Covid – a thing of the past, or just biding its time?

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More on covid pandemic 2020-2?

Covid – a thing of the past, or just biding its time?

Considering the pandemic dominated all and every aspect of life worldwide for the best part of two years you wouldn’t know that in Britain towards the end of May 2022. All restrictions have been abolished in all parts of the sceptred isle and the ‘new normal’ is very much like the old normal, i.e., how it was before March 2020.

So as far as the majority of the population – as well as the politicians who have so ineffectively managed the pandemic from the very start – the pandemic is a thing of the past, or so they hope.

Whether that is the case remains to be seen. Although covid doesn’t seem to really fit in with viruses the likes of influenza – that seem to like the winter months – it is still around in the spring/summer months even though infection and related numbers are down.

Even if the summer is a time of respite (not guaranteed) what are the prospects for the future?

Have lessons been learnt from the past two years? Almost certainly not. The quick arrival of an effective (although not foolproof) vaccine pulled most governments out of the mire into which they had dug themselves. But after two years there was never even the hint of a strategy that could be followed in the event of this, or another virus, coming back to cause havoc.

Even the lesson that it was the poorest in society who would be more adversely effected by any pandemic (surprise, surprise) and which could end up being the epicentre of a future outbreak have not been given any assistance which could prevent such a circumstance arising. The fact that the links provided in these posts – from the very beginning more than two years ago – make reference to poverty in Britain, and continue to do so, only goes to show that that particular lesson has not been learnt, or even worse, just ignored.

If there was to be a further outbreak in the winter then all indications are that the poorest people in society would be even less likely to stay at home if they were to catch the virus. They were in the past two years and will be (in the future) left with a choice of being ‘responsible’ or suffering real economic hardships.

The situation in the rest of the world is, in many respects, even more dire. Increases in food prices were causing problems even before the war in the Ukraine. That war didn’t cause the problem – that’s at the feet of capitalism – but it hasn’t made matters any better and the longer it goes on the worse its consequences will be. The number of countries that have been forced, through capitalist and imperialist policies over decades, to move away from any sort of food self-sufficiency means that hundreds of millions of people are reliant on food from other parts of the world, many of those countries also producing less – not least due to the consequences of the climate emergency.

Added to that the most powerful countries in the world (the US, the UK and the other European ‘powers’) have categorically refused to make any moves to relax patent rights so that various countries in what is now commonly known as the ‘global south’ can produce their own vaccines – and run out local programmes that are vital if the pandemic is to be brought under control. The short-sited thirst for even more profits by ‘Big Pharma’ is more important than the health of the world, even though by doing so this policy is placing those in the so-called ‘metropolitan’ countries in danger as well.

So, as they say, the world is facing a ‘perfect storm’ towards the end of this year. For their own imperialist interests the richer countries are spending billions on trying to humble Russia – whatever the consequences for their own populations (who have more constructive uses for such huge amounts of money) or the long-suffering of the ‘global south’.

But the erstwhile most powerful imperialists in the ‘west’ might have bitten off more than they can chew.

Already we are seeing signs of a realignment of forces worldwide. The hegemony of the US in particular, and the past influence of the other European countries (plus Japan and Australia), is being challenged. The vast majority of the world is starting to turn their backs (long overdue) on Europe/USA centrism. They are starting to see that their interest don’t rest with the old ‘colonial masters’. They have always betrayed their ex-colonies and seem incapable of doing any different. (Thoughts about this are explored in many of the links related to what we are not being told about the war in the Ukraine.)

On the assumption that the world is to survive this particular pandemic the outlook for the future could be very different from what it was considered to be at the end of 2019. Who would have though that such a small thing as a virus would have such an devastating effect on the supposed ‘sophisticated’ world in which we live?

But then, as has been said in these posts since March of 2020, the world – or at least those who are presently in control of it – haven’t really learnt anything more than was general knowledge at the time of the Black Death that spread through Asia and Europe almost seven hundred years ago.

Vaccination programme in Britain

My five-year-old is now eligible for a covid vaccine – should I get them immunised?

Covid vaccines: why second boosters are being offered to vulnerable people in the UK – but not young and healthy people yet.

The Valneva covid vaccine has been approved for use in the UK.

Investors lose vote to share covid vaccine know-how.

Testing for covid

Rising infections, no more free tests: how ‘living with covid’ could affect case numbers in England.

Immunity?

Herd immunity now seems impossible. Welcome to the age of Covid reinfection.

Haven’t had covid yet? It could be more than just luck.

Long term effects of the virus

Severe covid is equivalent to 20 years of ageing.

The pandemic in the world

Covid in Afghanistan: low vaccine coverage and a crumbling health system could trigger a humanitarian crisis.

Why the current surge in cases is a problem for some countries but not others.

The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is beholden to corporations and lost our trust. We need to start our own – the People’s CDC. The view form the USA.

We created the ‘Pandemicene’.

Covid-19 fourth wave: Delhi sees 40% jump in infections.

World death toll

World’s true pandemic death toll nearly 15 million.

Why India’s real covid death toll may never be known.

Covid variants

Omicron XE is spreading in the UK – a virologist explains what we know about this hybrid variant.

Poverty in Britain

Public not as concerned and sympathetic towards homelessness as 12 months ago.

Rishi Sunak accused of not doing enough for poorest households.

600,000 will be pulled into poverty as a result of Chancellor’s inaction – of which around a quarter are children.

Poverty in Northern Ireland 2022, is a study recently published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Full report.

Pushed to the Edge: Poverty, Food Banks and Mental Health, the full report.

‘You have to take it back to the bricks’: Reforming emergency support to reduce demand for food banks. Child Poverty Action Group report and executive summary.

The truth about the impact of UC cuts, Centrepoint report.

Nearly half of Scots have struggled with housing costs.

Cost of living crisis: Value of UK unemployment benefits see biggest fall in 50 years.

Food banks provide almost 200,000 parcels to people across Scotland in past year.

Growing gap in healthy life expectancy between poorest and richest in England.

Main out-of-work benefit sees its biggest drop in value in fifty years.

More than 2 million adults in UK cannot afford to eat every day.

Watchdog urged to step in as UK’s poorest turn off energy supply.

Universal credit deductions of up to 25% pushing people into poverty.

Further 250,000 UK households face destitution in 2023.

Poverty worldwide

A food crisis was brewing even before the Ukraine war – but taking these three steps could help the most vulnerable.

800 million, not 8.2 million; Africa’s covid toll 97 times higher than reported.

Collateral damage – worldwide

Covid closures still affecting 400 million pupils.

Measles: global increase in cases likely driven by covid pandemic.

Returning to ‘normal’

Disabled people are being left out of covid recovery.

Discharging hospital patients to care homes ‘unlawful’.

More on covid pandemic 2020-2?

Karl Marx – pamphlets, books and commentaries

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Karl Marx - circa 1850
Karl Marx – circa 1850

The Great ‘Marxist-Leninist’ Theoreticians

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Collected Works

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels – Writings, compilations and analyses

Frederick Engels – pamphlets, books and commentaries

Karl Marx – pamphlets, books and commentaries

Virtually everything that has been published by Karl Marx is included in the 50 volume Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels.

However, his contribution to the world revolutionary movement has meant that many of his most significant works have been produced as individual pamphlets/books. The intention is to post as many of those as possible on this page.

Those works that he produced in collaboration with his close comrade-in-arms, Frederick Engels are also available here.

Selected Works

Selected Works in One Volume, Progress, Moscow, 7th printing, 1986, 788 pages.

Selected Works in Three Volumes, Progress, Moscow,

Volume 1, 3rd printing, 1976, 596 pages.
Volume 2, 4th printing, 1977, 502 pages.
Volume 3, 3rd printing, 1976, 577 pages.

Selected Writings in sociology and social philosophy, edited by TB Bottomore and Maximilien Rubel, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1964, 268 pages.

Selected Writings, 2nd edition, edited by David McLellan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000, 687 pages.

Collected Works of Karl Marx, illustrated, Delphi Classics, Hastings, 2016, 3561 pages.

Capital

Capital, Volume 1, a critical analysis of Capitalist Production, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1974, 767 pages.

Capital, Volume 2, the process of circulation of capital, original English language edition, 319 pages.

Capital, Volume 3, the process of capitalist production as a whole, original English language edition, 645 pages.

Theories of Surplus Value, (Volume IV of Capital), Part 1, Karl Marx, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969, 506 pages.

Theories of Surplus Value, (Volume IV of Capital), Part 2, Karl Marx, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968, 661 pages.

Theories of Surplus Value, (Volume IV of Capital), Part 3, Karl Marx, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1971, 637 pages.

Grundrisse, foundations of the critique of political economy (rough draft), written in 1857-1861, English translation by Martin Nicolaus, 862 pages.

Individual pamphlets and books

Value, Price and Profit, Allen and Unwin, London, 1935, 94 pages.

A Handbook of Marxism, with selections from the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, International Publishers, New York, 1935, 1082 pages,

Wage, Labour and Capital, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1942, 48 pages.

Wages, Price and Profit, FLP, Peking, 1965, 83 pages.

Pre-Capitalist Economic Formations, mostly being a section of the Grundrisse, circa 1857-1858 (as translated by Jack Cohen) and also of few letters by Marx, International Publishers, New York, 1965, 158 pages.

The Civil War in France, FLP, Peking, 1966, 287 pages.

The Communist Manifesto, with Frederick Engels, introduction by AJP Taylor, Pelican, London, 1967, 124 pages.

The Civil War in France, Progress, Moscow, 1968, 91 pages.

The class struggles in France 1848 to 1850, Progress, Moscow, 1968, 143 pages.

Genesis of Capital, Progress, Moscow, 1969, 70 pages.

Manifesto of the Communist Party, with Frederick Engels, FLP, Peking 1970, digital version by From Marx to Mao, 47 pages.

Karl Marx – Notebook on the Paris Commune, Press excerpts and notes, edited by Hal Draper, Independent Socialist Clippingbooks No. 8, Independent Socialist Press, Berkeley, 1971, 108 pages.

The Unknown Karl Marx, edited by Robert Payne, New York University Press, New York, 1971, 339 pages.

The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972, 132 pages.

Critique of the Gotha Programme, FLP, Peking, 1972, 91 pages.

The Poverty of Philosophy, Progress, Moscow, 1973, 205 pages.

Preface and Introduction to ‘A contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’, FLP, Peking, 1976, 63 pages.

A contribution of the Critique of Political Economy, Progress, Moscow, 1977, 262 pages.

Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, 1844, Progress, Moscow, 1977, 226 pages.

Wage, Labour and Capital, lecture by Marx, 1847, as edited by Engels in 1891, 25 pages.

Value, Price and Profit, lecture by Marx, 1865, 32 pages.

Marx-Engels Correspondence, from the Marxist Internet Archive, 608 pages.

Wage-Labour and Capital and Value, Price, and Profit, International Publishers, New York, 2006, 110 pages.

The first writings of Karl Marx, edited by Paul M. Schafer, Ig Publishing, New York, 2006, 223 pages.

Dispatches for the New York Tribune – Selected Journalism of Karl Marx, selected by James Ledbetter, Penguin, London, 2007, 322 pages.

Manifesto of the Communist Party, with Friedrich Engels, International Publishers, New York, 2007, 48 pages.

The Communist Manifesto, with Frederick Engels, introduction by Yanis Varoufakis, Vintage, London, 2018, 63 pages.

Wage Labour, and Capital and Value, Price and Profit, Foreign Languages Press, Paris 2020, 128 pages.

Compilations with other great Marxists

Ten Classics of Marxism, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, International Publishers, New York, 1940, 785 pages.

Marx, Engels and Lenin on the Irish Revolution, Ralph Fox, The Cork Workers Club, Cork, 1974, 36 pages.

Marx, Engels and Lenin – On the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1975, 41 pages.

On Scientific Communism, Marx, Engels and Lenin, Progress, Moscow, 1976, 537 pages.

On Dialectical Materialism, Marx, Engels and Lenin, Progress, Moscow, 1977, 422 pages.

The Woman Question, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, International Publishers, New York, 1977, 96 pages.

Marxism and the Liberation of Women, Quotations from Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, VI Lenin, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung, Union of Women for Liberation, London, n.d., mid-1970s?, 64 pages. Includes a statement of aims of the Union of Women for Liberation.

The Civil War in France: The Paris Commune, Karl Marx and VI Lenin, International Publishers, New York, 1988, 182 pages.

Biographies

Karl Marx, the story of his life, Franz Mehring, Covici Friede, New York, 1935, 608 pages.

Karl Marx, his life and work, reminiscences by Paul Lafargue and Wilhelm Liebknecht, International Publishers, New York, 1943, 64 pages.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, D Riazanov, International Publishers, New York, n.d., 1940s, 224 pages.

Karl Marx, a biography, Heinrich Gemkow, Verlag Zeit im Bild, Dresden, 1968, 427 pages.

Marx comes to India, earliest Indian biographies of Karl Marx by Lala Hardayal and Swadeshabhimani Ramakrishna Pillai, with critical Introduction, edited by PC Joshi and K Damodoran, Manohar Book Service, Delhi, 1975, 133 pages.

Karl Marx, Beacon for Our Times, Gus Hall, International Publishers, New York, 1983, 94 pages.

Karl Marx and our time, articles and speeches by various revisionist leaders and commentators of the post-1956 Soviet Union, Progress, Moscow, 1983, 203 pages.

Marx in London, an illustrated guide, Asa Briggs and John Callow, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 2008, 110 pages.

Analyses and Commentaries

Marx and the Trade Unions, A Lozovsky, International Publishers, New York, 1942, 188 pages.

Marx on Money, Suzanne de Brunhoff, Urizen Books, New York, 1973, 139 pages.

Karl Marx – Interviews and Recollections, edited by David McLellan, Macmillan, London, 1981, 186 pages.

Marx’s Theory of Commodity Surplus Value, Formalised exposition, KK Valtukh, Progress, Moscow, 1987, 360 pages.

How To Read Karl Marx, Ernst Fischer, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1996, 192 pages.

Rereading Capital, Ben Fine and Laurence Harris, Columbia University Press, New York, 1979, 184 pages.

Marx for Beginners, Rius, Pantheon Books, New York, 1976, 156 pages.

Karl Marx and World Literature, SS Prawer, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1978, 446 pages.

The Great ‘Marxist-Leninist’ Theoreticians

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Collected Works

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels – Writings, compilations and analyses

Frederick Engels – pamphlets, books and commentaries

The struggle against saboteurs, traitors and trotskyites

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We will eradicate the spies and saboteurs - agents of fascism

We will eradicate the spies and saboteurs – agents of fascism

More on the USSR

The struggle against saboteurs, traitors and trotskyites

From the days following the victory of the October Revolution on 7th November 1917 (new style) the young workers’ state, which was declared the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics a few years later, was under attack from the aggrieved and vicious capitalist and imperialist states who couldn’t countenance the workers and peasants of any country taking matters into their own hands.

In many ways the documents below share much in common with those posted on the Foreign Intervention page. Although there’s very much a crossover the documents presented here concentrate on how the Soviet Union sought to deal with this very, existential problem.

Even though the socialist revolution was for the majority of the population that didn’t mean to say all those who were the ‘beneficiaries’ of such a revolution would choose to go with the revolutionary workers and peasants. Some have been, are and will always be sycophants and forelock-tuggers and will follow whatever the ruling class (in whatever historical epoch) decide and will do their bidding even though it goes against their class.

Within pre-revolution Russian society there were many hundreds of thousands (if not millions) who would have seen the old Tsarist, feudal society as more to their liking than the new society based upon equality and justice. These included the old aristocracy (of an infinite number of levels on Romanov society), the kulaks (the richer peasants) as well as merchants and the petty bourgeoisie involved in an innumerable number of self employed activities.

In this issue the petty bourgeoisie play a particularly significant part. They will sit on their bitterness and hated and will bide their time to take vengeance upon any who they consider have robbed them of their potential. They are especially dangerous to a socialist society because, as Lenin said, they everyday, in every way, engender capitalism. The socialist state, therefore, by curtailing their activity produces for itself even more enemies.

And then we have the Communist Party itself. It is an unfortunate (and almost integral) aspect of the development of parties of the left (especially those who claim a revolutionary strategy) that there will be splits at some time. The First and Second Internationals are littered with such examples. However, it was the Russian Revolutionaries who were the first to actually attain (and retain) state power and put their theory into practice.

Therefore, there were, within the Party, those who had joined long before the opportunity for the taking of state power was on the cards. In such a situation many of them would have had different attitudes towards what the strategy should have been in the building of this new society. It cannot be stressed enough this was entirely new territory and if there had not been serious disagreements then that would have been a surprise. The problem in a socialist state surrounded by hostile forces is that such dissatisfaction could be – and was – used by the enemies of socialism and hence the eventually arrest and trial of some of those who had been ‘revolutionaries’ for decades. But past achievements don’t guarantee they will continue to follow the same revolutionary road.

When we consider this period of Soviet history we should remember the worlds of Chairman Mao Tse-tung from 1927, ‘a revolution is not a dinner party’.

Wreckers on trial, a record of the trial of the Industrial Party held in Moscow, November/December 1930, edited with a foreword by Andrew Rothstein, Workers’ library, New York, 1931, 214 pages.

The Moscow Trial – April 1933, the trial of British engineers involved in sabotage in the Soviet Union, Anglo-Russian Parliamentary Committee, London, 1933, 165 pages.

Trotskyism – Counter-Revolution in disguise, MJ Olgin, Moscow, 1935, reprint Proletarian Publishers, San Francisco, 1976?, 160 pages.

Report of court proceedings in the case of the Trotskyite-Zinovievite Terrorist Centre, heard before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Moscow, August 19-24, 1936, People’s Commissariat of Justice of the USSR, Moscow, 1936, Red Star reprint 1976, 180 pages.

Trotskyism in the service of fascism against Socialism and Peace, from the court proceedings in the case of the Trotsky-Zinoviev Terrorist Center, Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky, Workers Library Publishers, New York, 1936, 67 pages.

Report of the court proceedings in the case of Anti-Soviet Trotskyite Centre, heard before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Moscow, January 23-30 1937, People’s Commissariat of Justice of the USSR, Moscow, 1937, Red Star reprint 1983, 580 pages.

The recent Russian ‘Trotskyite Centre’ trial, William Renwick Riddle, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Volume 28, No 3, September-October 1937, pp335-339, 5 pages.

Report of Court Proceedings in the case of the ‘Anti-Soviet Bloc of Rights and Trotskyites’, heard before the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, Moscow, March 2-13 1938, People’s Commissariat of Justice of the USSR, Moscow, 1938, Red Star reprint 1983, 800 pages.

Mission to Moscow, Joseph E Davies, United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1936-1938, a record of confidential dispatches to the State Department, official and personal correspondence, current diary and journal entries, including notes and comment up to October 1941, Victor Gollanz, London, 1945, 472 pages.

Against Trotskyism, The Struggle of Lenin and the CPSU against Trotskyism, a collection of documents, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1972, 271 pages.

The Murder of Sergei Kirov, History, Scholarship and the Anti-Stalin Paradigm, Grover Furr, Erythros Press and Media, Kettering, corrected edition November 2013, 435 pages. [too big for blog]

Trotsky’s Amalgams, (Trotsky’s Lies, The Moscow Trials As Evidence, The Dewey Commission), Trotsky’s Conspiracies of the 1930s, Volume One, Grover Furr, Erythros Press and Media, Kettering, corrected edition March 2016, 536 pages.

Yezhov vs. Stalin, the truth about mass repressions and the so-called ‘Great Terror’ in the USSR, Grover Furr, Erythros Press and Media, Kettering, corrected edition April 2017, 250 pages.

Leon Trotsky’s collaboration with Germany and Japan, Trotsky’s Conspiracies of the 1930s, Volume Two, Grover Furr, Erythros Press and Media, Kettering, 2017, 386 pages. [too bog for blog]

The Fraud of the Dewey Commission, Leon Trotsky’s Lies, Grover Furr, Red Star Press, New York, July 2018, 99 pages.

The Moscow Trials as evidence, Grover Furr, Red Star Press, New York, July 2018, 169 pages.

Trotsky’s Lies, Grover Furr, corrected edition, August 2019, Erythros Press and Media, Kettering, 2019, 196 pages.

Stalin, waiting for … the truth, exposing the falsehoods in Stephen Kotkins ‘Stalin, waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941’, Grover Furr, Red Star Publishers, New York, corrected edition April 2019, 393 pages.

New evidence of Trotsky’s conspiracy, Grover Furr, Erythros Press and Media, Kettering, 2020, 196 pages.

More on the USSR