The Syrian revolution has taken a
significant and possibly key turn today after what has been a very
bloody week. As thousands of protesters once again took to the streets,
the regime has unleashed the most barbaric repression, no doubt gambling
on the idea that total repression can stop the movement. But cracks are
now appearing within the armed forces.
Last month a local newspaper in Rotherham published a rant from a
Tory councillor about the causes of the current crisis and Labour’s role
in all this. What he had to say doesn’t matter. What was interesting
was the flurry of letters which appeared a week later in reply. Nearly
all put the blame firmly on the backs of the Tories and their system. A
number also called for Labour to change course politically.
This
year’s national sellers conference of ‘Socialist Appeal’ was held in London on the
weekend of April 16th and 17th. Supporters from all over Britain, from Aberdeen
to Torbay, came together against the backdrop of a year of class struggle and
revolution in Britain and internationally. Without doubt, the conference marked
a new period in the development of the Marxist voice.
Saturday 26th March 2011 marked a watershed point for the modern Labour
Party. The Trade Union Congress had called for workers, students,
pensioners and all those affected by the coalition cuts to converge on
the capital. The question was: would Labour show up to the party too?
As Socialist Appeal reported in its last issue, since the call for a
National School Student Union (NSSU) was launched earlier this year we
have had quite a response and on the basis of this we helped to organise
a meeting on Friday 15th April, which was an enormous success.
Everywhere you look there is upheaval and crisis, from Europe to Japan
and to the United States. This reflects the worldwide malaise of
capitalism that is struggling to emerge from the recent slump. This is a
confirmation of Marxist ideas, which explains that capitalism is a
crisis-ridden system.
The British government, along with their French and Italian
counterparts, is stepping up its aggressive action in Libya by sending
military advisers to help secure its interests. Slowly, but surely, they
are being dragged into sending ground troops under the guise of “all
necessary means”.
A recent edition of The Economist
(April 7, 2011) complained about “Capitalism’s waning popularity”. One
does not have to be a genius to understand that thirty years or more of
cuts in welfare, large scale privatizations and constant pressure on
workers in the workplace was sooner or later going to end up with
ordinary working people questioning the system that is responsible for
these policies, i.e. capitalism.
As we approach the 95th
anniversary of the Easter Rising many Irish socialists and republicans
will go out as they do every year to marches to celebrate the
anniversary of the episode which asserted Ireland’s right to national
self-determination. It was, however, also a revolution which saw the
working class prove itself in the words of Connolly as “the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland.”
As we mark the 95th anniversary of the easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland,
we republish an article written 10 years ago by Alan Woods and Ted
Grant.
In this article, written on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Uprising, Ted Grant writes that it is impossible to understand this heroic event without understanding the ideas of its leader, James Connolly – who considered himself a Marxist and based himself on the ideas of Internationalism and the class struggle.