part of The Prophet and the Proletariat)
January 1994:	The very idea of it
Spring 1994:	Change at the first millennium (book review)
February 1994:	The beast is back
February 1994:	Upsetting the stall (book review)
March 1994:	Bomb warning
April 1994:	Miracle workers
April 1994:	Nato’s new frontier (book review)
May 1994:	Half a critique of political economy (book review)
June 1994:	Flexible friends?
July 1994:	The anxious class
July 1994:	Unlocking the prison house (book review)
Autumn 1994:	The Prophet and the Proletariat (pamphlet)
September 1994:	Controls and conflict
October 1994:	Only skin deep
November 1994:	Behind the veil
Winter 1994:	Engels and the Origins of Human Society
December 1994:	Third time lucky
1995:	Economics of the Madhouse (book)
January 1995:	Just a matter of time
January 1995:	Missing the point (theatre review)
January 1995:	Touching base (book review)
February 1995:	Capital gains (book review)
February 1995:	Mexican wave
March 1995:	Continental drift
March 1995:	Novel approach (book review)
April 1995:	A fair day’s work ...
May 1995:	A tale of two parties
Summer 1995:	From Bernstein to Blair – one hundred years of revisionism
June 1995:	Is there an alternative to the market? (with Meghnad Desai) (debate)
July 1995:	My Favourite Films (film review)
July 1995:	A term of abuse?
July 1995:	Town and country (book review)
September 1995:	Hitting the high notes
October 1995:	The theory of poverty
November 1995:	Mistaken identity (theatre review)
November 1995:	No ‘liberation’ in Bosnia
December 1995:	Brutal symmetry
January 1996:	Back in business
February 1996:	Beyond the boundary
February 1996:	Northern star (book review)
March 1996:	France’s hot December
March 1996:	Ghosts in the machine (theatre review)
March 1996:	A nation once again?
April 1996:	People in class houses
April 1996:	The vicious circle (book review)
May 1996:	No place like home (book review)
June 1996:	The crisis of bourgeois economics
June 1996:	Thinking it through
July 1996:	Thinking it through
October 1996:	Thinking it through
November 1996:	Afghanistan
Winter 1996:	Globalisation – A Critique of a New Orthodoxy
December 1996:	Where’s the moral?
January 1997:	Flight from the centre
January 1997:	Workers’ blow to Moscow (book review)
February 1997:	Thinking it through
February 1997:	A tour of capitals (book review)
March 1997:	Eastern Europe
April 1997:	Euro struggle
May 1997:	New generation of struggle
May 1997:	No fear of contradiction (theatre review)
May 1997:	Writing on the wall (book review)
June 1997:	Brown and the bank
June 1997:	Swing shift
July 1997:	Second-hand model
September 1997:	Academy awards (book review)
September 1997:	Must history repeat itself?
October 1997:	Cuban missile crisis
October 1997:	When east meets west (book review)
November 1997:	Postmodernism
December 1997:	Do the Tigers face extinction?
January 1998:	Asian pneumonia
January 1998:	Subjects and objects (book review)
February 1998:	Privatisation
April 1998:	Don’t make exceptions
May 1998:	Out of apathy
June 1998:	Mind euro business
July 1998:	Two-way street
August 1998:	From fire to frying pan
October 1998:	System failure
November 1998:	The limit to capitalism
1999:	A people’s history of the world (book) (extract)
February 1999:	Forever blowing bubbles
March 1999:	Don’t bank on the cure
April 1999:	Chain reaction
April 1999:	A clash of values (theatre review)
May 1999:	Divide and conquer
July 1999:	Imperialism, war and resistance (with Robin Blackburn)
September 1999:	Hitler’s friends
September 1999:	Too hot to handle? (book review)
October 1999:	Less than they bargained for
Winter 1999:	Comment on Molyneux on art
Winter 1999:	The 20th century – an age of extremes or an age of possibilities?
December 1999:	Time, tide and class struggle
11 December 1999:	Prescott’s broken voice
January 2000:	Do you believe in miracles?
January 2000:	Redrawing the maps of the past (book review)
February 2000:	Economy – Paradigm lost
March 2000:	A break with tradition
April 2000:	Life in the fast lane
May 2000:	Movie with an open ending (obituary)
June 2000:	Fight the power
July 2000:	May the force be with you
Autumn 2000:	Anti-capitalism – Theory and Practice (pamphlet)
September 2000:	Race against the machines
October 2000:	Colombia – A dependency problem
November 2000:	When it’s right not to choose
December 2000:	Second thoughts
January 2001:	Old wine in new bottles
6 January 2001:	Boom hangover hits capitalists
February 2001:	Street fighter turned salesman
10 February 2001:	A message to our readers
24 February 2001:	Is it propaganda? Or do we want socialists elected?
Spring 2001:	Beyond the boom
March 2001:	A brave new world?
April 2001:	Learning from the past to shape the future (book review)
April 2001:	There may be troubles ahead ...
May 2001:	The overall movement
May 2001:	The prophet armed
June 2001:	Moral force or physical force?
July 2001:	Creative tension (book review)
September 2001:	Argentina – The ecstasy, followed by the agony
September 2001:	Capitalism’s morning after
13 September 2001:	System in crisis before US disaster
October 2001:	Bush fires on all fronts
1 October 2001:	Who keeps the peace?
27 October 2001:	How wars can lead to revolution
November 2001:	The state of the movement
24 November 2001:	Trollope – Similar story now and then (television review)
Winter 2001	The new world recession
December 2001:	A drama without a plot
1 December 2001:	How did we get into this mess?
January 2002:	Breadth of vision and a zest for life (book review)
January 2002:	The wrong attack
February 2002:	Argentina – Taste of our Power
Spring 2002:	Argentina – rebellion at the sharp end of the world crisis
March 2002:	No time for misplaced optimism
16 March 2002:	The US breaks its own rules
April 2002:	Hegemony and harmony?
13 April 2002:	Argentina after the revolt – what next?
20 April 2002:	Venezuela coup foiled by popular rising
May 2002:	Argentina – Swimming with the Tide of Revolt
June 2002:	To vote or not to vote?
8 June 2002:	A different kind of party altogether
22 June 2002:	Would socialism kill individuality?
29 June 2002:	Isn’t it true that we’re too selfish?
29 June 2002:	Ten million strike against Tory who’s Blair’s ‘best friend’ (with Judy Cox)
July 2002:	Down and out in Havana
13 July 2002:	Can the police be on our side?
13 July 2002:	From the horse’s mouth (book review)
20 July 2002:	Fiddling as hopes burn
3 August 2002:	Right prepares for new coup attempt
Autumn 2002:	The workers of the world (pamphlet)
September 2002:	The recession strikes back
September 2002:	Venezuela – When is a coup not a coup?
28 September 2002:	Connecting the links in the struggle
28 September 2002:	Duncan Hallas 1925–2002 (obituary)
October 2002:	All about Eric – A cautionary tale (book review)
October 2002:	The barrel and the gun
12 October 2002:	Freedom, struggle and constraint (book review)
November 2002:	Unfree and unfair
December 2002:	Blood Sacrifice (review of exhibition)
December 2002:	Get this party started
December 2002:	In a material world (book review)
14 December 2002:	Challenge to Chavez
21 December 2002:	Workers organise to halt right wing coup
January 2003:	Striking a bargain
January 2003:	Venezuela – The rich striking oil
January 2003:	The Working Class or the Multitude (transcript of debate with Michael Hardt at World Social Forum, Porto Alegre)
4 January 2003:	Venezuela’s rich play with fire
25 January 2003:	How can we stop the war?
February 2003:	Jams today, jams tomorrow
1 February 2003:	Against a world of war and poverty (with Chris Nineham)
22 February 2003:	Venezuela – a new defeat for the rich
March 2003:	Far right – Left pole of attraction
1 March 2003:	Birth of a new movement
15 March 2003:	Protest shakes the warmongers
22 March 2003:	Mad system that drives us into economic chaos
23 March 2003:	They are killing to keep the oil flowing
29 March 2003:	Making the connections
29 March 2003:	This is a very political war
April 2003:	Leader of the pack
April 2003:	Permanent legacy (obituary)
5 April 2003:	Not what Bush’s gang expected
26 April 2003:	Free to vote – but only if US approves
May 2003:	Only the Beginning
5 May 2003:	Argentina – what does the election result mean?
Summer 2003:	Analysing Imperialism
June 2003:	Crying out for leadership
July 2003:	A blast from the past (book review)
23 August 2003:	Diana Mosley – A dedicated follower of fascism (obituary)
September 2003:	Reformism without reforms
6 September 2003:	Message to those who say ‘reclaim Labour’
October 2003:	What’s in a word?
11 October 2003:	A brief history of futility
25 October 2003:	Uprising in Bolivia – stones and clubs defeated the tanks
November 2003:	Faith of their fathers
November 2003:	Latin America – Continent of discontent
November 2003:	Weak foundations (book review)
1 November 2003:	L’Ordine Nuovo – paper of the Italian revolution
8 November 2003:	Why the US wants to run the world
22 November 2003:	Panic over Iraq hits the White House
29 November 2003:	Georgia – Can the uprising open the way to real change?
December 2003:	Autonomism for the people?
January 2004:	Will China beat the US?
17 January 2004:	A new chapter in the resistance
24 January 2004:	World Social Forum in Mumbai – many battles, one enemy (with Yuri Prasad)
29 January 2004:	Revolt at Hutton’s Whitewash
February 2004:	How to fight the system
14 February 2004:	There’s more to come, Blair
28 February 2004:	Explaining the tragedy in Haiti
28 February 2004:	Is Nader right to stand in the US?
March 2004:	Developing neoliberals
6 March 2004:	US exploits growing crisis in Haiti
20 March 2004:	Could a battle like the miners happen again?
20 March 2004:	The roots of ETA
Spring 2004:	The rise of capitalism
May 2004:	The clash of fundamentals
May 2004:	The great gamble (speech)
22 May 2004:	Behind India’s shock election result
June 2004:	Are you being served?
10 June 2004:	Ronald Reagan – If only the bloody thug had died 20 years earlier (obituary)
19 June 2004:	A decade the right will never forget or forgive (television review)
Summer 2004:	India after the elections - a rough guide
July 2004:	South America’s New Revolt
10 July 2004:	How crisis can lead to revolution from below
17 July 2004:	Successful revolution depends on organisation
24 July 2004:	Paul Foot 1937–2004 (obituary)
24 July 2004:	A revolutionary network at the heart of every struggle
Autumn 2004:	Digging deeper (book review)
Autumn 2004:	Spontaneity, strategy and politics
October 2004:	The thaw sets in
November 2004:	Not so awkward now
December 2004:	Neither Washington nor Moscow
Winter 2005:	Contested values (book review)
Winter 2005:	Empty method man (book review)
Winter 2005:	The history of an argument
January 2005:	From common sense to good sense
February 2005:	Bet your bottom dollar
March 2005:	A taste of things to come
12 March 2005:	Are these uprisings genuine revolts?
Spring 2005:	Britain after eight years of Blair
Spring 2005:	Forgotten subversives (book review)
18 June 2005:	The myth of Mao (book review)
Summer 2005:	Votes of no confidence
September 2005:	Global faultlines
Autumn 2005:	Half-explaining the crisis (book review)
Autumn 2005:	Making sense of socialism today (extended book review)
Autumn 2005:	Pick of the quarter (magazine review)
October 2005:	Marching separately
November 2005:	Mirror images
November 2005:	The Works are complete (book review)
12 November 2005:	A spectre of class
December 2005:	Revolution in the air
Winter 2006:	China’s economy and Europe’s crisis
Winter 2006:	Pick of the quarter (magazine review)
Winter 2006:	Shedding new light on the Dark Ages (book review)
February 2006:	Revolution in the revolution
March 2006:	Should we all be tightening our belts?
Spring 2006:	The faultlines grow deeper
Spring 2006:	Pick of the quarter (magazine review)
April 2006:	The hidden history of the Iranian Revolution
May 2006:	A conspiracy theory that weakens the movement
June 2006:	Criticising capitalism in order to save it (obituary)
Summer 2006:	Cuba behind the myths (extended book review)
Summer 2006:	The origins of capitalism (debate with Robert Brenner)
Summer 2006:	Pick of the quarter (magazine review)
July 2006:	The ruling class, its police and the left
September 2006:	Students and the working class
2 September 2006:	The personality is political
Autumn 2006:	Between ritual and revolt (book review)
Autumn 2006:	Hizbollah and the war Israel lost
October 2006:	An enemy of empire (book review)
November 2006:	Middle East – Beware the cornered tiger
25 November 2006:	Milton Friedman’s legacy of free market madness (obituary)
December 2006:	Why opposing imperialism means supporting resistance
Winter 2007:	Dialectics of morality (book review)
Winter 2007:	Pick of the quarter (magazine review)
Winter 2007:	Snapshots of capitalism today and tomorrow
Winter 2007:	When Reason was revolt (book review)
January 2007:	What lies behind the health service ‘reforms’
13 January 2007:	US troop ‘surge’ to Iraq is last, desperate gamble
27 January 2007:	Venezuela, Hugo Chavez and permanent revolution
Spring 2007:	Forgotten treasure – a new biography of Grossman (book review)
Spring 2007:	Gramsci, the Prison Notebooks and philosophy
May 2007:	Blair facts and Brown noses
June 2007:	Sarkozy – Capital’s latest helper
Summer 2007:	The merchant and the Middle Ages (book review)
Summer 2007:	New Labour’s economic “record”
Summer 2007:	The rate of profit and the world today
July 2007:	Building solidarity with Palestine
July 2007:	Climate change and class conflict
September 2007:	The financial panic that never was
September 2007:	The not so “weightless world”
15 September 2007:	Striking back – the return of industrial action
29 September 2007:	Pakistan on the edge of turmoil
Autumn 2007:	Shedding some light on Lenin (book review)
October 2007:	Artificial “human nature”
November 2007:	The Outbreak of the 2007 Crisis (speech)
November 2007:	Rate of profit warning
December 2007:	Socialists in dispute
2008:	Chris Wickham, Feudalism and Forces of Production (comments on an article)
Winter 2008:	The crisis in Respect
Winter 2008:	Theorising neoliberalism
January 2008:	No saviours or substitutes
February 2008:	Economic crisis – Capitalism exposed
2 February 2008:	Economic turmoil and class struggle
March 2008:	The state of imperialism
Spring 2008:	From the credit crunch to the spectre of global crisis
Spring 2008:	Returning to the Russian question (book review)
April 2008:	Workers’ unity in the face of Enoch Powell’s racism
5 April 2008:	Our alternative to market madness
May 2008:	1968 – The year the world caught fire
10 May 2008:	Socialists and history – a battle for the past (interview)
28 June 2008:	Workers are paying the price for the rising cost of oil
Summer 2008:	Misreadings and misconceptions
July 2008:	The emperors, and their clothes
September 2008:	Chorus of hypocrites
Autumn 2008:	Snapshots of union strengths and weaknesses
October 2008:	Market madness
18 October 2008:	The Market vs. Marx (debate with Eamonn Butler)
November 2008:	Two faces of John Maynard Keynes
December 2008:	The politics of economics
Winter 2009:	MacIntyre’s forgotten answers (book review)
Winter 2009:	The slump of the 1930s and the crisis today
January 2009:	Was the ‘New Deal’ a good deal?
17 January 2009:	Understanding a system caught in deep crisis (report of speech)
23 January 2009:	Students and revolt
February 2009:	India – Poverty behind the tiger
March 2009:	Slump, boom and climate change
May 2009:	Leap of faith – The ruling classes’ “solution” to the economic crisis
27 June 2009:	Zombie capitalism (interview)
Summer 2009:	Gold dust (book review)
July 2009:	Double edged ‘democracy’
September 2009:	Solidarity and encouragement
5 September 2009:	The NPA – a new atmosphere on the French left
October 2009:	Economic growth – the meaning of numbers
November 2009:	State capitalism – the theory that fuels the practice
Winter 2010:	The emperor has no clothes (extended book review)
Winter 2010:	Not all Marxism is dogmatism – a reply to Michel Husson

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