Both Conservative and Labour administrations have now refused to release research showing PIP payments are vital for disabled people’s survival, exposing the ideological nature of planned welfare ‘reforms,’ writes Dr DYLAN MURPHY
Trade unions are today’s soviets
The reliance on political parties to bring about socialist change in Britain has proved a total failure says FAWZI IBRAHIM. Time for the true representatives of the working class, the trade unions, to take a direct role in asserting their will on the government of the day
Western media dismisses the National People’s Congress while ignoring its extensive consultation processes, massive public participation mechanisms, and a tiered structure involving millions of deputies, explains JENNY CLEGG
Despite caring for vulnerable children and often covering classes, support staff remain undervalued, with some earning less than supermarket workers — but GMB’s campaigning offers new hope, argues DONNA SPICER
NICK WRIGHT examines how Farage’s party has attracted five distinct voter tribes with incompatible views on economics, immigration and state intervention — presenting both a challenge and opportunity for left organising
Man-made canals like Panama and Suez face unprecedented challenges from extreme weather patterns and geopolitical tensions that reveal the fragility of our global trade networks, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
As climate change makes vast mineral deposits accessible, the island’s 56,000 residents face unprecedented pressure from Trump’s territorial ambitions while struggling to maintain their traditional way of life, writes JOHN GREEN
Student Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest and threatened deportation are terrifying — but the moribund Democrats are still failing to mount any meaningful resistance against the slide toward autocracy, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
IN 1917, the Bolsheviks made history by establishing the first workers’ state. The process by which this was accomplished became a blueprint for workers all over the world.
Lenin’s writings were elevated to the status of a revolutionary manual. In particular, Lenin on the role of trade unions and the need for a party of professional revolutionaries dominated the thinking of communist parties ever since.
But was this the right path for other countries where conditions are different and economic development more advanced than they were in tsarist Russia?
More from this author
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
There is a lot to be said for Labour’s first Budget in 14 years, says FAWZI IBRAHIM, arguing that rebuilding the country’s infrastructure and its industrial base through wealth creation is the antidote to a capitalism in absolute decline
We have been fighting things getting worse — what is needed is to fight to get things better, and that requires a radical change in mindset, writes national officer of Rebuild Britain FAWZI IBRAHIM
Introducing a new paper from Rebuild Britain, FAWZI IBRAHIM argues that it is high time for the working class to drop the Labour Party as its vehicle for change, and take economic matters directly into its own hands
Similar stories
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
Although he was a legendary organiser in South Africa — where he was an early advocate of racial unity, and he was finally buried with honours in Moscow — it is in his native Wales that this hero needs recognition, writes ROBERT GRIFFITHS
STEVE ANDREW relishes a history of Lenin’s childhood and adolescence that gives a useful insight his personality
GAVIN O’TOOLE applauds a uniquely nuanced people’s history of the revolutionary period, told from below