Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
A Francis Ledwidge poem translated to Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock
The indomitable Raging Grannies outwitted the usual flank of steel at Shannon Airport by simply entering the terminal as travellers, complete with abundant luggage. First they sat down to enjoy a coffee, before springing into life, pulling their usual No to war, US out of Shannon placards from their suitcases, […]
A chara, With reference to comrade Jimmy Corcoran’s comments on my article “Time for change” in last month’s Socialist Voice, there seems to be some confusion, so I’ll try to clarify. The point I was trying to make is that the battle for the hearts and minds of our people […]
A chara, The letter concerning electoral politics in last month’s issue is a welcome contribution to a perennial debate among the Irish revolutionary left. For our purposes, the debate is more concerned with what is the role of parliamentary struggles in the broader transformative struggles for socialism. I would say […]
Just before thousands of students agonise once again over the question of Lear’s madness and other issues, Socialist Voice presents a Marxist view, based on understanding Shakespeare’s times. Shakespeare lived in early capitalist society, marked by an uninhibited pursuit of power on the one hand and a new, humanist image […]
No Stone Unturned (2017) is a documentary film about the Loughinisland massacre, directed by Alex Gibney. For those unaware of what happened in Loughinisland or, like me, who were born after the events took place, the two-hour documentary is well worth watching; and for those who remember the events well […]
In late March 2018 the president of the United States, Donald Trump, authorised a $20 million fund to support subversive actions against Cuba. The move, which is part of the permanent anti-Cuba policy, came after Trump himself had proposed eliminating such funds in May 2017. The money is specifically for […]
On 11 March last just short of 4.7 million people—or almost 86 per cent of the registered electorate here—turned out to vote in the second and final stage of Cuba’s general election. It is noteworthy that, although well organised, supervised, and encouraged, voting is by no means obligatory. This remarkably […]
“Universal basic income” is being suggested by many on the left, as well as the right, as a solution to world inequality and poverty. It’s been doing the rounds for a number of years now as a way of creating a fairer and more equal society. It has been tested […]
The centralisation and concentration of both capital and power means that corporations can withstand scandals and continue to retain the support of both the state and shareholders. It takes something really massive and rare for an Arthur Andersen, Enron or Lehman Brothers to happen. Here are a few recent scandals […]
On the 8th of March in the Liquor Rooms in Dublin the CYM and CPI held their first joint celebration of International Working Women’s Day, under the heading “A Different Perspective.” The night was kicked off by a brief introduction to the history of International Working Women’s Day as well […]
A friend asked me recently what this transformative strategy is that the CPI talks about. So I tried to answer. It is a strategy for advancing the struggle for socialism to replace capitalism. It is not a programme for alleviating the worst aspects of capitalism. It is not a ten-point […]
Statement by the Communist Party of Ireland 29 March 2018 The decision by the Government to expel a Russian diplomat as part of a co-ordinated response by EU and NATO member-countries is but another example of how far the Irish establishment has aligned this state with their military strategies. The […]
“The purpose of our meeting today is precisely to ensure that literature and art fit well into the whole revolutionary machine as a component part, that they operate as powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people and for attacking and destroying the enemy, and that they help the people […]
We are awash with pharmaceutical companies in Ireland. Some of the high-end jobs are well paid, and that should be welcomed. But the global pharmaceutical industry provides one of the strongest illustrations of how the profit motive can misdirect humanity’s creativity and badly miscalculate resources, something we are all familiar […]
Women’s pay When people talk about the pay gap they often cite the generally accepted figures of 10–14 per cent difference in pay between men and women, this gap being more noticeable in the higher echelons of business. Critics admit that the pay gap is real but explain away pay […]
Four days before the British general election of October 1924 the Daily Mail published a letter purporting to have been written by the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Comintern, Grigory Zinoviev. The paper claimed that the correspondence revealed a Bolshevik plot to plunge Britain into civil war, and […]
Universal public housing available to all is the only lasting solution to the housing crisis. The latest homelessness figures should be shocking and sickening for a civilised society. However, in modern Ireland they are just the latest in a long line of failures by this Government and its neo-liberal housing […]
On 3 February a NATO submarine, part of the Dutch fleet, docked in Cork Harbour. While it was moored there, a Dutch seaman stood “guard” on the submarine, brazenly brandishing an automatic weapon. This was an exact repeat of a similar incident in 2017. The Gardaí refused to intervene, and […]
In the February edition of Socialist Voice we published a discussion article headed “Beyond the National Health Service.” The article raised questions about the character of health systems under imperialist and capitalist conditions, in particular the British NHS, and what a health system in the interests of the Irish people […]
Comrade, I would like to comment on the article “Time for Change” by Comrade Jimmy Doran in the January issue of the Socialist Voice. Comrade Doran correctly states that we are in “a battle to lay bare the class nature of society as it exists today.” However, his analysis of […]
The broadband scandal highlights once again the dire need for a strong, authentic independent political voice for rural Ireland. The treacherous policy of privatising Telecom has resulted in the fact that Eir is now owned by a French billionaire and that the Government is left with just one bidder to […]
Maxim Gorky was born 150 years ago this month. His works remain widespread on all continents and contribute to the consolidation of proletarian class-consciousness. Gorky’s socialist-realist method is his ground-breaking world literary achievement. His books, stories and plays continue to be a touchstone and benchmark for socialist writers all over […]
One of the tragedies that befell Ireland after its partial independence was that the aspirations for this newly liberated state were almost immediately replaced, as Liam O’Flaherty put it, by the “tyranny of the Irish Church and its associate parasites, the upstart bourgeoisie, the last posthumous child from the wrinkled […]
One of the lessons of the fall of the Soviet Union is that Marxists should seek to look critically at states that are attempting to build socialism, while also not being over-simplistic. Most views of China today write the country off as simply selling out and having fully embraced capitalism, […]
There is no doubt that Venezuela is the main target of the United States in Latin America, which it sees as the principal obstacle to its domination of the continent—its God-given right, as stated by numerous presidents, from Monroe to Reagan, Obama, and Trump. Of all the countries of America, […]
The January issue of Socialist Voice had an article by me entitled “The wage system and the capitalist illusion.” A worker being told they are getting their equivalent wage relating to their work is being held captive by an illusion that in reality leads to a non-equivalent exchange, which is […]
On 22 February this year the Feminist Ire blog published an open letter to the organisers of the “We Need to Talk” tour. The letter is well written, and solid in its argument, and highlights the ideological divide in modern feminism. The “We Need to Talk” tour organisers are known […]
The term “strong women” has been niggling at me for some time, but I had mixed feelings about it, as it appeared to be setting an example for women to assert themselves and be strong; and what can be wrong with that? But one must look critically at these fashionable […]
Readers of Socialist Voice may be familiar with the idea of worker self-directed enterprises, or WSDEs. The idea is promoted in the United States, particularly by the Marxian economist Richard Wolff. Those who are not acquainted with the logic behind WSDE might be well served by engaging with this topic, […]
