In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels sketched what has come to be known as the gravedigger thesis, widely believed to propose that the objective conditions of capitalism would inevitably produce a revolutionary working class which would overthrow… Continue Reading
Marx’s return Karl Marx’s reputation has changed significantly in the 35 years since the centenary of his death in 1983. I wrote The Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Marx to mark that anniversary against the background of the huge explosion of… Continue Reading
On 20 April 1968 Enoch Powell gave a talk in a small upstairs room to 85 Tories in Birmingham’s Midland Hotel. The words of this Conservative shadow minister and MP for nearby Wolverhampton South West were not directed towards these… Continue Reading
For many people the only association they have with the work of Robert Burns is singing Auld Lang Syne at New Year celebrations or at annual Burns Supper events. The real Burns, the radical, revolutionary Burns, is rarely even hinted… Continue Reading
From the early summer to the early winter of 2017 several industrial action campaigns were making the news, both nationally and at more regional and local levels. Rail workers employed by Mersey Rail, Northern Rail and Southern Rail were mounting… Continue Reading
How did the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), loyal to the Soviet Union deep into the second half of the 20th century, react to a social revolution in 1974-5? The moments are rare when we can study workers’ revolutions in a… Continue Reading
Marx remains the essential base of any adequate study of history, because—so far—he alone has attempted to formulate a methodological approach to history as a whole, and to envisage and explain the entire process of human social evolution. In this… Continue Reading
In the first ten years of independence in Africa, even leaders of states that were not explicitly Marxist expressed an allegiance to socialism and an admiration for the Soviet Union. This included many famous leaders of independent Africa: Gamal Abdel… Continue Reading
The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States crystallised fears among sections of the financial elite that the world economy was beginning to spin towards a new era of protectionism. During his campaign Trump used rhetoric that… Continue Reading
In August 2017 Donald Trump tweeted that transgender people1 were no longer welcome in the military because they are a “burden” due to “tremendous medical costs and disruption”.2 This was the latest in a series of attacks on transgender people… Continue Reading