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Lewisham Hospital Worker #18 - 17 May 2013

A workplace bulletin for Lewisham Hospital workers, by Lewisham Hospital workers.

“There is a special bond between dockers”

Steve Biggs, a dock worker and Unite rep at Southampton Container Terminal, talks about his job.

Stop the Tories closing our A&E's!

Accident and Emergency departments are at crisis point. One in 10 patients admitted to A&E now have to wait more than four hours to be treated or discharged — double the figure this time last year.

Bangladesh: workers oppose the Islamists

An interview with Badrul Alam from the Communist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist-Leninist).

Brighton council workers fight pay cuts

A GMB member working for CityClean at Brighton council spoke to Solidarity about their sit-down strike and ongoing battle against pay cuts.

Cyprus left goes for euro-exit

AKEL, the official Communist Party and the ruling party in Cyprus until 28 February this year, has changed policy to favour exit from the euro.

Italy's left searches for unity?

Left makes calls for resistance, but what is the strategy?

Tories push kids into poverty; Labour says "give up"

Share prices are going up. Profits are increasing. Top bosses' pay is soaring. And child poverty is rising, almost as fast.

Left must avoid anti-EU trap

Bob Crow and the leadership of the RMT rail union have joined the chorus for British exit from the EU led by Nigel Lawson, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer for Margaret Thatcher.

Morocco: freedom for political prisoners!

In the jails of Morocco, political prisoners have been on hunger strike for more than sixty days

Hawking and the boycott

Stephen Hawking may be right not to attend an Israeli government junket, but an academic boycott of Israel is wrong.

Online pamphlets

1916: The Easter Rising

C L R James on Ireland's Easter Rising of 1916.

SWP: from "IS tradition" to Respect

In the first decade of the 21st century the SWP collapsed politically into its "Red-Green-Brown" alliance with clerical fascism - with the MAB, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and other reactionaries

NUS votes to demand “expropriation of the banks”. Will it?

The National Union of Students has voted to demand expropriation of the banks, but won't fight fees, cuts and student debt. What's going on?

How Stalin destroyed communism

70 years ago, on 22 May 1943, Stalin announced the formal shutting-down of the Communist International, the association of revolutionary socialist parties across the world set up after the Russian Revolution.

The Nazis’ book burning campaign

On 10 May 1933, Nazi-organised book burnings took place in university towns throughout Germany.

Chen Duxiu: Trotskyist critic of Stalinism

Chen Duxiu (1879-1942) was a founder of Chinese Communism and, later, a Trotskyist critic of Stalinism and Maoism.

The "fixer" and the activist

Discussion of the critique of the Burgin-Hudson Left Unity project by an anonymous Unite union official.

The left must debate its “big” differences

Many of the people who left the SWP recently say they are interested in left unity and broad discussion on the left and many are genuinely open-minded so we proposed discussions.

SWP flounders

An article by Alex Callinicos opens a discussion on political perspectives for the SWP, but does not conclude it satisfactorily.

Greek CP makes fake left turn

In the run-up to its congress last month, the Greek Communist Party published debates in its paper.

Dhaka factory tragedy: capitalism is guilty

Solidarity — not ethical shopping — is what the garment workers of Bangladesh are demanding.

How to make left unity

The political situation makes a strong case for left unity.

The Warsaw ghetto and the meaning of resistance

The Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943 belongs not only to the Jewish people but is also part of the heritage of the working class.

Top cop says "Thatcher pushed towards police state in miners' strike"

Former top cop John Stalker has said that Thatcher "took Britain to the brink of becoming a police state" in the 1984-5 miners' strike.

Vacuum on the left?

The idea of a vacuum on the left has been current since 1968.

Thatcher destroyed our lives

Workers’ Liberty activists Karen Waddington and Jean Lane appeared on the BBC’s Big Question debate programme on Sunday 14 April, discussing Thatcher’s death. Karen and Jean were involved in Women Against Pit Closures and other class-struggle activity during Thatcher’s government. The poet Benjamin Zephaniah also appeared on the show.

The Crisis in the SWP: The Formation of the SWP: Report of a Participant. Workers' Liberty 3/38

Download pdf, epub, or mobi formats; or read online.

The crisis in the SWP: how not to argue

We want to discuss with others on the left, including the fragments of the SWP, because without such an open exchange of ideas it will be impossible to rejuvenate our movement and make Marxism a mass force again.

What do Socialists say about the United States of Europe?

The economic crisis has rocked the European Union (EU). In Britain, the Tories want a referendum on links with the EU, stoking up nationalism. Early socialist debates about the United States of Europe help us orientate in today’s conditions.

Not the way to tackle sexism in the labour movement

The Socialist Party is opposing an appeal to the left and labour movement to stand in solidarity with women who are victims of male violence, especially when an incident takes place within our own movement.

The Galloway-Miliband affair

Labour Party officials have felt obliged to issue a statement saying that George Galloway is not rejoining Labour.

Why I joined the AWL and why you should

By a new member.

The Marxists on oppression

The fourth part of a review of John Riddell’s new book of documents from the early communist movement looks at how it debated women’s liberation and other issues of oppression.

Why is the working class central?

An article by Hal Draper published in the newspaper of the Independent Socialist League in the USA in the early 1950s which attempts to answer the question of why the working class is fundamental to the socialist project.

The anti-imperialist united front

The final part of a review of John Riddell’s book of documents from the early communist movement.

James Connolly: Irish Republican Leader and International Socialist

This appreciation and assesment of James Connolly by an old comrade, Patrick J Quinlan, appeared in The New Age [Buffalo, NY] Jan. 26, 1922. Quinlan was a delegate to the Second Congress of the Communist International in Moscow, in 1920

Workers' Liberty students - what we do, how to get involved

If you're a student attracted to revolutionary socialist ideas who wants to join or work with a serious, thoughtful, principled, active Marxist organisation - this is for you.

Trotsky and black liberation

A 1947 article by CLR James in The Militant, the paper of the SWP USA which James had just rejoined.

Ideas for Freedom 2013: Marxist ideas to turn the tide

Ideas for Freedom, the annual weekend of socialist discussion and debate hosted by Workers' Liberty, will take place in London on 21-23 June.

The formation of the SWP (WL 3/38)

Myths and truths about the history and basic ideas of the SWP and its forerunners.

The Fate of the Russian Revolution: Lost Texts of Critical Marxism, volume 1

How critical Marxists analysed the tragedy of the 20th century: the defeat of the Russian workers' revolution by Stalinism, and the erection on its grave of a new system of class exploitation.