TUC general secretary PAUL NOWAK speaks to the Morning Star’s Berny Torre about the increasing frustration the trade union movement feels at a government that promised change, but has been too slow to bring it about
Blood and Ruins: how imperial jealousy fuelled WWII
An authoritative new work by Richard Overy argues that the war was fuelled by upstart Axis powers' desire for their own empires and the Allies wanting to defend their established colonial regimes. Correct, says JOHN ELLISON — but there are some other mistakes
Japanese troops invade China, 1931, leaving behind a puppet state
DIANE ABBOTT exposes the misconceptions, rumours and downright lies perpetrated around immigration issues
With 12,000 fewer teachers since 2010 and dwindling resources, Scotland’s schools desperately need investment to support diverse learners rather than empty promises from politicians, writes ANDREA BRADLEY
Reversing outsourcing is the pre-election promise the government must honour, says Unison general secretary CHRISTINA McANEA
EMAN ABU ZAYED reminisces about the perilous time her family and neighbours endured in northern Gaza and how they were forced, in fear of their lives, to flee south
The EIS president who defended Marxist politics in the 1980s fought Thatcherite educational policies while organising Teachers for Peace rallies and ensuring Morning Star circulation in Scotland’s pit villages and factories, writes JOHN FOSTER
THE text of Richard Overy’s weighty new history of World War II runs close to 900 pages. Follow-up footnote source references add another 75 pages or so. Packed with facts and scholarly analysis, reinforcing his earlier works such as Russia’s War, its insights, clarity and objectivity are formidable.
Most of the first half is given over to the story of the war. Overy views the war, as it advances, from the standpoint of the rulers of the chief countries involved, building into the account their respective dilemmas, decisions, strategies and the reasons for these.
The rest of the book explores successively how resources were mobilised, military realities and developments, the organisation of economies, the justifications advanced for war, civilian resistance and political change sought, the psychiatric impact, war crimes and atrocities and finally, transition into a post-war world in which the Axis powers had failed in their objectives and in which the US was now the world’s most powerful country.
More from this author
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
JOHN ELLISON looks back at Labour’s opportunistic tendency, when in office, to veer to the right on policy as well as ideological worldview
JOHN ELLISON recalls the momentous role of the French resistance during WWII
JOHN ELLISON looks back to the 1974 general election in Greece which freed the people from the oppressive military junta
