The revolutionary outlook: sections C1 to C6

C. The revolutionary outlook

C1. Militant or sympathiser?

What does being a revolutionary involve, as a choice about your aims in life? Why is it worthwhile? Why do revolutionaries "drop out"? Why should they remain committed?

How revolutionaries are formed [1], by Leon Trotsky


C2. Materialist dialectics

Is history shaped by ideas or by material relations? What does "dialectics" mean? Does God exist?

Socialism Utopian and Scientific section II [2]

Theses on Feuerbach [3]


C3. Women's liberation

"The emancipation of the working class is also the emancipation of all human beings without distinction of race and sex." Why should women have equality? Why do they not have equality now? Why is women's liberation linked to working-class struggle?

Comrades and sisters [4], especially the first section


C4. Against all oppression, not just class oppression

Why must revolutionary Marxists be consistent democrats, for equality for all? How to beat the racists? Why must we be for liberation for lesbians and gay men?

The roots of racism [5]

Sections from the pamphlet Radical Chains [6]


C5. The national question: Ireland

Why do nations exist? Have they always existed? Will they always exist? What is our basic programmatic answer to national conflicts? In particular: on Ireland, why we argue for consistent democracy; for a free federal united Ireland, with local autonomy for the Protestant-majority area and confederal links to Britain.

Ireland: two policies, two perspectives [7]


C6. The national question: Israel-Palestine

Why we say: a united socialist states of the Middle East, with self-determination for all minority nationalities; self-determination for both Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews.

The Origins Of The Conflict, part 1 [8] and part 2 [9], from Two nations, two states: socialists and Israel-Palestine [10].