Working-class women lead the fight for fair work and equitable pay and against sexual harassment, the rise of the far right and years of failed austerity policies, writes ROZ FOYER
Assessing Chinese socialism 75 years after its revolution
ANDREW MURRAY reflects on the achievements and character of socialism with Chinese characteristics
Red flags flying for Martyrs Day today in Beijing
KELLIE O’DOWD reports on an event to highlight the GMB sisterhood
The Scottish labour movement’s rejection of the Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights jeopardises not only the credibility of the unions but also poses legal risks and opens the door to far-right reaction, warns JANE McLENACHAN
ROGER MCKENZIE argues that it was correct to ban the notorious Israeli side who were likely to cause trouble in Muslim areas of Birmingham, but asks, given the occupation and slaughter in Palestine, why any Israeli team is being hosted anywhere
ARTHUR WEST alerts readers to peace-centred activities in Scotland in November
With the last bricks of the red wall crumbling in the Caerphilly by-election, Starmer and co cannot count on the spectre of Farageism translating into votes for them come the next general election, argues ANDREW MURRAY
THERE is a story, possibly apocryphal, regarding a parliamentary by-election in St Pancras, north London, in 1949. The Communist Party stood a candidate and, amidst a deteriorating Cold War atmosphere, polled fairly dismally.
Johnnie Campbell, a laconic Scotsman central to the CPGB’s leadership for decades, was dispatched to the locality to rally the troops in the aftermath. Surveying his dispirited comrades, he supposedly declared: “Well, things aren’t going our way in St Pancras right now…but we’ve won in China!”
To many, that was the immediate significance of the Chinese revolution. For millions of Communists and sympathisers around the world, as well as oppressed masses in the colonies and semi-colonies, the victory of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the party-led People’s Liberation Army was a huge advance – really the greatest conceivable – in a worldwide process of socialist revolution.
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ANDREW MURRAY casts an eye over past upheavals and asks whether the left can find a fire escape before the world goes up in flames
Lenin’s theory of the weakest link shifted the centre of gravity of the proletarian revolution towards peoples’ struggles in the developing world, contrary to the expectation of Marx and Engels. The effect was to hinder the cause of socialism by decades. Time bring it back to its natural home, argues FAWZI IBRAHIM
From defeating illiteracy to tackling student stress, China’s system transforms lives while putting people before profit — British educators should consider what we could learn from the world’s largest school system, writes LOGAN WILLIAMS