Socialist Standard November 2009 pdf

Socialist Standard magazine November 2009 -
Front cover: ‘Twenty years beyond the Berlin Wall’
Editorial – ‘Socialism Was Never Tried’

Features
‘The fall of “communism”: Why so peaceful?’  
Twenty years ago the Berlin Wall came down, symbolising the collapse of state capitalism in Eastern Europe.

‘The Myth of Soviet “Socialism”’
Vladimir Sirotin from Russia explains how that country was never socialist.

‘Workers’ State? Pull the other one’
How could anyone have seriously argued that the workers ruled in Russia?

‘Joining the killing machine’
The campaign to win the young to war has come a long way from the ‘Your Country Needs You’ poster with the pointing finger of Kitchener used in the ‘First Great War’.

‘Afghanistan – lying about dying’
The pressure to misinterpret the deaths, as the bodies come back, as nobly purifying is a cynically orchestrated propaganda exercise intended to justify the war.

Regular features -
Pathfinders (science / technology) – ‘Gullibility Travels’
Material World – ‘Malawi: Children of the Tobacco Fields’
Pieces Together – news cuttings from mainstream media
Cooking the Books 1 (economics) – ‘Out of Control’
Cooking the Books 2 - ‘Free is Cheaper?’
50 Years Ago – ‘The Darwin Centenary’
Voice From the Back - selected news items
Free Lunch – cartoon
Book Reviews –
‘Che Guevara and the Economic Debate in Cuba’, by Luiz Bernardo Pericás
‘Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History’ by David Aaronovitch
‘The Trouble with Capitalism’, by Harry Shutt
‘Enough’, by John Naish

Plus letters, book reviews, meetings, etc.
Also see www.worldsocialism.org