The Fire Last Time

Chris Harman is the editor of International Socialism, a former editor of Socialist Worker and a member of the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party.

From a working class background, Harman attended the London School of Economics where he joined the International Socialists. He was instrumental in publishing the magazine of the LSE Socialist Society, The Agitator, and was a leading member of the IS by 1968. He was involved in the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign and outraged many leftists when, at a meeting in the Conway Hall, he denounced Ho Chi Minh for murdering the leader of the Vietnamese Trotskyist movement, Ta Thu Thau, in 1945 after crushing the workers' rising of that year in Saigon.

His main role in the IS, which from 1978 has been called the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), was as a theoretician and he has produced many books and articles on a wide variety of topics. Almost all his writing has appeared in the publications of the IS and SWP or has been published by related publishing houses. He first became editor of Socialist Worker in the late 1970s and returned to the role after a break in the 1980s until 2004.

Harman's work on 1968, The Fire Last Time was recommended by rock band Rage Against the Machine in their album sleeve notes for Evil Empire.