Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century
 
Revolutionary
Socialism in the
21st Century

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Revolutionary strategy

The BLM Summer and the US elections

Amidst an ongoing anti-racist uprising of unprecedented size and militancy, the US presidential election is approaching.

Tate protesters opposing redundancies

Class struggle against Covid

We are facing a second wave of Covid-19 due to the reckless drive for profit of the capitalist class. Mass action from below is the key to stopping the virus – and remaking society in the interests of the majority.

Wildfires in California in 2015

Global fever

The Covid-19 pandemic is a foretaste of the approaching climate catastrophe. Andreas Malm’s electrifying new book looks at both these crises and asks what we’ll need to do to face them down.

Police Trafalgar square

Resist the crackdown on demonstrations

The lockdown has ended but the crackdown on protests goes on and on. We need to share skills and solidarity to resist police repression.

From Stonewall to Black Lives Matter

Thinking about rebellion: Keegan O’Brien reflects on the threads that connect the Stonewall Riots to the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement.

Protesters hold two banners reading 'Disband the Met, Shut detention centres, Black lives matter' and 'No justice, no peace, abolish the police'

How to defund the police – strategies for abolition

Jiaqi Kang reports on East London rs21’s meeting on police abolition.

Barbed wire above a metal fence

Resist Tory immigration plans

Zareen Taj and Mitch Mitchell look at the effects of the Tories’ proposed new immigration system following Brexit.

‘I was born a baby not a boy’: sex, gender and trans liberation

Shanice McBean argues for a Marxism with trans liberation at its heart through a materialist analysis of gender and sex.

Defund the police. Disarm the state.

The demand to defund the police should extend beyond reallocating existing government spending. We also need to address the racist ways that the state polices all aspects of working-class life.

Not one more of us will be sacrificed

rs21 members argue that deaths and job losses are not inevitable and that as we can’t rely on government or employers, we will have to rely on each other to fight for our lives and our livelihoods.

The Black Lives Matter movement in 2020: results and prospects

Jaswinder Blackwell-Pal considers the situation of the BLM movement in Britain and argues for centring the politics of abolition and anti-imperialist solidarity.

Protesters at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in London, standing around Nelson's Column with banners.

Anti-racism, solidarity and the language of our movement

Arjun Mahadevan shares his perspective on political education coming from a place of solidarity.

Ten Days That Shook the World

In the ten days since George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, an anti-racist uprising has spread across the United States. Across the world, people are taking action in solidarity and mobilising against state racism.

What’s left of Lenin?

150 years after the birth of V.I. Lenin, Leninism offers us urgent and fundamental lessons about what it means to practise politics in capitalist society.

Women, Work and ‘Directly Confronting Capitalist Power’

Sue Ferguson discusses socialist-feminism, capitalist childhoods and social struggles today. While conducted weeks previously, this interview goes online amidst a pandemic, exposing and aggravating a crisis of social reproduction.

Time to leave Labour

The social crises thrown up by the coronavirus pandemic make internal battles in the Labour Party increasingly irrelevant.

Other people are not the problem

Whilst the government continues to condemn millions by asset stripping the healthcare service and backing landlords and bosses, we must remember that we are all united by their contempt for us.

Acting on COVID-19

With cases of the pandemic rising rapidly, we cannot rely on government or business to put health before profits. rs21 members have produced a set of actions and demands to campaign around and a summary of the safety legislation can allow workers to take action or leave work.

Solidarity needs rebuilding, urgently

The university strikes provide an opportunity to relearn traditions of collective solidarity which strengthen both the strikers and those giving solidarity.

Review: Twenty-First Century Socialism

How should socialists organise in the ‘climate decade’? Gus Woody reviews Jeremy Gilbert’s book, Twenty-First Century Socialism.

Brexit day: what now for the left?

Today the UK leaves the European Union. The question of EU membership has divided and often paralysed the British left. Ian Allinson asks if we can reunite on more productive ground for the struggles ahead.

A field, with a caravan camp in the distance on the left side, in front of hills

Whose land? Resisting the Tories’ anti-traveller policy plans

Hanna Gál writes on why the Tories’ plan to increase police powers against illegal encampments must be resisted.

Redcar blast furnace

The Brexit election – from revenge to resistance

Both sides of the establishment want to bury the legacies of struggle in the communities that abandoned Labour in the 2019 General Election. The left cannot afford to do the same.

Anti-Boris demo in Uxbridge

How we fight back

A devastating electoral defeat for Labour brings with it an inevitable battle for interpretation. It also sharply illustrates the need for our side to build power beyond parliament.

A London tower block featuring large graffiti proclaiming Fuck Boris

Winning the Revenge Election

After decades of betrayal, we need to make class arguments not only for redistribution but also for retribution.

Postal workers in orange work jackets stand in a parking lot, with flyers of the Communication Workers' Union in their hands.

What the CWU ruling means for the movement

Rachel Eborall explains the implications of the recent Royal Mail injunction.

revolutionary reflections | Class struggles in the 1989 revolution

For the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we publish a translation of Volkhard Mosler’s analysis of the class composition of the East German regime and the opposition movement to it.

Climate, insurgency and Marxism at Endgames? Capitalism and the climate emergency

How is climate crisis re-shaping Marxism and insurgent movements across the world?

Building movements and solidarity at Endgames? Capitalism and the climate emergency

On 26 October, rs21 hosted a day of discussions in London about capitalism and the climate emergency. This session heard from various activists in climate justice groups.

Reaching for the emergency brake at Endgames? Capitalism and the climate emergency

On 26 October, rs21 hosted a day of discussions in London about capitalism and the climate emergency. In this roundtable discussion, participants examined currently existing left programmes for decarbonisation.