From 14-16 November, 1,000 communists from across Britain – and around the world – will gather in London for this year’s Revolution Festival, the school of communism.
This three-day educational event, hosted by the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), is aimed at the urgent task of training up the next generation of class fighters in Marxist theory, revolutionary history, and class-struggle methods.
‘A World on Fire’
To kick things off, Alan Woods, leading member of the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International, and Fiona Lali, Executive Committee member of the RCP, will set the stage for the weekend in the festival’s opening session: A World on Fire.
Lenin once remarked that, in world history, there are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen. From the ‘Gen Z’ revolutions sweeping the world, to the huge class battles in France and Italy, it is abundantly clear that the kind of time we are living through is the latter.
This year’s Revolution Festival therefore could not come at a better time.
Today, even the USA, the most powerful imperialist country on the planet, is facing the deepest crisis in its history. In Is America heading for revolution?, Fred Weston, member of the RCI’s International Secretariat, will discuss perspectives for the American Revolution.
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In Britain, decades of austerity have left ordinary people at breaking point. The bankers and landlords continue to bleed us dry, and unemployment and inflation are going nowhere. NHS waiting lists continue to grow, while local councils are scraping together pennies to keep essential services open.
Starmer is proposing billions in cuts to welfare for the most vulnerable in order to massively up military and defence spending.
Fury is the mood of the day. The burning desire for change has never been clearer – everywhere people are looking to move beyond their anger and into understanding.
But with a complete vacuum on the left, figures like Nigel Farage and his Reform party are stepping in. Rather than correctly laying the blame at the feet of the bankers and bosses, these demagogues claim it is migrants and asylum seekers behind the decrepit state of Britain.
A clear class position is essential to cut across this anti-migrant hysteria. In Migration and borders: The communist position, Fiona Lali will explain why and how the struggle to defend immigrants is in the interest of the working class. What’s more, this session will have a limited number of session-only tickets available for only £5.
Resistance
Central to the situation today is the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East, and in particular in Palestine.
After two years of slaughter in Gaza, US President Trump stepped in to broker a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. But how was this reached? And why now?
In the session Europe in crisis: Block everything for Palestine! Jorge Martin, member of the RCI International Secretariat will examine the impact of the Palestine solidarity movement, which has seen millions take to the streets in protest at their government’s complicity in the genocide.
In order to understand the situation facing Arab workers today, we need to understand the region’s past.
In Horror without end: Imperialism and the Middle East, RCP Central Committee member Lubna Badi will outline the savage impact of decades of imperialist meddling – and explain how to kick the imperialists out for good, liberating millions.
Nowhere is this question more pressing than in Palestine, which communists understand to be an indispensable part of the future Arab revolution.
In A history of Palestinian resistance, Khaled Malachi, RCP Central Committee member, will analyse the rise and fall of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO): the movement that for two decades captured the imagination of the entire Arab world. This session also has a limited number of session-only tickets available for £5.
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Lessons for today
Across the weekend, attendees will also have the opportunity to explore in depth the ideas and movements that formed around figures such as Malcolm X, Mao Zedong, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro, Thomas Sankara, as well as the Bolshevik revolutionaries Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky.
Other sessions will examine the heroic struggle of workers in 1916 Easter Rising, the Spanish Civil War, the wave of revolutionary movements that followed the Second World War, as well as the 1917 October Revolution.
But educating ourselves as Marxists – capable of both understanding the world and changing it – is not simply a question of studying history. It is a far broader task.
This year’s Revolution Festival will also have sessions, for example, covering the crisis in cosmology, the development of surrealism, the work of Shostakovich, and the birth of Marxist philosophy.
As one attendee said last year, after hearing a session on Art, Culture, and Revolution, “I never knew that a talk on art and culture could be so hard-hitting. Marxism is about way more than just wages and conditions. It has something to say about everything!”
Discussions of this kind are essential for communists to recognise that we are not just fighting around bread-and-butter issues like wages and conditions, but for the liberation of all science, culture, and philosophy from the straitjacket of capitalism – for “taking back our humanity” through revolution, as the attendee put it.
No other event like it
Coming to the Revolution Festival also does not mean three days of just listening, but three days of discussing – raising questions, helping to deepen others’ understanding, and drawing links between the sessions. We have put together a comprehensive reading guide to aid this process of learning.
At last years’ Revolution Festival, one RCP member from Nottingham remarked that in some of the sessions he attended the discussion ended up being “just as impressive as the main talk” as a result of all the contributions from other attendees.
And, of course, throughout the weekend, this chance for discussion will not be limited to the sessions themselves.
The social on the Saturday evening especially will provide attendees the chance to meet people from around the country, experience some live musical performances, and continue chatting well into the night – though not so late as to miss out on the excellent Sunday morning sessions!
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Crucially, none of the discussions we have at the Revolution Festival are designed for an abstract intellectual interest, or to remain as mere words. We intend to put these revolutionary ideas into practice – by building a revolutionary party capable of overthrowing capitalism and ushering in a new dawn for humanity.
For communists and class-fighters in Britain, there is no other event like the Revolution Festival. For anyone serious about learning how to fight for revolution, this event is the place to be – and the RCP is the party for you!
What are you waiting for? Get your ticket to Revolution Festival today.
Full list of talks
Friday 14 November
- A World on Fire – with Alan Woods and Fiona Lali
Saturday 15 November
- Is America heading for revolution?
- 100 years of Malcolm X: From nation to revolution
- Horror without end: Imperialism and the Middle East
- Marx’s Capital: A guide to capitalism’s inner workings
- Shostakovich: The musical voice of the Russian Revolution
- Europe in crisis: Block everything for Palestine!
- Mao Zedong: His life, legacy, and limits
- The Reformation: Religion, Revolution, and the rise of the Bourgeoisie
- Feuerbach, philosophy, and the birth of Marxism
- 1945: Liberation, revolution, and betrayal
- Monopolies and imperialism: How big corporations dominate our lives
- Free speech and repression: Can capitalism still afford democracy?
- Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution
- Progress, revolution, and reaction: What drives history forward?
- 1917: How the Russian workers took power
- The decline of British capitalism and the British revolution – with Rob Sewell
Sunday 16 November
- A history of Palestinian resistance
- Surrealism and Marxism: Dreams, art, and class struggle
- Bubbles, debt, and speculation: Why capital is becoming fictitious
- The modern British state: Reform or revolution?
- Capitalism and the oppression of women
- Migration and borders: The communist position
- How to build a revolutionary party – and how not to
- Should communists welcome a ‘multipolar’ world?
- Civil war and revolution in Spain: 1931-1939
- Defying US imperialism: Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution
- Ibrahim Traore, Sankara’s legacy, and the fight against imperialism in West Africa
- Republicanism and revolution: The Easter Rising of 1916
- Lenin and Trotsky: What they really stood for – a reply to Stalinist slanders
- People, planet, and production: What would socialism look like?
- Science, the crisis in cosmology, and the Big Bang
