It is a month since Alok Sharma as president, fighting back some tears, brought down the gavel on the 26th Conference of the Parties – the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow. The initial flurry of reactions and comments has subsided. Here in Scotland we have already seen some early signs of the impact – with the beginnings of a victory against the development of a new offshore oil field at Cambo.
Friedrich Engels and Primitive Communism
24 December 2021, byIn November 2020, socialists around the world celebrated the bicentenary of the birth of Friedrich Engels. It is a mistake, often repeated, to regard Engels as a mere popularizer of Marx’s ideas. Not only did he contribute, with Marx in 1844-48, to the formation of a new worldview — the philosophy of praxis or historical materialism — but he developed an analysis and argument on subjects that Marx did not want or could not study.
Nigeria: #EndSARS, Workers’ Power, and War
24 December 2021, byIn October 2020, millions in Nigeria marched for two weeks in a revolt that shook the world. From Badagry to Yola, youth and workers rose in unity against the barbarism of police brutality and bad governance. Raising radical slogans and social media hashtags, and mobilizing spontaneous rallies, the rebellion was the most democratic movement in the history of Nigeria.
China: a new imperialism emerges
18 November 2021, byThe formation of a new imperialism is a rare event. It requires multiple preconditions related to the international situation and the specific characteristics of the country concerned. From this dual viewpoint, the Chinese emergence has posed us unusual questions.
A weakened but still toxic imperialism
18 November 2021, by ,“In the face of this, anti-capitalists and all democrats in France must develop solidarity in action with those who are oppressed and exploited, in particular by our own imperialism. More than a moral duty, it is an objective necessity because our interests are common with these peoples and not with ‘our’ capitalists.”
The Jakarta stage of Imperialism: Indonesia 1965, Singularity and Magnitude of a Model Catastrophe
18 November 2021, by“While the imperialist defeat in Vietnam was certainly very real, the Anglo-American victory on a regional scale, less known and recognized, was just as real. The consequences would be profound and lasting.”
Understanding the Paris Commune On its 150th Anniversary
18 November 2021, byThe Paris Commune of 1871 only lasted from March 18 to May 28, just 72 days, yet it is one of the most celebrated events in socialist history. It is a legend. Yet, what was it? What is it for us today? A model for socialists? A heroic failure? Negation of the state? Or the first workers’ government? Karl Marx wrote the most famous contemporary account, yet he failed to take up some of the Commune’s serious problems. Why?
Marx’s Commune: An Appreciation and a Critique
18 November 2021, byThis article is part of a longer essay on the Commune the first part of which appears here.
After the Commune
18 November 2021, by“In the one hundred fifty years since the Paris Commune, the spectacular horror and grief of its death have competed with and sometimes overshadowed the dreams that animated its life. The Commune, declared in the teeth of both the invading Prussian army and the newborn republican government in Versailles, was given to multifarious interpretations, by participants and observers alike.”
Starmer tightens grip over Labour
6 November 2021, by“It remains above all to be hoped that the British left in all its existing forms will succeed in regaining lasting organizational cohesion when the subjects of struggle become as literally vital as they are now: health, mental health, climate, poverty (for the elderly, children, at work...).”
