No War! Stop the Invasion of Ukraine!

Peace for Ukraine, Freedom for Russia

Speech given to the Pōneke branch of the International Socialist Organisation, 8 March 2022. On the 24th of February, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced what he called a “special military operation” in Ukraine. Russian troops, who had been massing on Ukraine’s borders since December last year, crossed over and invaded Ukraine, first into areas of […]

No war: Solidarity with the Ukrainian people – Russian troops out!

For internationalist solidarity between Ukrainian and Russian workers For Ukrainian and Russian workers’ resistance to Putin’s attack on Ukraine For Russians overthrowing the Putin regime For Ukrainian self-determination No to NATO, no to interference by the US and its allies As Putin invaded Ukraine, Russians bravely responded with illegal anti-war demonstrations in 53 cities. This […]

Can Prime Minister Boris Johnson Survive After By-Election Defeat?

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson may “go” very soon. His leadership of the Conservative Party is in the balance after their defeat in the North Shropshire by-election. If he is given the heave-ho it will be the result of a groundswell of revulsion in the general public at the lies, hypocrisy and sleaze that surrounds […]

What Karl Marx learned from the Paris Commune

Well before the Paris Commune, in the German Ideology and “Theses on Feuerbach”, both written in the mid-1840s, Karl Marx and his collaborator Frederick Engels argued that it was only through struggle that the mass of workers and oppressed could come to see their own power, throw off the ideas of capitalism and become capable of founding […]

Celebrating the Paris Commune of 1871

“The workers of Paris, amidst the failures and treasons of the ruling classes, have understood that the hour has struck for them to save the situation by taking into their own hands the direction of public affairs … They have understood that it is their imperious duty, and their absolute right, to render themselves masters […]

Review: New light shed on Anti-Fascist Resistance

A review of: Anti-Nazi Germans, in two parts: Enemies of the Nazi State from within the Working Class Movement by Merilyn Moos and German Volunteers in the French Resistance by Steve Cushion, (Community Languages in association with the Socialist History Society, London, 2020) Martin Monath: A Jewish Resistance Fighter Among Nazi Soldiers, by Nathaniel Flakin, […]

Rebel Lives: Eleanor Marx

There have been plenty of women socialists whose records of activity are too little known but from whom we can draw inspiration and guidance for the struggles of today. One such whose record deserves celebrating is Eleanor Marx (1855-1898). This article will, hopefully, help revive knowledge of her contribution to the socialist movement for a […]

Italian workers strike to force action on the coronavirus pandemic

Italian workers have gone on strike to shut down the country as the death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic surpasses 7,500 – mostly in Lombardy, the main industrial region in the north-west of the country. Despite the government’s well-publicised lockdown, it has been business as usual for many sectors of the economy. Last week, the […]

Chernobyl

Chernobyl, written by Craig Mazin, dir. Johan Renck. A co-production of HBO and Sky UK. This outstanding TV miniseries covers the accident that occurred in the early hours of 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, then part of the USSR. From the confusion in the control room straight after the […]

Britain’s Brexit Crisis

Don’t be fooled by Boris Johnson’s jovial act. Britain’s new prime minister is a nasty hard-right Tory whose elevation has been welcomed by Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. The change over from Theresa May’s to Johnson’s government is radical. In British politics, a Cabinet reshuffle in 1962 has gone down in history as the “the […]