Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
Amidst all the health problems and upheaval that is taking place resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic the Communist Party of Ireland points out that it is easy to overlook the specific distress that thousands of women are suffering in their own homes. Lockdown, being experienced by our people across the […]
Edwina Stewart, communist and civil rights activist, died on Friday 29 May 2020, in the presence of her daughters. She had been ill for a while. Edwina was born in East Belfast, and her family came from the radical Protestant tradition that she was proud of. Both her parents were […]
It is belief in the working people that will tear down this sham democracy It is belief in the working people that must be our philosophy It is belief in the working people that martyred James Connolly who believed that without a socialist state 1916 was for nothing who believed […]
Nothing worries an established ruling class so much as a series of unpredictable events over which they have no control. This is especially so when these events pose questions about the stability of the status quo. There can be little doubt that developments over the last six months have given […]
The economist John Smith of the University of Sheffield caused a lot of debate with his recent article “Why coronavirus could spark a capitalist supernova,” in which he offered a powerful rejection of mainstream and Keynesian analysis of the bond market. For years now, “core” capitalist economies have been suffering […]
Public health in the global north is being hollowed out, having been underfunded and privatised bit by bit for many years. Twenty years ago in Italy there were almost 6 doctors to every 1,000 people; today there are 4.1. Similar statistics can be found all over Europe as the neoliberal […]
The interview that Unite conducted with former Keeling’s workers was the first time many media punters and commentators got any form of insight into how agricultural and meat processing actually make a profit in Ireland. The story that propelled this discussion was that of Keeling’s flying in 189 Bulgarian workers […]
“Bourgeois ideology is far older in origin than socialist ideology, it is more fully developed, and has at its disposal immeasurably more means of dissemination.”—V. I. Lenin (born 150 years ago), What Is to Be Done? The covid-19 pandemic will result in a “savage recession” around the world “that will […]
Over the last two decades legislation has been introduced that provides workers with some collective voice or mechanisms for pursuing collective goals. None of these have been collective bargaining or legislation providing for union recognition. Ireland stands out among most countries in still not having union recognition and collective bargaining […]
Anybody who thinks they’re an expert on North Korea is either a liar or a fool. Every so often the media go into a frenzy in reporting the latest news story about the country, playing up its eccentricities. Time and again North Korean officials who were supposedly executed will turn […]
The covid-19 crisis and consequent quarantine continue to expose and heighten the contradictions inherent in capitalism. Nowhere are these more acute than in the case of child care in the 26-County state. To analyse the situation and explain the failings of this system we must first set out clearly how […]
In a recent interview on Youtube the Nicaraguan ambassador to the United States, Francisco Campbell, had this to say: “Sanctions are designed to destroy, to destabilise, to demoralise, and to deny peoples in smaller countries especially the right to self-determination. You have people who want to give you all kinds […]
Charles Dickens was born in 1812 into the impoverished petty bourgeoisie. His father was imprisoned for debt, and financial circumstances forced the young Charles to leave school at the age of twelve and to work a ten-hour day in a blacking (shoe polish) factory. The adult Dickens’s first jobs were […]
I have been a musician for more than twenty years, playing in various original bands, cover bands, and wedding bands. As the whole industry for working musicians becomes ever more uncertain because of covid-19, I have often found myself pondering the question of the value of being a musician. Many […]
In Venezuela the month of May began with a bang. A group of mercenaries—North American, Colombian, and Venezuelan, armed and trained in Colombia with the participation of drug-dealing paramilitaries, the Drugs Enforcement Administration of the United States, and the benign surveillance of the Colombian government—mounted an invasion of Venezuela. The […]
■Tomás Mac Síomóin, The Gael Becomes Irish: An Unfinished Odyssey (Nuascéalta, 2020) It is difficult to imagine a deeper enslavement of a subject people than to deprive them of their language. Such a condition has a deep psychological effect, which causes the abnormal to seem normal. There is a pretence […]