In a series of talks from the Marxist Student Federation National Conference 2016 – “The Road to Revolution” – three young speakers look at what demands Marxists should be raising in the Corbyn movement and beyond, in relation to the economy, defence, and international issues.
On Tuesday 9th February, the Oxford Marxist society hosted Ben Morken of the IMT in South Africa and Simukai Chigudu of the Rhodes Must Fall Oxford campaign to discuss the topic of “The Fight Against Racism and Exploitation from South Africa to Oxford”. Meg Harrington of the Oxford Marxists reports.
Since 2010 local councils have seen their funding cut by around 30% and the Tories plan to cut it by a further 56% over the next five years. Sam Ashton discusses the crisis facing local government and the need for Labour councillors to lead the fightback against austerity.
The latest in a series of annual reports from Oxfam, detailing the level of economic inequality in our world, is a striking example of Marx’s prediction that capitalism concentrates wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Oxfam’s statistics demonstrate that the capitalist system is not sustainable.
As in Britain, millions of Americans have been battered by the economic crisis, suffering from low-paid jobs and falling living standards. As a result, Bernie Sanders’ campaign, with his call for a “politcal revolution against the billionaire class” is gaining a massive echo amongst workers and youth across the United States and beyond.
Since Corbyn’s landslide victory to become the leader of the Labour Party, a furious battle has opened up within the party. Tens of thousands have signed up to Momentum in order to defend Corbyn and argue for his policies. The task now is for Momentum to become a vehicle to transform Labour and fight for socialism.
Over 100 young revolutionaries gathered at SOAS in London on 13th February for the largest ever national conference of the Marxist Student Federation. Everyone left the conference brimming with energy and enthusiasm for building the forces of Marxism in the student movement and beyond.
With the endless coverage of Labour in-fighting in the media one could be forgiven for assuming that the rest of British politics was a sea of tranquillity. But over the last few months the burgeoning split in the Tory Party over the question of the EU has burst to the surface.
The landslide victory of Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary produced shock waves. After narrowly losing in Iowa, Sanders beat Clinton by a margin of more than 20 percentage points in Tuesday’s election. This result has produced bewilderment among the commentators. It was something that was not supposed to happen.
10th February saw the second day of industrial action by junior doctors in their fight against Tory attacks on their terms and conditions. Everyone out on the picket lines was adamant and clear: this is a struggle to save the NHS from cuts and privatisation. With the Tories refusing to budge, the fight to defend the NHS continues.
In the second part of his introduction to the Marxist – that is, materialist – view of history, Alan Woods discusses the early stages of humanity and society, and discusses how class society and private property emerged on the basis of the development of the productive forces.