Left groups and people

Socialist Green Unity Coalition, Respect, SWP, Socialist Party, Weekly Worker, IWCA, RDG, Green Party, Ken Livingstone ... and a few others.

Socialist Appeal and SWP on the invasion they said was false scare

Shortly before Putin’s 24 February invasion of Ukraine Socialist Appeal poured scorn on all those warning of the risk of invasion. It has made no self-criticism of that, nor of its history of denying Ukrainian rights and soft-pedalling Russian imperialism. Socialist Appeal is these days a noticeable presence on some demonstrations. Unsurprisingly it has turned up to no pro-Ukraine protests. I didn’t see them even at the Stop the War Coalition demo in London on 5 March. SA has not published much on the war itself — as opposed to denunciations of the Tory government, its stance on refugees and...

Listen to Ukrainian and Russian socialists!

Ukrainian and Russian socialist organisations are saying that the war on Ukraine is an act of Russian imperialist aggression. They have nothing but contempt for the argument “Of course, Russia should withdraw from Ukraine — but it’s really all the fault of NATO.” Ukraine's left Even before the launch of the Russian invasion the Ukrainian anarchist website Nihilist had defined any such invasion as an act of imperialist aggression. It would be: “A conflict between the empire and the former colony: domination and enslavement on their part, and emancipation and decolonization on our part. Russia’s...

Putin's far-right lies about "de-Nazifying" Ukraine

Putin’s claim that he ordered the invasion of Ukraine in order to “de-Nazify” the country is nonsense. But it is the continuation of a narrative developed over almost two decades. And one that sections of the left in Europe and America have bought into. Party of the Regions In the early 2000s the electoral base of the pro-Russian Party of the Regions (PoR) was predominantly in the Donbass: The PoR was a party of oligarchs who owned the major enterprises in the Donbass and presented themselves as the region’s defenders. One way in which the PoR sought to consolidate that base was by...

Socialist Action: more genocide-denying lies

Socialist Action, a small but occasionally influential British group, has Trotskyist origins – but its politics are now flatly Stalinist. It specialises in long-winded and theoretically pretentious praise for China’s economic system and policies. Periodically SA spews out something denying and / or justifying the Chinese state’s genocidal oppression of the Uyghur people. In August 2020, after they enthusiastically cited and republished the Stalinist-cum-conspiracy-theorist Max Blumenthal, we published this exposing their incoherence and dishonesty on the Uyghurs. I recommend reading it...

When some on the left support the far right

On 7 February a small but vociferous mob of far-right demonstrators surrounded Keir Starmer and David Lammy yelling “traitor” and other slurs. This was Resistance GB, a far-right anti-vax outfit. You can hear on the video footage one of them shouting about the “New World Order”, a far-right conspiracy theory. The mob also accused Starmer (in his former role as Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service) of shielding Jimmy Savile from prosecution. These accusations were obviously inspired by Boris Johnson having claimed in parliament that while DPP, Starmer had...

Bernie Sanders is wrong about Ukraine

A few days ago the Guardian ran an article by Bernie Sanders entitled “We must do everything possible to avoid an enormously destructive war in Ukraine”. He’s certainly right about that — no reasonable person would disagree. And he correctly names the culprit in the current crisis: Vladimir Putin. But Bernie adds that he is worried about “the familiar drumbeats in Washington, the bellicose rhetoric that gets amplified before every war, demanding that we must ‘show strength, ‘get tough’ and not engage in ‘appeasement’.” I disagree. Showing strength and getting tough are not terrible strategies...

Tuning in beats dropping out

On 26 January, Laura Pidcock resigned from her seat as a Constituency Labour Party representative on Labour’s National Executive (NEC). Some Labour leftists who have resigned or reduced activity over the last two years have speculated that Pidcock will help launch a splinter group. Her statement, however, said only that “energies are finite”, she has found being in a minority on the NEC “frustrating”, and she wants to “put [her] energy elsewhere”. Since losing her seat as an MP in December 2019 she has been president of the CLASS think-tank (funded by the Unite union and others) and secretary...

The socialists who deny Ukraine's rights

IMT members in Brazil demonstrate alongside the Brazilian Communist Party in support of Russian nationalist rebels in Eastern Ukraine (2014) On 24 January, after almost two months of silence since the new Russian threats to Ukraine began, the International Marxist Tendency website, run by the Socialist Appeal group and its co-thinkers, published an article by Jack Halinski-Fitzpatrick with the title “Will Russia invade Ukraine?” As we’ll see, Halinski-Fitzpatrick’s article is blander, less overtly pro-Russian, than what SA has put out in the past. But in a way it is worse: in 3,677 words, it...

The French left in hard times

On 23 January sign-ups close for the "Popular Primary" for left candidates for the French presidential election, for which the first round will be 10 April. Two individuals - one a sometime Green activist, one an "entrepreneur" who had launched and run an NGO aimed at improving understanding and cooperation between people of different backgrounds - set up "Popular Primary" in February 2021. Raising funds online, they now employ 18 full-time-equivalent staff and (as of 17 January) have 250,000 people signed up and making a token payment to take part in the online "primary" on 27-30 January. In...

“Success” for China. And for China's workers?

Click on to the website of the Socialist Action group and the banner at the top of the Home page tells you what to expect. There is no place here for Marx, Trotsky, or Lenin. But enough space for pictures of Malcolm X, Chavez, Castro and Guevara. That certainly sets the scene nicely. Socialist Action was one of the splinters that emerged in the mid-1980s from the break-up of International Marxist Group (from 1982 renamed Socialist League). Inside the IMG the faction that eventually became the current Socialist Action group had traditionally been led by John Ross. Socialist Action was launched...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.