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Crime does not keep office hours
I was out in a local town yesterday when a young lad approached me. He was not from the area and his bike had been stolen. He had managed to find the local police station, only to discover that it was closed. His phone battery had died, so he asked whether I could look up…
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The Battle of Walkley, Sheffield 1922
A look at how the Unemployed Workers’ Movement helped poor workers stand up for themselves against landlords, bailiffs and police in the 1920s and 1930s. Reposted from our comrades CPGB-ML It’s summer 1922 and the postwar recession is biting hard in Sheffield, with 49,000 on unemployment benefit and thousands more having exhausted this and scraping…
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Dirty Dublin
See, I do come from a dirty Dublin. I come from a 2-for-15, “fuck the Queen” for any apparent reason type Dublin. A tricolour with Silk Cut burn marks on a sleeve hanging out a window of D15 for a whole family to see, or a family that went off tenement housing on Queen Street…
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From Gaza to Britain: imperialist war and the fight against fascism
The genocide in Gaza has laid bare the barbarity of the Zionist settler-colonial state and the active role played by British imperialism in sustaining it. Britain does not simply ‘collude’ in the genocide of the Palestinians; it is a participant and an active imperialist aggressor. British imperialism bears direct historical responsibility for the colonial project…
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When flags & factions replace the class struggle
The Palestine flag has become embroiled in Britain’s culture war. The ruling class has many different avenues for creating division within the working class but its objective is always the same: keep the working class divided and looking in every direction – except up!One of its current tactics is to demonise Islam and embolden reactionary…
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The story of the English Revolution
Published in 1949 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the execution of Charles I, this short pamphlet gives a wonderful overview of the real content and meaning of the earth-shaking event that was the English revolution. Written by the excellent CPGB historian AL Morton and published in 1949, this short history gives a wonderful overview…
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To Chaadaev
Love, hope, and quiet gloryDid not warm us for long with their deceit,Our youthful amusements have vanished,Like a dream, like morning mist; But in us still burns the desire,With a soul impatient under the yoke of fate,We heed the call of our homeland. We await with longing and hopeThe moment of sacred freedom,As a young…
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Church and King
The state needs two things to continue existing: a divided working class and the ability to use force. The state is not identical to the government. The elected government is the visible, changeable face of the state. Thatcher Out, Starmer Out, doesn’t matter, the state remains. In 1780 the state was weak. Globalism was in…
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Wake up and smell … the class war
The removal of an England flag from a Portsmouth housing block is exactly the kind of minor incident that the far right seizes upon and inflates into a national outrage. A dispute about communal property or fire regulations is presented as proof that “you are no longer allowed to be English”. The facts become secondary.…
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Weapons
Tools become weaponsBut are nothing without hands to wield Lay them down to stop a warA master is nothing without slavesRaise them up to tear him down Words become weaponsWhen hand puts pen to paper A book is a bombIf we light the fuse Hearts lift as voices join in songYet actions echoLong after lips…
“ A class cannot exist in society without in some degree manifesting a consciousness of itself as a group with common problems, interests and prospects”
– Harry Braverman