Marxist. Trade Unionist. Socialist-feminist. Author. Poet. Speaker. Tutor. RMT ex-Exec. Workers' Liberty. Autie. Bi. PUFC fan.
The year of strikes, struggles and soviets …
Also published in Solidarity newspaper. One hundred years ago, on the very first Remembrance Day, 11 November 1919, the Daily Herald, a socialist newspaper, published this article on its front page. It was one year after the Armistice, and Prime … Read more
The last issue of RMT News contained a useful pull-out on the historic 1919 railway strike. It captured some of the excitement of the action and its success in beating back pay cuts. The strikers and their supporters are heroes … Read more
Janine will be speaking alongside Siimon Webb – author of ‘1919: Britain’s year of revolution’ at Ideas For Freedom 2019. Venue: Camden School for Girls, London NW5 2DB
Also posted on the Workers’ Liberty website here. As 1919 began, working-class people in Britain and many other countries looked forward to leaving the Great War behind them and rebuilding their lives. They expected and demanded a better society than … Read more
This would be the year in which the capitalist state rigorously enforced the role of the police, purging them of rebels, ensuring their loyalty and cutting any link between them and the workers’ movement. The events of 1919 shaped the … Read more
Also published the Workers’ Liberty website here. The stories of 1919 are historic struggles. But mostly, they failed. Even when they succeeded in heading off a particular attack or winning an advance, they did not succeed in remaking society. Imagine … Read more
Also published on the Workers’ Liberty website here. 11 November 1918 had been merely an armistice. The war would not be officially over until peace terms had been negotiated. The victorious Allied countries began six months of talks in … Read more
Also published on the Workers’ Liberty website. The ‘Great War’ was finally over. When it had begun in August 1914, the British government predicted that it would be won by Christmas, but it had dragged on for four more years, … Read more
Also published on the Workers’ Liberty website here. After Britain and its Allies had won the war, proclaiming themselves champions of freedom and democracy, the people of its imperial possessions stepped up their democratic demand for some of that … Read more
While workers were angry and willing to fight, too often their anger was aimed at fellow workers of a different colour rather than at the employers and authorities responsible for their exploitation and poverty. Sometimes this occurred in the absence … Read more
Also published on the Workers’ Liberty website, here. With engineers and others taking on the employers, the time was ripe for the other bastions of industrial power – the rail workers, miners and transport workers – to join the fray. The … Read more
In this three-minute video, Janine introduces the momentous events of 1919.
A new short book (40 pages + cover), written by Janine Booth and published by Workers’ Liberty. In 1919, inspired by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, British workers took more strike action than ever before. But communists in Britain had … Read more
An historical anecdote from the Clydeside General Strike of 1919 (pictured) In George Square in Glasgow in Nineteen-nineteen Sixty thousand red rebels are striking a scene The sheriff takes stage to proclaim the King’s words Required by the Riot … Read more
Published by The Clarion, 27 November 2018: The 1918 general election was the first to be held on a single day (14 December), the first in which nearly all adult men were entitled to vote, and the first in which … Read more