In this talk from Revolution Festival 2019, Jorge Martin - editor of American Socialista and writer for www.marxist.com - discusses the recent revolutionary developments in Latin America, including in Chile, Ecuador, and Haiti. Until recently, commentary about Latin American politics was full of pessimism and talk about a swing to the right, with the election of the Macri and Bolsonaro governments in Argentina and Brazil, respectively; and with Trump's attempted coup against the Maduro governmen...
Nov 21, 2019•41 min
In this talk from the recent Revolution Festival, Marie Frederiksen - editor of the Danish Marxist paper 'Revolution' - discusses the impact of the Berlin Wall, which was broken apart 30 years ago, on 9th November 1989. This marked the beginning of the end for the Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Subsequently, liberal commentators declared that these events marked the final victory of capitalism over Communism. As Marie explains, however, what collapsed was not genuine C...
Nov 13, 2019•52 min
Speaking at a day school in Manchester earlier this year, Josh Holroyd of Socialist Appeal discusses the events surrounding the Peterloo massacre of 16th August 1819, when thousands of protestors demanding political rights were brutally repressed by local representatives of the ruling class. As Josh explains, the Peterloo massacre marked a turning point for the working class in England. In the years that followed, powerful trade unions were forged in order to fight back against the attacks of th...
Aug 16, 2019•49 min
Alan Woods, editor of In Defence of Marxism, discusses the current contest between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt to succeed Theresa May as leader of the Conservative Party. As Alan highlights, it is a farce of democracy that a 160,000-strong reactionary rabble of Tory members will decide who becomes the next Prime Minister. Whilst the Tory leadership candidates out-compete each other over Brexit, the right wing of the Labour Party are once again ramping up their efforts to undermine Jeremy Corby...
Jul 12, 2019•16 min
Daniel Morley, writer for Socialist Appeal, discusses the mass movement that is taking place in Hong Kong against the repressive extradition law. Millions have participated in the protests against the newly proposed extradition bill - this in a city of around 7.5 million. This shows the scale of the anger that exists towards the Hong Kong government, and the Beijing regime that stands behind them. Hong Kongers are rightly terrified of seeing their democratic rights torn to shreds, as Xi Jinping ...
Jun 28, 2019•22 min
Hamid Alizadeh, writer for In Defence of Marxism, discusses the increasing friction between the USA and Iran, with Washington accusing the Tehran regime of attacking two oil tankers and shooting down an American drone. The US President, with the support of belligerent influential figures like John Bolton, has escalated tensions and threatened military strikes in retaliation. But he has been forced to pull back, for now. It is clear that the bellicose Trump administration, along with their reacti...
Jun 21, 2019•10 min
Fred Weston, editor of www.marxist.com, discusses the revolutionary events taking place in Sudan. In April this year, after decades in power, long-standing dictator Omar al-Bashir was toppled by a mass movement. Following this, a military junta - the Transitional Military Council (TMC) - stepped into the vacuum. But workers across Sudan recently shut down the economy with a powerful general strike, aimed at wrestling control from the TMC. This terrified the regime, who know that they could lose ...
Jun 14, 2019•21 min
Alan Woods, editor of In Defence of Marxism, comments on President Trump's recent state visit to Britain. With Theresa May stepping down, Tory leadership contenders have made a lot of noise about how Britain will 'reclaim sovereignty' and 'take back control' after Brexit. But the events surrounding Trump's visit expose this as a complete charade. Far from achieving a favourable trade deal with the USA, the Tory government is preparing the ground for American big business to sweep in and pick at ...
Jun 07, 2019•17 min
In this talk from a recent London-wide meeting of the Marxist Student Federation, Daniel Morley discusses the Tiananmen student protests that shook the regime in China 30 years ago. The Tiananmen square protests were the largest student movement in history, with over 1 million involved at the height of the demonstrations. But, as Daniel explains, the protests were not confined just to students. Workers across Beijing also came out in support of the movement, and the initial wave of soldiers sent...
May 31, 2019•42 min
In this talk from a recent London-wide meeting of the Marxist Student Federation, Hamid Alizadeh - writer for In Defence of Marxism - discusses the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and the links between jihadi organisations and Western imperialism. After every barbaric terrorist attack, right-wing politicians and commentators attempt to whip up the idea of a "clash of civilisations" between Muslims and the Arab world, on one side, and liberal Western democracies, on the other. But the inconvenien...
May 24, 2019•48 min
In this talk from a recent meeting of the Marxist Student Federation in London, Francesco Merli - writer for www.marxist.com - examines the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and discusses the solution to the crisis in the Middle East. The chaotic situation in Israel and Palestine is one imperialism's worst ever crimes. By dividing up Palestine and creating the Zionist state of Israel, the imperialists transformed the region - in the words of Leon Trotsky - into "a bloody trap" for both J...
May 17, 2019•51 min
Alan Woods - editor of In Defence of Marxism - discusses the battle in the Labour Party over the question of a second referendum. The Tories are torn apart over Brexit. Yet rather than uniting behind their party leader, right-wing Labour MPs are putting all of their energies into attacking Jeremy Corbyn. Sooner or later, judgement day will come for Theresa May, and the opportunity for Corbyn’s Labour to form a government will present itself. But how will Corbyn deal with the wreckers in his rank...
May 03, 2019•16 min
In this video from the 2018 Revolution Festival, Francesco Merli of In Defence of Marxism (www.marxist.com) discusses the events and lessons of the 1968 Prague Spring - a revolt against the Stalinist bureaucracy that was put down by Moscow. In 1968, over 50 years ago, USSR-backed tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring. But could the movement have been successful? The Prague Spring was a movement with the potential to develop into a socialist political revolution against the ...
Apr 26, 2019•54 min
In this talk from last year's Revolution Festival, Ben Gliniecki looks at the current collapse of the liberal status quo, providing a Marxist analysis of liberalism's rise and fall. In November 2016, American voters dispatched “the electoral equivalent of a suicide bomber to Washington”, according to the Financial Times. Only months before, the British public had delivered a shocking blow to the European establishment by voting by a narrow majority to leave the European Union. Today, nationalist...
Apr 17, 2019•53 min
Speaking at the recent Peterloo day school in Manchester, Mike Hogan of Liverpool Wavertree CLP discusses the lessons from the struggles waged in the 1980s by Liverpool city against Thatcher and the cuts. With Marxist Labour councillors in the leadership, a mass movement involving the entire labour movement and working class communities was built up in Liverpool in the 80s, in order to oppose cuts and fight for socialist policies. This was part of a national campaign, with anti-cuts councils spr...
Apr 11, 2019•41 min
In this talk from the 2018 Revolution Festival, Ben Curry of the Socialist Appeal editorial board discusses the life of James Connolly: the man, his ideas, and their relevance for Marxists today. James Connolly was born in 1868 to Irish parents in Edinburgh’s Cowgate slum. He would grow to be the greatest Marxist ever produced by these islands; an iconic figure in the history of the Irish working class. Executed by the British army in 1916 following his leading role in the Easter Rising, Connoll...
Apr 05, 2019•53 min
In this talk from the Revolution Festival 2018, Daniel Morley of the Socialist Appeal editorial board examines one of the most long-standing questions of philosophy: what is consciousness? This is a question that has become increasingly relevant with the rise of artificial intelligence. Modern technological advances have raised the idea of creating machines capable of thinking for themselves. This has generated hopes - and fears - that the next generation of robots will be able to display signs ...
Mar 29, 2019•54 min
In this talk from the 2018 Revolution Festival, Rob Sewell (editor of Socialist Appeal) explains the causes behind the 2008 crash and discusses the revolutionary way forward for society. September 2018 marked the 10th anniversary since the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the beginning of the deepest economic crisis in the history of capitalism. Now, over a decade on, none of the mainstream economists or establishment politicians can explain how we got here or offer a way out of the crisis. The e...
Mar 14, 2019•50 min
To mark International Working Women's Day - 8th March - we publish a talk from the 2018 Revolution Festival, where Ellen Morton and Fiona Lali of the Marxist Student Federation discuss the modern struggles taking place internationally against women's oppression. Ellen introduces the discussion by outlining how the crisis of capitalism has impacted upon working class women, who are doubly affected by austerity and the cuts to public services. On the other side, as Ellen highlights, there has been...
Mar 08, 2019•37 min
Speaking at the 2018 Revolution Festival, Jack Halinski-Fitzpatrick of Socialist Appeal provides a Marxist analysis of what role morality plays within class society, and how revolutionaries should derive their ethical framework and decisions. Many critics of Marxism attempt to paint it as being a cold and inhumane philosophy, far more concerned with economics than ethics. But, in fact, Marxism has much to offer on the question of morality - not least to point out the outrageous hypocrisy of the ...
Mar 01, 2019•43 min
In this video from the recent national conference of the Marxist Student Federation, Ian Hodson (president of the bakers' union) and Rob Sewell (editor of Socialist Appeal) discuss the turbulent political situation in Britain and the misery facing workers under capitalism. Ian Hodson highlights the devastating impact of Tory austerity on working class communities, and emphasises how Brexit has divided workers and acted as a distraction from the cuts. Ian also notes the enthusiasm that Corbyn and...
Feb 22, 2019•32 min
In this video from the 2018 Revolution Festival, Alan Woods (editor of In Defence of Marxism) discusses the events of the English Civil War - England's revolution. The civil war in the 17th century saw the forces of Parliament battling against the monarchy of Charles I, fighting for power over England. In essence, this was a revolutionary struggle for domination by the rising bourgeois class of merchants and bankers - an attempt to usurp the old feudal institutions of the monarchy. Pivotal to th...
Feb 14, 2019•1 hr 7 min
In this talk from the 2018 Revolution Festival, Josh Holroyd discusses the origins of the capitalist system, the violent and contradictory revolution it carried out across the world, and the implications these hold for the fight against capitalism today. As Josh explains, the society in which we live is often presented as something eternal; a natural expression of human nature and common sense. But the reality could not be further from the truth. Capitalism - a system based on competition and pr...
Feb 01, 2019•51 min
Jorge Martin of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign discusses the ongoing attempted coup, which is being aggressively pushed by US imperialism. Washington has stepped up it's efforts this week to oust the democratically elected government of Venezuela. They are now going for broke in an attempt to remove President Maduro. As Jorge explains, whatever one's views of the Maduro government, this is an illegitimate and undemocratic attempt at regime change by Trump and his reactionary allies. It is ther...
Jan 25, 2019•15 min
On 15th January 1919, Rosa Luxemburg - one of the main leaders of the German Revolution - was brutally murdered by reactionary state forces, depriving the working class of one of its greatest fighters. To commemorate Luxemburg's life, we republish here a video from an IMT school in London in 2014, where Marie Frederiksen (editor of the Danish Marxist newspaper Revolution) discusses the real revolutionary history, ideas, and traditions of Rosa Luxemburg, drawing out the valuable lessons we can le...
Jan 15, 2019•1 hr 1 min
In this talk from the 2018 Revolution Festival, Hamid Alizadeh (editor of www.marxist.com) looks at the ideas of Georg Hegel, the German thinker who resurrected the philosophy of dialectics. Dialectics, as Hamid outlines, is a philosophy that explains change, motion, and development. In this respect, Hegel's ideas provided a profound leap from the mechanical and rigid outlook of those who preceded him. Hegel's dialectics were the basis for the revolutionary philosophy of Marxism - dialectical ma...
Jan 11, 2019•46 min
Alan Woods, editor of In Defence of Marxism, discusses the magnificent gilets jaunes movement in France, which has exploded out of nowhere to land a blow against the ruling class. Ever since his election as president in May 2017, Emmanuel Macron has been held up as a poster boy for liberalism by the European establishment. Liberals everywhere proclaimed that Macron's electoral victory represented a turning of the tide for the centre ground against the encroachment of populism and extremism. But ...
Dec 18, 2018•19 min
Alan Woods, editor of In Defence of Marxism, discusses the historic political crisis taking place in Britain, as the Tory Prime Minister's fate hangs in the balance. As Alan notes, the UK was once considered one of the most stable countries in the world. But now it is a source of enormous instability for world capitalism. And the crisis is not confined to Britain. May, Macron, and Merkel are all facing huge difficulties at home, as the broken status quo collapses around them. Only the call for a...
Dec 12, 2018•18 min
Money, the Bible says, is the "root of all evil". Under capitalism, it dominates over us, acting - in the words of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists - like a "chain of gold". But money has evolved and changed throughout history: from the early use of precious metals, to the modern day network of cash, credit, and cryptocurrencies. And the more complex the money system becomes, the more removed and mysterious it seems. In this talk, Adam Booth - author of Understanding Marx's Capital - discuss...
Dec 07, 2018•51 min
In this talk from the recent Revolution Festival, Jorge Martin discusses a new book co-authored by himself and John Roberts, which explores the application of Leon Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution to the experiences of Latin America. Trotsky's theory explained how the capitalists in the colonial countries could not play a progressive role, but would instead be a barrier in the fight for agrarian reform, parliamentary democracy, and national independence. In their new book, John Roberts (...
Nov 30, 2018•48 min
