Revolutionary History
academic journal
Revolutionary History was a British journal covering the history of the far left. It was established by the historians Sam Bornstein and Al Richardson and maintained an editorial board representing many strands of British Trotskyism. In a 2004 edition of the Weekly Worker, the publication was described as "the premier Marxist historical journal in the world."
Journal scope
Alongside the history of Trotskyism Revolutionary History articles also covered other anti-Stalinist communist traditions. Most issues were themed and consisted of documents that had either never appeared in English or had been out of print for many years, together with contextual and introductory materials. Some issues consisted of original studies of episodes of revolutionary struggle or studies of specific individuals or organisations. Revolutionary History has been described as the English equivalent of the French journal Cahiers Léon Trotsky. The journal gained a reputation for its inclusive approach to the history of Trotskyism, having a wide representation of Trotskyist groups on its board, which, at one point, even included a representative of the Socialist Workers Party. Initially focusing on the obscure or unpublished Trotskyist sources from the Balkans, Scandinavia, and Southern and Eastern Asia, it later broadened its scope, covering such topics as the history of the communist movement in France.
Revolutionary History used the motto ‘Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it’, paraphrasing the philosopher George Santayana in The Life of Reason. The motto was chosen to reflect the publication’s aim to highlight and explore the contribution of small non-conformist groups in revolutionary history.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7318794. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Revolutionary History” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.