“The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.” – Karl Marx.
We include this history Against the Grain here because some of what happens on the left in Australia is influenced by British politics; more so than by any other country in the west e.g. the US.
During the 1970s and 80s I was an occasional reader of a number of influential left-wing publications such as the Socialist Register and Black Flag that are reviewed in Against the Grain. These publications helped me understand the workings of various Marxist and anarchist groups here in Australia. Groups such as the International Socialists and the Socialist Workers Party, prominent during the street marches here in Queensland, had their theoretical origins in the Socialist Workers Party and the IS in Britain. As well writers like Tony Cliff and Tariq Ali had an influence on the industrial and anti-war movements here in Australia and British polemicists like George Galloway were influential in the critique of US imperialism in Iraq and the Middle East.
So here is the introduction to this important work.