Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century
 
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The revolutionary theatre of Bertolt Brecht

Australian socialist Tess Lee Ack celebrates the life and work of the revolutionary playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht.

Review | The Lenin Scenario

A review of Tariq Ali’s screenplay.

Writing the future

Colin Wilson celebrates fantasy novel Babel, part of a growing trend for speculative fiction to include radical politics in work written by women, often women of colour.

The Neil Davidson Lecture 2023: Uneven and combined development in Neil Davidson’s work

Raquel Valera on Neil Davidson’s contribution to the theory of uneven and combined development and revolution.

Review | Shows at the Whitworth Gallery Manchester

Colonialism, art, the museum logistics chain. Gareth Dale reviews this month’s shows at the Whitworth.

book cover and artwork

Interview | Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History

Matthew Cookson interviews the authors of a new graphic novel on the Haitian Revolution.

Review | White Riot

Novel celebrating anti-racist and anti-fascist struggles

Cricket in crisis: racism, sexism and elitism in the sport

Sport can be a site of struggle, a chance for us to organise collectively in the face of racism, sexism and elitism.

Review | Union

Grace Linden reviews a recent production of Max Wilkinson’s play Union, directed by Wiebke Green, at the Arcola Theatre in Hackney. Is it useful to construct narratives from individual moral responsibility when discussing gentrification? We all need a home; we’re all (too) willing to take on the options offered by a system that exploits our […]

This is a war against the studios – interviews with picketers in Hollywood

Interviews with striking actors and writers in Hollywood.

Leftist direct action thrillers: a new genre?

I’m a Virgo, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Black 47 and Codename Jenny

Image shows Edward Norton as his character in Glass Onion, despairing, hands up in the air and screaming, with fire in the background.

Glass Onion – foolishly transparent

Maurice Ramboz reviews Glass Onion, asking what the film’s titular metaphor tells us about capitalist ideology.

Reflections on International Workers’ Memorial Day

To mark IWMD, the rs21 Art Group made a zine with Cut-Through Collective, which we distributed in Glasgow and London across the May Day weekend.

image of old televisions spreading through two rooms

People Make Television: cultural production, socialism and the state

Tom Schofield on the People Make Television exhibition at Raven Row, London.

Review | Shake the City – Experiments in Space and Time, Music and Crisis

Kate Bradley reviews Shake the City by Alexander Billet, a well-written and thought-provoking book on the role of music in making political change.

Imagery showing characters from Andor

Revolution in a galaxy far, far away

Andy Cunningham is inspired by the latest story from the Star Wars franchise.

collage of images detailed in piece: Granny Made Me an Anarchist, Squid Game, Ballad of a White Cow and Francis Bacon.

2022 cultural highlights

rs21 members round up some of the cultural highlights from 2022.

Towards a truly radical Scottish independence movement

Jim Ritchie reviews Scotland After Britain, a new book on the Scottish independence movement.

The Overstory – eco-fiction and capitalism

In the first article of their new Substack Capture the Flag, Caliban’s Revenge considers eco-fiction award winner The Overstory. Whilst it is an impassioned plea for environmental consciousness, they find a novel trapped by individualistic and problematic understandings of capitalist society.  This summer has been, I’m sure you’ve noticed, terrifying. The earth is broiling and the […]

Screenshot is in black and white, showing a man in the foregound wearing a light-coloured coat, looking wistfully to his right, while behind him, a blonde woman stands looking up at him, unsmiling. She leans against a wall, which disappears to the left of the photo, against a backdrop of English scenery.

‘Play for Today’: groundbreaking and still relevant

Simon Donohoe reflects on the groundbreaking TV series ‘Play for Today’, re-released this year.

Couple dancing to son music in Cuba

Music of the streets, music of rebellion

The 1920s saw the emergence of new kinds of music around the world, sometimes with links to anti-colonial movements.

A collage of abusive and derisive headlines from coverage of the Depp v Heard defamation trial

This is no time to stay silent

The Depp v Heard trial has unleashed a torrent of misogyny that feminists cannot ignore.

Capitalism, debt and feminism

Kate Bradley reviews A Feminist Reading of Debt, finding an insightful account of the relationship between debt, gender, and capitalism, as well as examples of how to fight back against debt.

Lenin reading a book

Revolutionary Reads – What books got us through 2021?

We asked rs21 members what they’ve been reading in 2021, whether new works of revolutionary theory, fiction, or old classics. These were some of the examples our members had. James B – Psychoanalysis and Revolution (2021) Pyschoanalysis and Revolution argues for the relevancy of psychoanalysis as a tool for those of us involved in liberatory […]

A picture of seaglass washed up on the beach.

Patient Humans and other poems

Leila Platt writes on experiences of mental health treatment, Covid and power in ‘Patient Humans’ and other poems.

A shadowy figure in a suit holds a gun while sitting on a chair

The ruling class is the original OCG

What keeps us watching Line of Duty?

The Good Lord Bird: John Brown’s militant abolitionism

Bill Crane looks at the life of militant US abolitionist John Brown and his portrayal in a recent TV adaptation of James McBride’s novel The Good Lord Bird.

Rubens: View of Het Steen in the early morning. Keywords: art Marxism Marx what is art

Cultural Marxism? A review of The Dialectics of Art

Ian Birchall reviews The Dialectics of Art, a new work by John Molyneux.

Image shows the text 'We will not be victims: no going back' on a background of a Jackson Pollock painting

Agitating with Art: the Artivists at Work story so far

Artwork – not just ‘great art’ but cartoons and doodles – can add life and vibrancy to political messaging, and give people a mirror in which to recognise their own hopes and frustrations.

Michaela Cole promo shot for I May Destroy You

Cultural commodities that got us through 2020

From Netflix binges to a new theory of ‘alternative hedonism’, here are the shows, films, music, and books that kept us going in 2020.