From Monthly Review, David Kotz on the state of Official Marxism in China today. A comeback for the "Great Man" theory? It has emerged that Karl Marx suffered from a chronic and excruciating skin disease with known psychological effects that might have had an impact on his political theories. A review of Lenin's Private War: The Voyage of the Philosophy Steamer and the Exile of the Intelligentsia by Lesley Chamberlain. Ten decades that shook the world: Ninety years after the October revolution, the revisionists may crow over the failure of communism — but it's too soon to tell. “War of Position”: An essay on anti-capitalist attrition as a revolutionary strategy for non-revolutionary times. From Counterpunch, here's another look at W.E.B. DuBois: "The Four Freedoms came from united social effort for the common good".  A review of Wobblies on the Waterfront: Interracial Unionism in Progressive-Era Philadelphia by Peter Cole.