Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
HIS QUESTION Is often posed to those who even dare suggest the possibility of a socialist future.
In today’s marketised business world we’ve been conditioned into nihilism, a belief in Man’s inherent evil, and to expect nothing more than what we get; it’s essentially Christianity without Heaven at the end. “Socialism” and “revolution” are merely idealistic dreams from the past. But the cynics do ask a fair question: When will the working class take ownership of the state and society?
NICARAGUA’S SUCCESS in containing the covid-19 virus makes the failure of the United States and its allies look pathetic. The country’s low numbers of nine confirmed cases to date and just two fatalities categorically vindicate the policies of its Sandinista government, led by President Daniel Ortega and Vice-President Rosario Murillo.
The same is true of other revolutionary and socialist governments around the world. Cuba has given a shining example of global leadership and solidarity. Most notably elsewhere, Venezuela, Viet Nam and India’s state of Kerala have also implemented diverse but successful policies containing the pandemic.
JUST AS the coronavirus is wreaking havoc in the United States, and has also begun to affect Venezuela, the Trump regime has decided to step up its aggression against Venezuela, which can only obstruct the country’s efforts to safeguard the health of its population from the threat of the pandemic.
António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, has appealed for an end to all economic sanctions on account of the pandemic.
The capitalist mode of destruction – Eoghan O’NeillDownload The great global crises (they come in threes) On Thursday 12 March many of us watched Leo Varadkar announce (in Washington) “the closure of schools, pre-schools and further and higher education settings for a period until 29 March 2020, to support efforts […]
The most important task of our class is to shatter the illusion that socialism failed. Socialism, directed by communist and workers’ parties— contrary to what we are all taught and told to believe—did in fact succeed. It worked, and continues to work, very well.
As the “Irish question” comes back to haunt British Toryism as well as British social democracy, it is worth reflecting on what attitude Irish Marxists should take on the national question.
It is worth pointing out that nationalism is only ever criticised when it comes from an oppressed people
As the brutal coup in Bolivia has yet again demonstrated, these suffocating limits on democracy are even narrower in nations under the boot of imperialism and neocolonialism.
Under the leadership of President Evo Morales and his party, MAS (Movement to Socialism), the poor and indigenous people of Bolivia have made enormous…
HARRY HOUDINI, probably the world’s most famous illusionist, when performing his acts would mesmerise his audience with feats that defied all logic or reason. He would make the impossible possible. Audiences would be left speechless at his escape routines, and he toured the world displaying his death-defying acts.
Part 2 ■ Part 1 of this article was published in February. All the wealth created by labour in the production process is appropriated by capital, only appearing in its money form in the exchange process, with a portion of the proceeds then being redistributed back to labour through the […]
To paraphrase and develop Marx, in certain conditions unions can be the schools of socialism for working people; but they are not socialist in themselves, and in fact only rarely act as such schools. Unions are a product of their conditions. When craft unions dominated, it was the period of […]
When people are discussing happiness, there are few things that come to mind as immediately as freedom and autonomy. As Starbucks said, “happiness is in your choices.” We are told that without freedom we cannot be happy, and that freedom, boiled down to the basics, simply means choice.
“The peoples of the world do not want a repetition of the scourge of war.” Psychology has a complicated relationship with the world at large, often seen as something to be a bit wary of. Like nuclear engineering it has the ring of something easily corrupted and dangerous about […]
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, […]