Chris Pallis
Part of a series on |
Libertarian socialism |
---|
Christopher Agamemnon Pallis (2 December 1923 – 10 March 2005) was an Anglo-Greek
Life
Chris Pallis was born in
In 1940 the family managed to take the last boat out of France, and settled in England. Pallis went up to study medicine at
For the next 20 years he combined a distinguished medical career[4] under his real name with pseudonymous revolutionary socialist writing and translation. After he was outed for his use of the name Martin Grainger in such left-wing journals as the New Statesman he changed his pseudonym. Subsequently his boss, Christopher Booth, defended him from further press criticism, saying that he was a fine neurologist entitled to his own political views.[5]
Pallis's published works include several eyewitness accounts of key moments in European left politics, such as the Belgian general strike of 1960, Paris in May 1968 and Portugal's Carnation Revolution in 1974–75; a substantial body of English translations of works by Cornelius Castoriadis, the main thinker of the French group Socialisme ou Barbarie; and two short books of his own: The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control (1970) and The Irrational in Politics (1974), which is largely concerned with sexual politics.[1]
The publishers of a recent online edition of The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control[6] describe it as follows:
The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control is a remarkable pamphlet by Maurice Brinton exposing the struggle that took place over the running of workplaces in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution. In doing so not only does it demolish the romantic Leninist 'history' of the relationship between the working class and their party during these years (1917–21) but it also provides a backbone to understanding why the Russian revolution failed in the way it did. From this understanding flows alternative possibilities of revolutionary organisation and some 26 years after the original was written this is perhaps its greatest contribution today. For this reason alone this text deserves the greatest possible circulation today and we encourage you to link to it, download the text or otherwise circulate it.
References
- ^ a b c Goodaway, David; Lewis, Paul (24 March 2005). "Obituary: Christopher Pallis (Maurice Brinton): An irreverent critic of the Bolshevik revolution". The Guardian. London, England.
- ^ Calne, Donald. "Christopher Agamemnon Pallis". Royal College of Physicians. Retrieved 17 December 2023.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-60486-221-8. Retrieved 20 October 2012.
- PMC 556175.
- PMC 556175.
- ^ The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control introduction
Further reading
- Brinton, Maurice (Goodway, David ed). For Workers' Power: The Selected Writings of Maurice Brinton. ISBN 1-904859-07-0