Marxists Internet Archive

The Marxists Internet Archive (MIA) is a volunteer-based, non-profit online public library for Marxist texts. Established in its current form in 1998, it has over 100 active volunteers from several different countries as of 2022. It contains the writings of close to a 1000 different authors in 83 different languages, amounting to over 180,000 documents and 288 GB of data. In 2022, MIA averaged 3.3 million visitors per month, transferring an average of 12.4 million files for the same period, representing a 79% increase in visitors since 2013.

History

Origins

In 1990, in light of circulating misinformation, a user named Zodiac started the task of creating an online Marxist archive. In 1993 the archive would expand using the resources of Colorado University and utilize the World Wide Web. The archive would expand using university mirrors but in 1995 a censorship struggle would see the archive being shut out from these universities. In response on October 26 1996 the group created marx.org using a commercial ISP changing the name to Marx/Engels Internet Archive (MEIA). In 1997 the MEIA started going through internal problems and Sally Ryan was given the position of communications director but Zodiac's views on how the archive would progress clashed with other volunteers and in 1998 it was announced that all authors besides from Marx and Engels would be removed from the archive.

Founding of the MIA

A large group of volunteers dissented to the decision made by Zodiac and one of these members David Walters, a Trotskyist, proposed uniting with another online project the Encyclopedia of Trotskyism. At first, the name of the archive was suggested to be the Marx/Engels, Lenin, Trotsky Internet Archive (MELT) but this would be decided against. The Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org) was created in July 1998, lead by Jørn Andersen, Brian Baggins, Chris Croome; Alphonsos Pangas, and David Walters and it would not take long for their Trotskyist agenda to be at the centre of the archive. Meanwhile marx.org would delete Marx and Engels as well in March 1999 leaving an empty page and in 2002 Zodiac would relinquish control of the neglected domain name allowing the MIA to grab it.

Criticism

Trotskyist bias and censorship

The Marxists Internet Archive's potential use an educational resource is hampered by the Trotskyist bias of the site's owners. The most obvious example of this bias is the absence of Stalin and Mao on the main pages of each of the language sections and on the list of selected significant Marxist authors. By the site's own admission, the owners think that the USSR under Stalin's leadership and Mao's China do not represent Marxism. Their glossary of terms claims that "Stalinism" had uprooted Marxism and Leninism.

The uploaders of texts also sometimes censor them by omitting content. Two chapters were removed from Mastering Bolshevism and the endnotes in the texts of Lenin have been "deleted, corrected, or toned down".

The site also hosts a subsite dedicated to Trotskyism, Encyclopedia of Trotskyism Online (ETOL).