Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
The German Democratic Republic (GDR) was founded in October 1949, four months after the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). From its first year, the emancipation and social participation of women were core objectives of its socialist project, with equal rights anchored in its constitution. What followed was perhaps the most […]
“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” A quote attributed to V. I. Lenin might also be applied to recent events in the Six Counties. The two-week Drumcree standoff has had a large impact on the day-to-day political situation in the north. Not only […]
Fidel Castro asked the question: “You talk about the failure of socialism, but show me the success of capitalism.” The Gen Z protests spreading like wildfire across the world are the evidence that capitalism is not working for the majority of the people. The first wave of Gen Z protests, […]
This is the fourth in a five-part series on the politics of power. Earlier articles asked what makes rights real, why some prevail over others, and how that hierarchy is reproduced through the state and its institutions. This article follows that machinery beyond the border. In September 2024 the Court […]
Inflation continues its upward path this month, as the latest CSO release shows mortgage interest costs, rental costs and diesel prices rising sharply. For workers with high housing and transport costs, the pinch is now really starting to bite; militant pay bargaining, not just across the public but also the […]
Over the past few days, friends in Dublin have been messaging me to ask if I’m okay after the protests in Paris. I understand why they might have felt like they should worry about me. I’m a Communist Party member living in the suburbs of Paris, and TV channels all […]
The management of the Volkswagen Group is demanding a wage freeze at Škoda Auto, extending until 2030. This move is part of cost-cutting measures across the entire VW Group, which is currently falling into a deep crisis. According to the trade union IG Metall, the Group’s management plans to freeze […]
More than three years ago, I reviewed Bresnihan and Millner’s book All We Want Is the Earth: Land, Labour and Movements Beyond Environmentalism [socialistvoice.ie/2023/09/environmentalism-capitalism-and-vibes/] for Socialist Voice. In that review I noted that between their excellent analysis and contrasting of “the co-opted ‘First World’ environmentalist language picked up by corporations […]
On Wednesday 21 October, the Dáil voted 79 to 71 to advance the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2016 to committee stage. 15 Government TDs and 9 Opposition TDs did not vote. There were no abstentions. This would suggest that the Government had pairings with 9 Opposition TDs and had 6 rebels […]
The People’s Budget, published by the Communist Party of Ireland, starts from what working people need now, and goes on to ask what the country has to show for public money once it has been spent. (Available to buy and order from Connolly Books >>> https://www.connollybooks.net/product/the-peoples-budget ) Every October the […]
In December 2025, representatives of the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia and Israel signed the Pax Silica declaration, a strategic initiative to secure the global supply chains for advanced information and communication technologies and, in particular, artificial intelligence. Like other prongs of the wide US […]
The Dublin government’s decision to abolish the Triple Lock marks a significant departure from the 26-county state’s traditional policy of military neutrality. Here we see the “extreme centre” at work – imposing technocratic and neoliberal political outcomes over and against popular sentiment while presenting them as the only responsible course […]
Vikentiy Matveyev (1923–1997), celebrated foreign correspondent of the Soviet newspaper Izvestiya and a historian, was among the first Soviet journalists to visit Ireland. Here, we reproduce entries from his journal documenting his visits in 1955 and 1961. 3 September 1955 I was fortunate enough – yes, indeed! – to spend […]
In recent decades, we have been no strangers in Ireland to corruption and inefficiency in the delivery of infrastructure projects. Be it a bike shed or a major hospital, no project seems to have the ability to come in on time and under budget. The investigations into the construction of […]
Early on a Sunday morning in October, a group of professors gathered at the School ofMarxism at Peking University. It was for a day of labour organised by the CPC partybranches in the school. We boarded a bus and set out for a farm where we dug the soil toharvest […]
Supporters of bourgeois liberal democracy claim that the bourgeois state exists to defend the interests of all its citizens and is therefore neutral on political and economic issues. The state claims that its legitimacy is based on the will of the people as expressed in elections for its supreme legislative […]
A Marxist View on AI: A Six-Part Series Part 1: AI and the Marxist Theory of Machines Capitalists say some wild things about what AI is all about. Elon Musk has described it in terms of a project of extending the “light of consciousness” to the stars. A Marxist perspective […]
Public sector workers have demonstrated their determination to secure a fair settlement through collective industrial action. They subsequently suspended further action to facilitate negotiations, yet the Government has failed to produce a satisfactory offer. The Government’s foot-dragging must be seen in a wider context. The latest CSO national accounts show […]
The management of the Volkswagen Group is demanding a wage freeze at Škoda Auto, extending until 2030. This move is part of cost-cutting measures across the entire VW Group, which is currently falling into a deep crisis. According to the trade union IG Metall, the Group’s management plans to freeze […]
The Industrial Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland stands in full solidarity with public service workers striking over pay and declining living standards. The government allowed the previous agreement to expire without obtaining a credible successor and must now make substantive movement. Workers are right to reject any settlement […]
The Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) salutes the working people of Garvaghy Road and their many supporters. We also acknowledge the courageous stand taken by many within protestant community who stood up and supported the people of Garvaghy Road. The Orange Order does not represent nor speak for all protestants. The unity […]
The Industrial Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland stands in full solidarity with public service workers striking over pay and declining living standards. The government allowed the previous agreement to expire without obtaining a credible successor and must now make substantive movement. Workers are right to reject any settlement […]
The Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) salutes the working people of Garvaghy Road and their many supporters. We also acknowledge the courageous stand taken by many within protestant community who stood up and supported the people of Garvaghy Road. The Orange Order does not represent nor speak for all protestants. The unity […]
“Let me tell you a story, I’ll be quick as I can Terrible news from the Holy Land Pictures of children etched in my mind Buried in the rubble, on the firing line.” — Christy Moore, “Palestine” Christy Moore played a sold-out concert at the Keadeen Hotel in Droichead Nua […]
Does the concept of polycrisis capture the current conjuncture? The world is on fire. Every day we wake up to news of brutal wars, reckless environmental destruction, oligarchy brazenly flaunting its wealth and power amidst escalating economic inequality, election of politicians who are blatantly corrupt and hostile to the class […]
Sinéad O’Shea’s documentary All About the Money was screened in Dublin on 26 September as part of the IFI Documentary Festival 2026, followed by a Q&A with O’Shea. Her documentary is a story of Fergie Chambers, in particular following his activities in the period from 2023 to 2025. It premiered […]
On 22 September, the Chinese Embassy in Ireland hosted a reception marking the 77th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The Communist Party of Ireland was honoured to accept the invitation of His Excellency Mr. Zhao Xiyuan, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Ireland, […]
It is 1890. While Britain is aggressively expanding its global empire, its domestic industries are increasingly dominated by mechanised production and growing concentration of capital, and the industrial proletariat is increasingly alienated from the products of its labour. In The Commonweal, a utopia describes London in 2102: the Thames is […]
This is the third in a five-part series on the politics of power. Earlier articles asked what makes rights real and why some carry greater weight. This article examines the State and institutions through which those power relations are reproduced. One of the clearest moments when political power appears to […]
A chara, Many seem to believe that China holds the silver bullet for helping the Cuban Revolution, struggling at the moment against the intense and vicious US blockade, and threats of military invasion. This is a simplistic criticism of Beijing that essentially amounts to wanting China to do a deus […]
For most workers, whether living standards are improving comes down to something fairly tangible: what comes into the household and what has to go out again. A pay rise matters because it increases the claim a worker can make on the goods and services produced by society, but that gain […]
January 3, 2026, marked a turning point in Venezuela’s contemporary political history. The U.S. military intervention, the bombings of national territory, and the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores constituted an open violation of sovereignty and gave way to a new balance of power, in which the United States […]
Turmoil has characterised international bond markets across September. As a reminder, governments borrow money mainly by issuing bonds. Investors lend money to governments, receiving interest in return, with the original sum repaid later. Bonds are bought by typically large financial institutions: banks, pension funds, insurance companies and investment funds. They […]
The Communist Party of Ireland calls for a sovereign, socialist , reunited Ireland. The CPI, in the tradition of Connolly, has always maintained that political independence from Britain would not in itself lead to genuine sovereignty. The history of the 26 county state bears this out. It has all the […]
Have pay increases for teachers kept pace with inflation over the last number of years? No, the same as the rest of the public service and, more broadly, most workers. Pay increases under the “Building Momentum” pay deal and the first two years of the Public Service Agreement 2024–26 amounted […]
On 27 September, the Swiss people voted on a popular initiative (propositional referendum) aimed at enshrining the country’s permanent neutrality in the Federal Constitution. The initiative was rejected, receiving 29.85% of the vote nationally, against 70.15%. Although the initiative originated primarily from the nationalist right wing, around businessman and former […]
Dear readers, I watched the EU State of the Union address so you don’t have to. Similar to the wearing of sashes by MEPs in parliament sessions, the annual address by the EU president is one of those unusual rituals which no EU citizen seems to know or care is […]
