“We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”—Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, responding to a critic who pointed out (correctly) that the US regime organised a coup in Bolivia to secure lithium for the Musks of this world. “The US military has its knee on the throat […]
Previous Articles
Growing threat to world peace
Governments in capitalist societies have given priority to protecting “the economy” before protecting the people’s health and well-being, while the covid pandemic has accelerated an existing deep global economic recession. Such countries as Cuba, Viet Nam and China, on the other hand, which have a fundamentally socialist-based economy, have given […]
The importance of internationalism
International solidarity has a tendency to be treated as an optional extra by revolutionary movements, the type of thing you do if you have the time. Nothing could be further from the truth. Showing solidarity with others in struggle is a central component of communist ideology. It should be recognised […]
Letter – The health of the nation
In response to the letter by Jim Quinn to SV regarding my recent article “The health of the nation,” it seems Jim Quinn has also failed to join up the dots of the statistics and research in the article. The key point to the article is that the socio-economic failure […]
Socialism and feminism From Ireland to Cuba and beyond
Grúpa na mBan Réablóideacha—the Women’s Committee of the Communist Party of Ireland and the Connolly Youth Movement—recently hosted an event to highlight the significant role of women during and following the Cuban Revolution, which continues to be an inspiration to so many of us. As we continue our fight against […]
Writing at a time of plague
The Black Death was the most devastating pandemic ever recorded, resulting in the death of between 75 and 125 million people. It reached its peak in Europe between 1347 and 1351, having come on Italian merchant ships from Asia via the Silk Road. In fact the idea of quarantine originates […]
Sacrificing workers to get their economy open
On June 25th last, the Cabinet took the decision to proceed with Stage 3 of the “Roadmap for Reopening Society and Business”. It is abundantly clear that public health concerns have not been the priority in taking this decision. The rhetoric of “getting the economy up and running again” has grown […]
National liberation: The United States and Ireland
Mainstream culture and politics is invested in the idea that the age of nationalism has ended. Liberals proclaim that the world economy has been thoroughly globalised, and therefore nations are no longer of importance. Yet, as usual, reality serves to upset the declarations and pronouncements of liberal commentators. The question […]
New “Programme for Government”: a new three-party government with the same old policies
Statement by the National Executive Committee, CPI 11 June 2020 The formation of the three-party coalition government in Dublin, and their agreement on a “programme for government,” is a case of more of the same—a continuation of the same old polices that favour the rich and powerful, policies that are […]
LETTER – All-Ireland health service
Dear Comrades, May I request a little of your column space to comment on an article in the Socialist dated the 2nd of June 2020 relating to an all-Ireland Health Service. While agreeing that underfunding and privatisation is damaging health services in both parts of our country I have some […]
Letter from the president of Cuba to the secretary-general of the United Nations
Havana, June 26, 2020 Year 62 of the Revolution His Excellency Mr. Antonio Gutérres United Nations Secretary-General New York Your Excellency: Seventy-five years after the member states of this organization signed the United Nations Charter, strict adherence to its purposes and principles, to international law and the preservation of multilateralism […]
The Wasp Network
The film Wasp Network has recently arrived on Netflix. It tells the story of the heroes known as the Cuban Five who successfully infiltrated anti-communist terrorist groups in Miami. The Wasp Network (La Red Avispa) was a creation of Cuban intelligence to thwart the efforts of such groups as Alpha […]
An Irishwoman’s novel of revolutionaries
■ Ethel Voynich, The Gadfly(1897) Liam Mellows read this novel while awaiting his execution, along with the other condemned men imprisoned by the Irish Free State during the Civil War (1922–23) for opposing the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which gave Ireland dominion status within the British Empire, rather than establishing an independent […]
Measuring the production of use values
A central goal of socialism is to transition into an economy without commodity production for profit. A socialist economy would co-operatively create goods and services for their use values rather than their exchange values, with production planned by the producers themselves. The question that we want to ask readers to […]
Economic update: July
We are in the first moments of an economic crisis more serious than anything experienced in living memory. The World Bank’s “baseline forecast” envisages a “5.2 percent contraction in global GDP in 2020—the deepest global recession in eight decades.”[1] Even that assumes we are living through the most optimistic scenario. […]
Who said this?
“By sowing chaos [abroad], they’ve got chaos at home. Everything they’ve been embedding into the world’s consciousness—they’re reaping it now.”—Maria Zakharova, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, on current events in the United States. “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”—African proverb […]