Not ‘crazy’ as in wacky, but ‘mad’ as in ‘fuck this’
A Marxist analysis of the mental ill health epidemic has to lay the blame squarely at the door of class society, and the alienation, injustice and misery it causes.
A critical engagement with the young Bensaïd
This piece was first presented by Jonas Liston at the recent Historical Materialism Conference in London. On first reading Daniel Bensaïd’s memoirs, An Impatient Life, two things stood out to me: a heterodox politics with an absolute confidence in the key tenets of revolutionary Marxism, combined with a willingness to engage with new and old ideas and modes […]
Scotland – project fear and the ruling class panic
In the third part of his analysis of Scottish politics after the referendum, Scottish historian and activist Neil Davidson looks at the No campaign. Occasionally, writers have to resort to what might be called historically-informed speculation about the collective attitude of political actors. For the British ruling class in the referendum crisis, however, no speculation is necessary since its […]
A deal to save the planet – or to wreck it?
Jonathan Neale is the international coordinator of the Campaign against Climate Change and the editor of the One Million Climate Jobs report. He has written this article on the Campaign website analysing what the deal means for all of us. Obama of the United States and Xi of China have signed a bilateral climate agreement. Much of the […]
Scotland – the Yes campaign as a social movement
In the second part of his analysis of Scottish politics after the referendum, Scottish historian and activist Neil Davidson examines the Yes campaign.
Scotland – the reality behind the referendum
Part one of a major five-part analysis of Scottish politics after the referendum, by Scottish historian and activist Neil Davidson.
Book review: paramilitarism and neoliberalism in Colombia
Neoliberalism and extreme violence go hand in hand in Colombia – Olivia Arigho Stiles reviews an important contribution to debates about Latin America. Jasmin Hristov Paramilitarism and Neoliberalism: Violent Systems of Capital Accumulation in Colombia and Beyond Pluto Press, 2014 £45 In recent years Latin America has formed the locus of debates over neoliberalism, while also […]
How can we change the world if we can’t change ourselves?
In a piece presented at the recent Historical Materialism Conference in London, Panagiotis Sotiris addresses the challenges facing the anti-capitalist left in Europe. The anticapitalist Left in Europe is in crisis. From the crisis of the International Socialist Tendency, to the political implosion of the New Anticapitalist Party in France, and from the fragmentation of the […]
Historical Materialism 2014: Getting somewhere better?
The winners of the 2013 Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Prize, Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, gave their award lecture on 7 November, as part of the Historical Materialism conference. They had been awarded the prize for their book The Making of Global Capitalism and the title of their lecture was ‘Marxist theory and strategy: getting […]
Village by village, town by town – how Zionists tried to destroy Palestine in 1948
In the sixth and final part of his series on Zionism, imperialism and the Palestinians, Neil Rogall describes the Nakba – the establishment of the Israeli state and catastrophe for Palestine. 1948 was a year of horror. The majority of the Palestinian people were violently evicted from their homes and their communities. Families were broken […]
Burkina Faso: African workers fighting neoliberalism
Drew Povey, a British socialist working in sub-Saharan Africa, currently in Nigeria, looks at the background to the recent ousting of Burkina Faso’s dictator Blaise Compaoré. This article was originally published on Pambazuka News. In the early 1980s, President Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso was a beacon of hope against the increased inequality and […]
Towards a Marxist theory of gender?
Heather Brown‘s book Marx on Gender and the Family was released to great acclaim. Estelle Cooch interviewed her about Engels, intersectionality and feminism today. This interview was originally published in the Autumn 2014 issue of the rs21 magazine. There has been a shift from looking at Engels’ Origins to looking at Marx’s writings in Capital – […]
Review: Casualisation at work
Ian Allinson reviews the recent Labour Research Department guide for trade union reps. The rs21 magazine and web site have carried a number of articles exploring the efforts of casual workers to organise, including sparks, fast food workers, cinema workers, fractional workers in higher education and private sector care staff. There has also been debate […]
Understanding Podemos: 15-M and counter-politics
The rise of the radical Podemos movement in Spain has been both inspiring and meteoric. In the first of three articles, Luke Stobart examines how a party created only in January has become the main political opposition. Here we publish the start of his article – you can read the conclusion on the Australian socialist website Left […]
Exhibition review: Gothic is very much undead
Gothic is 250 years old – and very much undead, writes Colin Wilson. They have a vampire-killing kit in the British Library. You might think that this was sensible in a building with five levels of basements – who knows what might scuttle out from behind a remote shelf deep underground, late one winter afternoon. […]
A bigger fight is taking place below the radar: the movement to end detention
This article is reposted from the Right to Remain blog. On Saturday 8th November at 1pm Movement for Justice has called the fifth demonstration at Harmondsworth and Colnbrook immigration detention centres. Details here. [vimeo http://vimeo.com/110608994] When we write about immigration detention, we tend to comment on the inhumanity and the injustice. We write that detention […]
East Germany, 1989: when power was in the street
Within a few weeks in the autumn of 1989 a regime fell which had seemed invulnerable. While Reagan and Thatcher seek to take credit for these events, the truth is that millions of East German people took their destiny into their own hands.
Book Review: Can Marxist ideas help save the planet?
Ewa Barker reviews a new book that deals with both the technical and political sides of the fight against global warming. Safe Planet – Renewable Energy plus Workers’ Power John Cowsill Earth Books 2014 £11.99 Those of us involved in the struggle for climate action are very aware how time is running out for the […]
Thousands take part in London masked march
Colin Revolting reports Up to 5000 people, mostly in Anonymous/Guy Fawkes masks, gathered in Trafalgar Square last night following a call to protest against austerity, surveillance and a range of other issues. On the base of Nelsons column protesters chanted “One solution: Revolution”, “Whose streets? Our streets!” and “who killed Mark Duggan? Police killed Mark […]
Paradox in Palestine: Ali Abunimah speaks in London
Ali Abunimah, executive director of the Electronic Intifada website spoke at a meeting organised by the Middle East Monitor in London on the 4th November.
Crisis in Argentina: China and Russia in the USA’s backyard
As vulture capitalists continue to deepen Argentina’s economic crisis, China and Russia are showing increasing interest in strengthening their economic, military and cultural influence over the country. Argentinian socialist David Justo asks what this new situation means for anti-imperialist politics in Latin America. In the so-called “multipolar world”, with the USA losing its hegemonic dominance, […]
Condemning the slaughter of the ‘Great War’
2014 marks the 100th centenary of the beginning of the First World War. Britain’s rulers want us to commemorate it as a ‘just war’. Matthew Cookson argues that cultural representations of the war, often from soldiers’ perspectives, are an explicit condemnation of our rulers’ justifications for the slaughter. Before he was so cruelly defenestrated as the […]
Rooftop protest at Cambridgeshire Sodastream offices
A protest just outside Cambridge highlighted that Sodastream is profiting from generous tax breaks and grants from the Israeli government.
The elephant is political
“Anti-politics” has become a phrase widely used to describe the state of politics today. Here, Colin Barker examines what ‘politics’ meant for Marx and what it means for revolutionaries today.
The Babadook – a film about life’s real horrors
Where does fear come from? Jen Izaakson, PhD student and revolutionary socialist, examines this question through a psychoanalytic review of new horror film, The Babadook. Jen tweets at @izaakson. If we accept the psychoanalytic stance of a ‘continual return of the repressed’, ghosts and demons offer a way to battle unconscious psychic constellations of horror […]
Picturehouse proposes redundancies at The Ritzy just six weeks after dispute ends
Six weeks after voting to accept a pay offer from Picturehouse Cinemas, workers at the Ritzy are being faced with over 20 potential redundancies. Arjun Mahadevan reports. Update, 2 November: Ritzy management have since withdrawn the threatened redundancies. On Thursday 23 October staff at The Ritzy cinema in Brixton, South London were called into a meeting […]
How to learn from Lenin
Barnaby Raine examines the relevance of one of Lenin’s key works ‘The State and Revolution’. Originally published in the Autumn 2014 issue of the rs21 magazine. Just months before stunning the world with its first socialist revolution on a national scale, a rebel leader returned from exile in Switzerland to the upheavals of Russia in […]
Tens of thousands join parade of the labour movement
Amy Gilligan reflects on Saturday’s TUC demonstration. The large TUC demonstration on Saturday saw tens of thousands of trade unionists march through central London. Branch banners from across the country were visible in many of the union blocks, and groups from outside of the capital made up a substantial proportion of those marching. The demonstration was […]
Fighting back against victimisation
Pat Mollins is a private sector care worker who ended up victimised by management for union organising in his workplace. Here is his story of how they fought back – and won. This piece originally appeared in the Autumn 2014 issue of the rs21 magazine. There were many reasons why we began to orgasnise in our […]
Morris dancing, black face paint and racism: why it’s time to stop and think
Folk traditions should not be treated as fossils that are too brittle to evolve, argues Emma Rock. David Cameron found controversy and divided opinion this week by posing in a photograph with a Border Morris side wearing traditional black face paint in Banbury, near his Oxfordshire constituency. Many in the folk world will have greeted this latest gaffe […]