Chris Harman

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chris Harman (born November 8, 1942 , † November 7, 2009 in Cairo ) was a British journalist and political activist . He was a member of the Central Committee of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and editor of the magazines International Socialism and Socialist Worker .

Life

Harman's family were working class . As a high school student in Watford , he joined the Trotskyist Socialist Review Group , the forerunner of the International Socialists (IS) , in 1961 . From 1962 to 1965 he attended the University of Leeds and then the London School of Economics (LSE), where he began an unfinished doctoral thesis with Ralph Miliband . He helped publish The Agitator , the magazine of the LSE Socialist Society. In 1968 he was a senior member of IS and involved in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign . Many left-wing radicals were outraged when Harman indicted the Vietnamese revolutionary leader Hồ Chí Minh , the leader of the Vietnamese Trotskyist movement Tạ Thu Thau in 1945 after the suppression of the workers' uprising in London at a meeting in the South Place Ethical Society 's Conway Hall in London To have murdered Saigon.

Harman worked for the IS and SWP as a theorist and activist and created a number of books and articles on a wide range of topics. He contributed significantly to the theory of armament capitalism and to the theory of state capitalism as a characteristic of the so-called socialist states, as developed by the socialist Tony Cliff . Almost all of his writings appeared in the publications of the IS or SWP or in related publishers such as B. Bookmarks. Harman was the first editor of Socialist Worker from 1976-1977, and resumed the job from 1982 to 2004 when he began to publish the International Socialism Journal , the SWP's quarterly theoretical magazine.

His work The Fire Last Time (German: 1968: A world in turmoil) about May 1968 in France and other revolts of workers and students in the 1960s worldwide is also by the rock band Rage Against the Machine in the cover text of their album Evil Empire recommended for reading.

Harman worked with the UK-based Respect party in 2004 . He was accused of supporting the Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip , which is why he was criticized by representatives of the Trotskyist Third Camp current.

With his writing The Prophet and the Proletariat (Dt .: Politischer Islam) Harman wrote an in-depth study of political Islam, its political shades and how the left should relate to it.

One of his most important works is who built the seven-gate Thebes. How people make their history (Engl .: Peoples History of the World). Here, on the basis of Marxist theory, he investigates the history of mankind from the egalitarian societies, the development of class societies in the first civilizations to the emergence of capitalism. The focus is always on the question of the social driving forces that have brought about progress, stagnation or relapse.

Harman died on November 7, 2009 after a cardiac arrest while giving a lecture at the Socialist Days conference of the Center for Socialist Studies in Cairo.

Works (selection)

  • Base and Superstructure, International Socialism 2: 36, London, Summer 1986, pp. 3-44;
  • Education, capitalism and the student revolt , 1968
  • Women′s Liberation and Revolutionary Socialism, International Socialism 2:23, Spring 1984, pp. 3–41.
  • Russia: How the Revolution Was Lost , 1967 1 , 1974
    • German: Russia: how the revolution failed 1977 1 , 3rd edition 1989
  • with Dave Peers: Unemployment and how to fight it (with Dave Peers), 1971
  • The struggle in Ireland , 1974
  • Why Labor fails , 1979
  • New technology and the struggle for socialism , 1979
  • The summer of 1981: a post-riot analysis , 1981
  • with Duncan Hallas : Days of Hope: The General Strike of 1926 , 1981
  • Gramsci versus Reformism , 1983
  • Explaining The Crisis: A Marxist Reappraisal , London 1984, ISBN 0-906224-11-X
  • with Alex Callinicos : The Changing Working Class: Essays on Class Structure Today , Bookmarks, London 1987, ISBN 0-906224-40-3
  • with Peter Binns and Tony Cliff : Russia: from workers' state to state capitalism , London 1987
  • Class Struggles in Eastern Europe, 1945-1983 London 1988, ISBN 0-906224-47-0
  • The Fire Last Time: 1968 And After , London 1988, ISBN 1-898876-35-5
    • German: 1968: A world in turmoil , from the English by Rosemarie Nünning, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 3-934536-13-1
  • The revolutionary paper , 1991
    • German: Revolutionäre Zeitung , from English by Stefan Bornost, edited by Danijela Cenan, VGZA e. V., Edition aurora, Frankfurt a. M. 1998
  • as editor: In The Heat of the Struggle: 25 Years of Socialist Worker , with an introduction by Paul Foot , 1993, ISBN 0-906224-94-2
  • Economics Of The Madhouse: Capitalism and the Market Today , London 1995, ISBN 1-898876-03-7
    • German: The madness of the market economy , 1999
  • How Marxism Works , London 1997, ISBN 1-898876-27-4
    • German: This is Marxism , 1987 1 , 4th edition 1998
  • The Lost Revolution: Germany 1918-1923 , London 1997, ISBN 1-898876-22-3
    • German: The lost revolution: Germany 1918–1923 , VGZA e. V., Frankfurt 1998
  • Marxism And History: Two Essays , London 1998, ISBN 1-898876-31-2
  • A people's History of the world , 1999
    • German: Who built the seven-door Thebes? How people make their story , Volumes I to III, translated from the English by Rosemarie Nünning, Laika Verlag, Hamburg 2016.
  • The Prophet And The Proletariat: Islamic fundamentalism, class and revolution , 1994 1 , London 1999, ISBN 1-898877-18-1
    • German: Politischer Islam , Frankfurt am Main 2012, 4th edition
  • Workers of the World - The working class in the 21st century , translated from English by Thomas Walter, Edition aurora, Frankfurt am Main 2003, ISBN 3-934536-08-5
  • Zombie Capitalism: Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx , London 2009, ISBN 978-1-905192-53-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sean Matgamna : An open letter to Chris Harman of the SWP  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as broken. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Workersliberty , November 7, 2007.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.workersliberty.org  
personal data
SURNAME Harman, Chris
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British journalist and political activist
DATE OF BIRTH November 8, 1942
DATE OF DEATH November 7, 2009
Place of death Cairo