US-based labour and social movements authors and organisers Robert Ovetz and James Tracy interview DANIEL GROSS about his new book, Unions of Our Own: Eight Building Blocks to Change Work and the World
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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
JOHN CALLOW introduces the work of Geoffrey Trease, who placed ordinary people at the centre of his historical fiction for children, creating adventurous stories to inspire the possibilities of social change
The Isle of Wight’s Victorian holiday boom drew visitors from across Europe, including the founders of scientific socialism, writes KEITH FLETT
The campaign against the Bank of England’s ongoing theft of Venezuelan gold is gaining support across the labour movement and beyond, writes MATT WILLGRESS
Unless ministers match reform with investment, the profession and the people it serves will continue to bear the cost, says KATE RAMSDEN
Claims that Nicaragua has abolished elections followed a headline that stripped Daniel Ortega’s remarks of their historical and political context. The full speech tells a different story, says BECCA RENK FOSTER
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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The Isle of Wight’s Victorian holiday boom drew visitors from across Europe, including the founders of scientific socialism, writes KEITH FLETT
Labour movement history in Britain shows workers secured reforms through collective pressure and political representation, rather than being gifted from above, writes KEITH FLETT
It’s not just the Starmer regime: the workers of Britain have always faced legal affronts on their right to assemble and dissent, and the Labour Party especially has meddled with our freedoms from its earliest days, writes KEITH FLETT
The summer saw the co-founders of modern communism travelling from Ramsgate to Neuenahr to Scotland in search of good weather, good health and good newspapers in the reading rooms, writes KEITH FLETT