The latest news, analysis, and Marxist theory from The Communist, alongside reports of RCP activity.
A major new study by the London School of Economics (LSE) has confirmed what many have already suspected – that Tory tax measures have resulted in a “significant” transfer of wealth from the poorest sections of society to the richest. Under the Tories, the 1% have avoided any pain caused by the recession, and it is ordinary people who have had to pay for the crisis.
Across Europe, support for the traditional parties of bourgeois democracy has collapsed. The crisis of capitalism has exposed the rottenness of the mainstream parties, as they carry out the cuts on behalf of the bosses and bankers. As a result, in Britain, there is growing force on the electoral plane that is partially reflecting the radicalisation in society: the Green Party.
The grim fate awaiting us after the next election in 2015 has been exposed by the revelation that the Treasury, under orders from the Tories, has called on senior civil servants to start drawing up a hit list of an extra £25-30 billion pounds worth of public spending cuts to be implemented over the period April 2016 to March 2018. Only socialist policies can stop these cuts!
United We Stand tells the story of the 1972 building workers’ strike and the conspiracy trial that followed, resulting in the imprisonment of three building workers with Des Warren receiving the harshest sentence of three years. However, the most famous of these prisoners is the now actor Ricky Tomlinson, who has collaborated with actor/playwright Neil Gore to tell this story.
The violent abduction and disappearance of 43 students in the state of Guerrero in September has plunged Mexico into a deep social and political crisis. The case of the Ayotzinapa students has brought the masses onto the streets and convulsed the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto. Alan Woods analyses the latest developments in Mexico, which are pregnant with revolutionary implications.
A revolutionary situation is currently spreading across West Africa. Over the last few days and weeks, big movements of the masses have shaken the regimes of Togo and Gabon to their foundations. It is clear that these are not isolated events. Rather, it is part of a revolutionary wave which has the potential to engulf the entire region.
It is now seven weeks since the disappearance and kidnapping of 43 students in Ayotzinapa, Mexico. The brutal incident acted to open up a wave of mass protests which continues to grow and spread throughout Mexico. The Marxist Student Federation here in Britain has energetically participated in solidarity action with the Mexican students and their struggle.
For the second time in six weeks, NHS workers staged a four-hour strike from 7am to 11am on November 24th. They are angry because their already low pay is being eroded even more due to government cuts. Darrall Cozens, President of the Coventry TUC, comments how, under capitalism, it is those such as the low paid NHS workers who will pay the price of a crisis that they did not cause.
30 years on from the original Band Aid single, which promised to raise money to feed the world, Bono and Bob Geldof are back with another celebrity-endorsed single, this time aimed at the Ebola crisis in West Africa. Ed Taylor looks at this latest charity single and asks: do these millionaire musicians really know who’s to blame for famine and disease?
According to recent research, almost a third of university graduate interns are being forced to work without pay, as a means of ‘getting their foot in the door’ of their respective careers. These latest figures demonstrate the myth of social mobility that is peddled by the apologists of capitalism.
A crisis has taken hold of the political establishment in Britain in recent months. Its latest episode was played out last week in the Rochester and Strood by-election, where the UK Independence Party emerged to claim their second parliamentary seat at the expense of the ruling Conservative Party. Ben Peck looks at the political fragmentation of the British establishment.
On Wednesday 19th November, thousands of students took to the streets in London to protest extortionate tuition fee rises, to demand free education for students in the UK, and to show solidarity with students everywhere who want a fairer society. Ed Rosier of the Manchester Marxists reports on the latest expression of the radicalisation amongst the youth.