Theory and analysis

Exploited nurses fight back with ballot for strike action

Underpaid, over-stretched nurses may down tools in response to the insulting offer of a 1% pay increase: a below-inflation award that amounts of a real-terms pay cut. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is canvassing its 270,000 members across the Britain on whether to take strike action. This would come as another blow to the Tories from radical health workers, only six months after a national junior doctors’ strike was called following Read more…

By Marxist Student, ago

Exploitation, imperialism and child slavery: the bitter realities of Easter sweets

As much as I look forward to tucking into inadvisable quantities of chocolate eggs and bunnies this Easter, there is nothing more stomach-churning than the exploitative and imperialist practices of the confectionary industry. Crack the yummy surface and you’ll find a gooey core of brutality underlying the history of the sugar and cocoa trade. None of this is to suggest we should do away with the sweeter things in life. In a Read more…

By Marxist Student, ago

Corbyn’s free dinners a step forward ‒ but only socialism will save state schools

Last week Jeremy Corbyn unveiled Labour’s new pledge to provide free school meals for all primary school students in the UK, to be funded by additional VAT on private education fees, amounting to £1bn. Referencing several recent studies by the National Centre for Social Research and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Corbyn argued that the programme would improve student productivity and further the universalism of benefits (to which he is ‘strongly wedded’). Read more…

By Marxist Student, ago

Academics at Manchester Metropolitan University gear up for strike action

The UCU will ballot its members at Manchester Metropolitan University for industrial action over compulsory redundancies, resulting from the closure of one of its campuses. The union says it has been forced to ballot members for strike action after university bosses consistently frustrated efforts to resolve the dispute that centres on the future of over 160 academic staff based at the south Cheshire site. UCU says that the final straw came last Read more…

By Marxist Student, ago

Why Marxists fight for nationalisation

It is incumbent upon every revolutionary to fight against the privatisation of publicly-owned services, and to agitate for further nationalisation. Thomas Soud of the Warwick Marxists explains why. The ongoing dispute between the RMT and Southern Railways ‒ coupled with Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal to place British rail services, water and utility companies back under public ownership ‒ has reignited public enthusiasm for re-nationalisation of these services. Since the end of the social-democratic Read more…

By Marxist Student, ago

Latin America: From Revolution to Counter-Revolution?

In this video from the LSEsu Marxist Society, Jorge Martin – editor of the Marxist magazine America Socialista and secretary of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign – discusses the political developments in Latin America over the last two decades. Jorge explains the factors that lay behind the Bolivarian Revolution and other mass social movements in Latin America, examines why the Venezuelan revolution has now stalled, and explores whether there has been a Read more…

By Marxist Student, ago

Fighting for the NHS in Leeds

  Comrades from the Leeds University Marxist Society attended last Saturday’s demo defending our NHS from the vicious attacks by the Tories. The NHS crisis is only another symptom of the crisis of the capitalist system. Austerity and privatisations are not ideological decisions, but organic necessities stemming from the impasse we’ve reached under capitalism. This explains why parties from the right and left have been bailing out the banks and carrying out Read more…

By Marxist Student, ago

Young workers will lose out of the Tory apprenticeship scheme

British capitalism has been mired in industrial decline for decades and is now in the grip of what is called stagnant productivity. We have a low skill, low wage economy. On Thursday 6 April, the Tory government is putting into practice a plan to train three million new apprentices which is apparently intended to tackle these problems. In fact, the plan will tackle nothing. It’s a token effort riddled with contradictions, which Read more…

By Marxist Student, ago

Fortnightly Socialist Appeal hits campuses

The Socialist Appeal newspaper is now a fortnightly publication – a big step forward from the previous monthly setup. Marxist students, labour movement activists and comrades all over the country have been selling the paper on campuses and beyond. Have a look at the photos below. If you haven’t already, make sure you pick up a copy!  

By Marxist Student, ago

The History of the Russian Revolution to Brest-Litovsk: study guide

This year, the centenary year of the Russian Revolution, it’s the responsibility of all serious Marxists to study the history and lessons of the revolution. To help with this, Wellred Books has recently published a new edition of Trotsky’s 100 page pamphlet The History of the Russian Revolution to Brest-Litovsk, with a new preface by Alan Woods. The importance of this text is that it succinctly describes the precise way in which the Bolsheviks Read more…

By Marxist Student, ago

Glasgow students reject the “alt-right”

  The Glasgow University Rector elections attracted media attention this year, with the nomination of “alt-right” personality Milo Yiannopoulos. The racist, sexist, transphobic and all-things-reactionary Trump supporter drew criticism as he casually insulted students, staff and called for the Muslim society to be banned. In spite of endorsing this ban and his campaign ripping down other candidates’ posters, Yiannopoulos claimed that his candidacy was all about “freedom of speech”. According to the Read more…

By Marxist Student, ago

The crisis in Kent and Canterbury hospital

As the crisis facing the NHS deepens, even apparently affluent and seemingly middle class areas such as Canterbury are now confronted with the dangerous reality of our public health service’s degradation. Kent and Canterbury hospital has been instructed by Health Education England to transfer 42 of 76 junior doctors to ​the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford and the QEQM in Margate. The move has been justified by the lack of consultants to Read more…

By Marxist Student, ago

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