Socialism.ca

Selected Internet resources

Marxists Internet Archive - Large archive of the writings of Marx and Engels and of others in the Marxist tradition. Searchable.

Marxism Page - Information about Marxism, and some Marxists classics. Marxism is understood here as the theory and practice of working class self-emancipation. "This theoretical and political tradition is radically different from the way Marxism is generally described by both critics and many 'adherents' who identify Marxism with the repressive state capitalist regimes that used to dominate Russia and eastern Europe and still hold sway in China, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba."

Z Magazine Online - Articles from the radical U.S. magazine.

Idealist - International directory, organized by country, of thousands of non-profit activist organizations, designed to help people "think globally and act locally"

Connexions - Connexions works to connect individuals and organizations working for social change with each other, with information and ideas, and with the general public. Connexions Online features information about resources and organizations fostering democratization, economic justice, environmental responsibility, civil liberties, and the creation and preservation of community.

Periodicals and more Web sites

Alternative Press Center - Annotated links to alternative points of view available on the Internet.

Alternatives Information - Online social change library.

Canadian Dimension Online - The Web site of the Canadian socialist magazine.

Capitalism's Gravediggers - Socialist site: "When people understand why capitalism cannot work for them, the structure of society needed to solve our problems becomes clear".

Centre for Social Justice - Conducts research, education and advocacy to narrow the gap in income, wealth and power..

Comrade's Socialist Songbook - Revolutionary and trade union songs, mostly from the The Socialist Songbook.

Corporate Watch (UK) - Radical research and publishing group supporting activism against large multinational corporations

Connexions Directory A-Z Index - A directory of Canadian NGOs and grassroots organizations.

Radical Digressions - A left perspective.

Labour Start - A major site with information about labour activities throughout the world.

Manifestos - Programs - Visions - Selected political programs, vision statements and manifestos.

Marxism.ca - A hub featuring links to selected resources about Marxism.

Marxmail - The Marxism list is a worldwide moderated forum for activists and scholars in the Marxist tradition who favor a non-sectarian and non-dogmatic approach. It puts a premium on independent thought and rigorous but civil debate

Marxsite - Trotskyist-leaning site with a relatively broad range of resources.

New Internationalist Online - Articles from the New Internationalist.

News and Letters - Articles from a Marxist-Humanist perspective.

Protest.net - An international calendar of protests, events, meetings and conferences.

rabble.ca - Activist Web site.

Red Menace - A libertarian socialist newsletter.

Red Pepper - Independent magazine of the green and radical left.

Shunpiking - Web site of Nova Scotia's "discovery magazine".

Society for Socialist Studies - Purpose is to facilitate and encourage research and analysis in Canada with emphasis on socialist, feminist, ecological, and anti-racist points of view.

Socialist Party of Canada - Founded in 1905, the party's objective is the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of society as a whole.

The Straight Goods - A daily Internet news and feature publication featuring investigative reports, columns, and a variety of features.

Selected articles and publications

"In the socialist movement as it developed before Marx, nowhere did the line of the Socialist Idea intersect the line of Democracy-from-Below.
This intersection, this synthesis, was the great contribution of Marx: in comparison, the whole content of his Capital is secondary. This is the heart of Marxism: 'This is the Law; all the rest is commentary.' The Communist Manifesto of 1848 marked the self-consciousness of the first movement (in Engels' words) 'whose notion was from the very beginning that the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself.'"
- Hal Draper, The Two Souls of Socialism

"'In order to change yourselves and to render yourselves fit for political dominion': this is Marx's program for the working-class movement, as against both those who say the workers can take power any Sunday, and those who say never. Thus Marxism came into being, in self-conscious struggle against the advocates of the Educational Dictatorship, the Savior-Dictators, the revolutionary elitists, the communist authoritarians, as well as the philanthropic dogooders and bourgeois liberals. This was Marx's Marxism, not the caricatured monstrosity which is painted up with that label by both the Establishment's professoriat, who shudder at Marx's uncompromising spirit of revolutionary opposition to the capitalist status quo, and also by the Stalinists and neo-Stalinists, who must conceal the fact that Marx cut his eyeteeth by making war on their type.
'It was Marx who finally fettered the two ideas of Socialism and Democracy together' because he developed a theory which made the synthesis possible for the first time. The heart of the theory is this proposition: that there is a social majority which has the interest and motivation to change the system, and that the aim of socialism can be the education and mobilization of this mass-majority. This is the exploited class, the working class, from which comes the eventual motive-force of revolution. Hence a socialism-from-below is possible, on the basis of a theory which sees the revolutionary potentialities in the broad masses, even if they seem backward at a given time and place. Capital, after all, is nothing but the demonstration of the economic basis of this proposition.
It is only some such theory of working-class socialism which makes possible the fusion of revolutionary socialism and revolutionary democracy."
- Hal Draper, The Two Souls of Socialism