On the BBC’s Weekly Politics programme on 9 December 2010 the historian David Starkey commented on the tuition fees protests in London that day that the capital had seen nothing like it since the Chartist period of the 1840s. Starkey… Continue Reading
One of the most striking features of the new government is the dominance within its ranks of individuals showing every sign of class privilege. The Sunday Times reports that 18 of the 23 full-time members of the cabinet are millionaires,… Continue Reading
The policy of the united front is among the most effective tools for working class action inherited from the era of VI Lenin and the Russian revolution. As originally formulated by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (Comintern) in… Continue Reading
The month-long period between 10 November and 9 December saw the birth of the largest and most militant student movement Britain had experienced for decades.1 A wave of walkouts, demonstrations and occupations shook university managements and the government, bringing it… Continue Reading
The past few months have seen an explosion of debate, blogging, theorising and hype around the role of the Internet in today’s social movements.1 Social media—Internet applications such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube which facilitate the creation and exchange of… Continue Reading
Of all the startling scenes which made up Act One of the Egyptian Revolution, the events in Tahrir Square on 2 February were surely most astounding. When Mubarak sent gangs of plainclothes police to attack demonstrators, the protesters fought like… Continue Reading
On 14 January 2011 Tunisians ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after a month’s revolt. Ben Ali’s removal has changed our perception of revolution. Two things explain this: the change came totally from below; and the reactionary forces have… Continue Reading
In 1952 Aneurin Bevan, leader of the parliamentary Labour left and health minister in the 1945-51 Clement Attlee government, wrote a book about the newly-created welfare state in Britain. He called it In Place of Fear.1 It was an appropriate… Continue Reading
The terrible earthquake and tsunami that hit Tohuku in northeastern Japan on 11 March took place as this issue of International Socialism was on its way to the press. The scenes in which the tsunami swept away vast swathes of… Continue Reading
In the winter of 1939-40 the German Marxist critic Walter Benjamin wrote a remarkable text known as “Theses on the Philosophy of History”. In it he attacked the widespread belief on the left that socialism would come about inevitably, as… Continue Reading