Over the last sixty years many radicals have had their eyes opened by the writing of Maurice Brinton. The most prolific writer of the British Solidarity group, which existed from 1961 to 1992, his work slaughtered countless sacred cows of standard leftist thinking. For Brinton, “actually existing socialism” did not, in fact, exist. He wrote with passion, clarity, and consistency on behalf worker self-activity and self-management and to decry those who reinforced passivity, apathy, cynicism, pecking orders, and alienation among workers. This oppressive behavior was, to him, as prevalent among state socialists and communist parties as it was among capitalists, because it enabled rulers, and would-be rulers, of every political stripe to deceive and manipulate those in whose name they claimed to act. Today, when a new crop of so-called democratic socialists are seeking state power, allegedly on behalf of working people, Brinton’s work is more relevant than ever.
Industry Reviews
“An eloquent testimony to Maurice Brinton’s life and works ... The work he started and the vision he held are as valid now as they were 50 years ago. The struggle, as they say, continues, and there is much here that can inform that struggle.” —Richard Alexander, Kate Sharpley Library
“For Workers' Power is a rousing collection of dozens of essays ... All [Brinton’s] essays permeate with an intensely critical eye toward how everyday working people have and can liberate themselves from the oppression, drudgery, and weight of capitalism, while avoiding what Brinton saw as pseudo- or counterrevolutionary methods of many leftists. Brinton slays many of the Left's sacred cows: he hits the left-liberal political parties for their reformism, big trade unions for their hierarchy and disconnect from rank-and-file, and the main socialist and Leninist-Marxists groups for their power-lust and vanguardism. He even gives the anarchists, with whom he has the strongest affinity, an occasional lashing for some of their adherent's rashness and fantasy ... Brinton's writings have long-inspired left and radical movements, and hopefully with this printing will reach even wider audiences.” —Dana Williams, International Labor and Working-Class History
