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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast 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•Transcript available on Metacast In February 1918, the UK Representation of the People Act was brought in, giving the right to vote to women with property over the age of 30. In November of the same year, women in the UK were allowed to stand for parliament for the first time. In December, women voted for the first time in a British general election. Ten years later, women gained electoral equality with men, as the franchise was extended to all women over the age of 21. These achievements came on the back of a militant struggle...
Nov 22, 2018•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Jorge Martin, editor of América Socialista and writer for In Defence of Marxism, discusses the results of Sunday's presidential elections in Brazil, where the far-right candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, won with 55% of the vote. As Jorge explains, Bolsonaro is an extremely reactionary politician, who will go on the offensive against the working class and the oppressed. But his election does not represent a rise of fascism in Brazil. Rather, it reflects the hatred towards the establishment and the broke...
Oct 30, 2018•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Alan Woods - editor of In Defence of Marxism - discusses the barbaric crimes of the monstrous Saudi regime in the wake of their recent murder of a critical journalist. This rotten regime is responsible for exporting wars, oppression, exploitation, and terrorism across the world. In Yemen, for example, they are carrying out daily atrocities, bombing and starving the population into submission - all with the help of the British and American governments. The labour movement must expose the brutal a...
Oct 17, 2018•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast In a special podcast episode of IMTV, Arturo Rodriguez - activist from Lucha de Clases and editor of the Catalan paper Revolucio - discusses the dramatic events that have taken place in Catalonia and the rest of Spain over the past 12 months. The movement for independence has erupted onto the scene in Catalonia, but has been temporarily been beaten back as a result of political repression and a lack of revolutionary leadership. Nevertheless, the mood across Spain is now one of polarisation and r...
Aug 08, 2018•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this special podcast episode of IMTV, we interview Antonio Balmer and Tom Trottier of Socialist Revolution, the US section of the International Marxist Tendency. Antonio and Tom explain the factors that have led to the election of Donald Trump in the USA, as well as describing the explosive political situation in Washington that now exists as a result. Above all, the American comrades discuss how to fight Trump: not through the Democrats, but through the creation of a mass socialist party, ca...
Aug 01, 2018•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the latest episode of IMTV radio, activists from Socialist Appeal discusses the fight for women's liberation: from the struggles of the Suffragettes 100 years ago, to the #MeToo movement today. The last year has seen a massive explosion of struggle for women's rights. The Harvey Weinstein case cast a light on the issue of sexual harassment and exploitation in the workplace. The landslide vote to repeal the 8th Amendment in Ireland struck an enormous blow against the conservative bastion of th...
Jul 11, 2018•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the latest episode of IMTV - the International Marxist Television channel, hosted by Socialist Appeal - our guests looks back over a busy year for activists on UK campuses. Earlier this year we saw the largest ever strike by academic staff in the UCU, who took action over cuts to pensions. Their struggle was widely supported by students, who came out in large numbers on picket lines and protests across the country. But despite this wave of militancy, the UCU strike ended up with a negotiated ...
Jun 27, 2018•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast On 14th June 2017, disaster struck as the Grenfell tower in west London was engulfed in flames. 72 people died in the fire, according to official reports. But the real number could be even higher. One year on, and the inquiry into the Grenfell fire is underway. Revelations are coming to light indicating that a whole range of guilty figures are complicit in this murder: from the Tory council and Tenant Management Organisation, to the cladding manufacturer and architects. In this latest episode of...
Jun 13, 2018•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the third episode of IMTV - the International Marxist Television channel, hosted by Socialist Appeal - Francesco Merli provides a Marxist analysis of the situation in Israel and Palestine. On 14th May 1948, the state of Israel was officially founded. It was accompanied by a mass, forceful eviction of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, who were forced to flee from their own lands. This exodus is known amongst Palestinians as the "Nakba" 70 years later, large demonstrations have taken place...
May 30, 2018•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
