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How Marx and Engels spent their Christmas
Reading the fathers of communism’s letters from over a century-and-a-half ago, we find that far from being against festive fun, they were all feasting, drinking and giving presents, explains KEITH FLETT
Marx and Engels
Trump’s economic adviser has exposed the actual strategy: forcing other countries to provide financial support for US world hegemony
Activist Angie Zelter has been arrested more than a hundred times. She’s not stopping now, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Natalia Marques looks at last week's ruling that Khalil can be deported and its implications
We are not here to advocate for the arms industry or its CEOs, writes STEVE HANDFORD, and that means we must take a stand against the government’s spending on war
Educators must fight for an inclusive, creative system that values all children
Although our sector is hearing better things from the current government, the recognition that what we do is education in its own right, rather than just childcare, is still not reflected in policy, writes LUCY COLEMAN
MARX AND ENGELS were of course not religious, so their correspondence has no record of them visiting church at Christmas or marking the birth of the baby Jesus. However, they still marked the end of the year with a degree of secular celebration.
Their correspondence in the 1850s and ’60s often finds them wishing those they were writing to a happy new year without particular reference to Christmas itself. We find, for example, Marx writing to Wilhelm Liebknecht on January 7 1875 and wishing him a “Happy new year!’
The traditions of Christmas in Britain were to a considerable extent reinvented by Charles Dickens in his Christmas Carol published 180 years ago this December.
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From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT
Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT
Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT
The formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 marked the beginning of interconnected and contested strategies — parliamentary and industrial — seeking ways to advance working-class interests, writes KEITH FLETT
