The perspectives below were discussed by Marxist societies all over Britain and at the conference of the MSF on 15th February 2014. The document was approved by delegates and constitutes a guide to the work of the Federation over the next year. Perspectives for the student movement 2014 Global crisis 1. We’re now in the fifth year of the global capitalist crisis which, since 2008 when the banks were bailed out using Read more…
Published in 1938, CLR James’ masterpiece of Marxist historiography essentially opened up the serious study, not just of the Haitian Revolution, which created the first black state outside of Africa, but of the role of slaves as a revolutionary historical force. The Black Jacobins is universally heralded as a definitive work, and there are many reasons for this. Among the most important things that it did was to bring the attention of Read more…
Partition is an analysis of Indian history written by Pakistani Marxist and member of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), Lal Khan. The title of the book refers to the partition of the Indian subcontinent into a handful of different countries. This analysis begins with a brief overview of Britain’s conquest of India but quickly moves into the final third of the period of British rule, charting India’s thirst for freedom and its Read more…
The presence of students on the streets protesting for a public, free and good quality education in Chile is something that started more than a decade ago and that has developed with varying degrees of intensity. The student movement today has grown as a social movement, and not only education workers, but also miners, port workers and several trade unions of other sectors have added their voices to the protests. It is important Read more…
Labour is the source of all wealth, the political economists assert. And it really is the source – next to nature, which supplies it with the material that it converts into wealth. But it is even infinitely more than this. It is the prime basic condition for all human existence, and this to such an extent that, in a sense, we have to say that labour created man himself. Many hundreds of Read more…
We publish here a statement by the Sussex Marxist Society on recent events at Sussex University, where five students have been suspended following their participation in an occupation and picket line activity at the strike of university staff on 3rd December. The task now in Sussex, as elsewhere, is to built a united mass movement of students and workers. The Sussex Marxist Society condemns the measures taken on 4th December against Read more…
The streets of London were filled yesterday – Wednesday 11th December – with students angry against the presence of police on university campuses and the increasingly violent use of force by the police against student protests – force used to push through the Coalition’s austerity measures against any resistance. Estimates of the numbers present on the demonstration, which began outside the University of London Union (ULU) in Bloomsbury at 2pm, vary Read more…
In May 2013 it was announced that the University of London Union (ULU) will close in August 2014. Given its nature as a focal point for student activism and protest in London and nationally, the closure of ULU is likely, in this respect, to be – at least partially – politically motivated. Students have repeatedly mobilised over the past period against the threat of ULU’s closure. The latest protests have provoked a Read more…
Jhon Guerra from the Venezuelan embassy in the UK and Jorge Martín from the Hands Off Venezuela campaign addressed a meeting in London to discuss the forthcoming municipal elections and the on-going economic war against the Bolivarian revolution. The meeting, hosted by the Marxist Student Federation, opened with a screening of “Carbon Copy”, the new ViveTV documentary on the campaign of sabotage, speculation, overpricing, hoarding, etc conducted by the oligarchy against the Read more…
In the last active period of his life, Lenin was chiefly absorbed by the problems of the Soviet economy under the New Economic Policy. In 1921, under the pressure of the millions of peasant small proprietors, the workers’ state had been forced to retreat from the path of Socialist planning and industrialisation, in order to procure grain for the starving workers in the cities. The old Civil War practice of requisitioning grain Read more…
A spending watchdog has recently reported that the level of unpaid student debt in the UK is set to exceed £200bn in the next three decades. The report – coupled with the recent privatisation by the government of nearly £1bn worth of student loans – has served as a reminder of the inability of the capitalist system to deal with a crisis of its own causing. The student debt bubble The outstanding Read more…
Tuesday 3rd December saw the second day of joint strike action by university staff in the UCU, Unison, Unite and EIS unions, who were protesting over attacks on pay. Marxist society members and Socialist Appeal supporters were present on the picket lines and rallies across the country. We publish here a selection of reports from Marxist students. Sheffield The second day of striking for UCU, Unite and Unison members at Sheffield Read more…
We've moved to over to a new website! Head here for communist news, theory, and activity, brought to you by the RCP! Feel free to exit this pop-up to read the MSF archives.
This will close in 0 seconds