The ideas of Karl Marx, summed up in writings like The Communist Manifesto and Capital, have stood the test of time. How many other books from 150 years ago are still able to interpret and explain the modern world? Most of the writings of Marx’s contemporaries are of historical interest only. Marxism though, is not simply the practice of reading and applying Marx’s words as if they were a dogma. Marxism is, Read more…
Since mid-September Marxist students all over Britain have been signing people up to join Marxist societies at their universities. In 2013 student supporters of Socialist Appeal decided to establish the Marxist Student Federation – a network of university Marxist societies that had been developing for several years. The Federation, and the Marxist societies that make it up, have as their goal nothing less than international socialist revolution. Such ambitions have their basis Read more…
The Print, the student newspaper of Queen Mary, University of London, published a comment column attacking Jeremy Corbyn for his past comments in defence of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, in its issue dated Wednesday 20 September. The column is light on facts, figures, and arguments – it’s mostly just mealy-mouthed insinuations and irrelevant bluster. The few concrete allegations made are when the author describes Venezuela as spiralling “ever further into penury Read more…
Hillary Clinton, the supposed advocate for “children’s human rights around the world”, will soon be awarded an honorary doctorate by Swansea University, and shamefully have the Law School named after her. Many students are concerned by this development – what does she really represent? If one scratches the surface of her liberal rhetoric, you’ll find the same contempt in practice for children around the world, as shared by political figures from Theresa Read more…
Three Marxist Student Federation and Socialist Appeal supporters attended a rally in support of the Catalan independence referendum on Thursday 27 September along with around thirty workers and youth from Spain, Catalonia and Britain. Standing in the shadow of the Spanish embassy, a fighting mood was on show, with speakers railing against the anti-democratic actions of the Spanish state and linking the struggle to a fight against austerity. One young worker, Laura, Read more…
Precarious employees of all stripes took to the streets yesterday in protest at the exploitative practices of the so-called gig economy. The event, hosted by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), was billed as Britain’s “first ever march against precarious labour.” The demo coincided with a court appeal by Uber against an employment tribunal decision last year, which granted worker’s protection to Uber drivers and IWGB members James Farrar and Read more…
For me, I only really became aware of politics in 2008, when the news became filled with a terrible crisis, people were in tears, news anchors in shock, experts in panic. People on the news had lost everything and arbitrary numbers appeared on screen with big downward signs. Unlike other major disasters I’d seen on TV this didn’t just go away. For months this “financial crisis” seemed to continue. Slowly it began Read more…
On September 26 2014, a bus carrying students from the Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa Teacher Training School was stopped by the local police in Iguala, Guerrero. Without prior warning the police opened fire killing six students on the spot. The police, with the collaboration of notorious drug gang Guerreros Unidos then kidnapped the remaining students. This brutal incident acted as the proverbial last straw, opening up a wave of mass protests which grew and Read more…
The fight for equality and an end to oppression is too important for confused ideas and fashionable posturing. In the Democratic Republic of Congo 1,152 women are raped every day – equivalent to 48 every hour (American Journal of Public Health), and 40% of women in the east of the country have suffered sexual violence during their lifetime (American Medical Association). In Mexico seven women are murdered every day (National Citizen Femicide Read more…
Dear Adrian Smith, I am writing to express my support for the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain’s (IWGB) “Back in House” campaign. I urge you to agree to their demands that outsourced workers – including cleaners, post room workers, security officers, receptionists and porters – be made in-house, that the university implement pay rises which were promised six years ago and that it abolish zero-hours contracts at the university. The crisis of capitalism has Read more…
Earlier this year, global accountancy and consulting firm PwC published an analysis which concluded that almost 40% of US jobs could be lost to automation in the next 15 years. The figures for elsewhere in the world were equally staggering; 35% in Germany, 30% in Britain, and 21% in Japan. The loss of jobs to automation is something that has worried economists, workers, and social commentators since the time of the industrial Read more…
Marxist students in Edinburgh and Glasgow got the term off to a great start last week with stalls at the freshers fairs and interesting meetings of the Marxist societies. Around 50 new people signed up to join the Revolution society in Edinburgh, and there were ten new faces at our first meeting that evening. Grace, a masters’ student at the University of Edinburgh gave a really excellent introduction on the topic of Read more…
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