GMB delegates met this week in Plymouth for its annual conference. A motion in favour of a general strike – moved by Socialist Appeal supporter Ben Kirkham – was passed unaimously.
On Tuesday 4th June, around 1000 people rallied in Trafalgur Square, London, in solidarity with the movement in Turkey. The majority were from London’s huge Turkish community, with hundreds of Turkish youth present. They gave the protest an explicitly Communist and revolutionary message, with hundreds of red flags and revolutionary chanting.
The latest In Defence of Marxism magazine is out now. This summer 2013 edition contains articles on “Marxism and the Theory of Long Waves” by Alan Woods and “The Curve of Capitalist Development” by Leon Trotsky. Subscribe today to get the four editions of the magazine sent to you over the next year.
What started as a small scale protest against the destruction of Gezi Park that stands next to Taksim Square in Istanbul has now developed into a nationwide movement demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Erdogan, of the AK Party. Jorge Martin looks at the mass movement in Turkey and the tasks facing workers and youth.
Two major UK charities, Church Action on Poverty and Oxfam, recently published a report entitled ‘Walking the Breadline: the scandal of food poverty in 21st century Britain’. The report says that the last five years of violent cuts by the UK government have led to “destitution, hardship and hunger on a large scale”.
“A strain of collective madness has descended over the Conservative party in recent days…” states an editorial in the Financial Times. The split within the Tory Party has turned into a chasm and is a stark reflection of the deepening crisis of British capitalism. The wind always blows the tops of the trees first, stated Trotsky. In the past, the British establishment boasted of having the most successful conservative party in Europe. Not any more. Rob Sewell looks at the increasing political tensions within the Tories.
Over 50 people turned up in Grimsby town centre on Saturday 25th May, as yet more protests across the country are seen against the bedroom tax. In places like Grimsby where there are high levels of unemployment and poverty, the bedroom tax will hit the local area hard. The cost to the local economy, as a result of just this one cruel change in the benefits system, will run into the millions.
To celebrate this year’s centenary of Ted Grant, founder of the Militant Tendency and Socialist Appeal, we are re-publishing a series of Ted’s key writings. We begin with Ted’s pamphlet “The Rise and Fall of the Communist International”, which analyses the founding of the Third International and its decline under Stalin.
We are very pleased to invite our readers to a special one day conference on revolutionary Latin America and Spain. Join us for a series of talks and open discussions – organised by the International Marxist Tendency, the Bolivia Solidarity Campaign and Hands Off Venezuela – on the great social movements of youth and workers occurring across the Spanish Speaking world.
Delegates to the annual conference of PCS (Public and Commercial Services Union), the union of the civil servants, met this year in Brighton from the 21st to 23rd of May. At the conference delegates reaffirmed support for the Union’s campaign in opposition to job cuts and attacks on pay, pensions and other terms and conditions of employment. The conference agreed to call for a one-day strike of members by the end of June, probably on the same day as the teaching unions propose to take action.
Public opinion in Britain and throughout the world was horrified by the murder of a soldier on the streets of Woolwich in South London. The gruesome images of a young man with bloodied hands, brandishing a kitchen knife and haranguing passers-by shook the entire nation to its foundations. Alan Woods analyses these recent shocking events and the possible ramifications for the labour movement.
Riots – similar to those in Britain in the summer of 2011 – have broken out recently in Stockholm, Sweden. A country that is normally regarded as a model of “responsible capitalism” has been rocked by this outburst of anger from a generation of youth that have been let down by this economic system. We publish here an article by Stefan Kangas of the Swedish Marxists “Avanti”, who outlines the underlying social tensions in Sweden and the causes behind the Stockholm riots.