Please note, this reading is intended to be background reading, to inspire general ideas about each session. It is not necessarily precisely tailored to the content of each session.
Saturday's sessions
"Progressive" politics or class politics? Workers' Liberty debates Compass
• Compass on Compass's strategy i.e. centre-left pluralist progressive coalition.
"New Politics, Tactical Voting and How the Left Should Deal with the Governing Coalition" by Joe Cox and Neal Lawson.
Download available, click here and look for the top of the page.
• Workers' Liberty on Compass (and other Labour Party groupings)
What is the Trotskyist tradition today? Paul Hampton (Workers' Liberty) debates Rob Sewell (Socialist Appeal)
• Socialist Appeal on Socialist Appeal
• Workers' Liberty on the Trotskyist tradition
A collection of articles. Read the first four in the list especially.
Fifty years of the Fourth International.
• Workers' Liberty on the Grantites.
Obituary of Ted Grant. At the bottom of this article are links to writings on the Grant tendency. Especially Liverpool 1984-5, by Martin Thomas and Militant, Afghanistan, and the 'colonial revolution
• Workers Liberty on Socialist Appeal.
Alfredo Saad-Filho, author of Marx's Capital and Anti-Capitalism: a Marxist introduction on the economics of the crisis
• Reviews of books by Alfredo Saad-Filho here and here
What openings for struggle in the Labour Party? With Pete Willsman (Labour Party National Executive)
• Save the Labour Party
• Our policy here and here
• Other recent articles.
• Background: The Labour Party in perspective.
How do we make the labour movement fight the Tories? Maria Exall (CWU), Joe Marino (bakers' union), Paul Holmes (left candidate for Unison general secretary, tbc)
As session above. Plus this article.
Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, uses and misuses. Duncan Morrison
Permanent Revolution After Trotsky
Results and Prospects and The Permanent Revolution.
The political economy of Shanghai. Camila Bassi
China Labour Bulletin
Camila on Shanghai.
The origins of today's student left: a history, 1980-2010. Jill Mountford (organiser for the Socialist Students in NOLS group, late 1980s), Ed Maltby (Workers' Liberty and National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts activist)
Article from the 90s.
Class-struggle against the Liberal-Tory coalition ... in the early 1920s. Janine Booth, author of Guilty and Proud of It, on the Poplar council rebellion
Article by Janine.
Is capitalism in decline? Hillel Ticktin (Critique magazine) debates Martin Thomas (Workers' Liberty)
Debate in Workers' Liberty from no.63 to no.2/2: click here.
Working-class environmentalism: the lessons of the Lucas Plan. Dave Elliott (scientist and central figure in the Lucas Plan), Stuart Jordan (Workers' Liberty)
Article by Dave Elliott and Hilary Wainwright.
Being a revolutionary at work. Ruth Cashman (young activist in Lambeth Unison), Becky Crocker (young activist in London Transport RMT)
Readings from AWL 2005 dayschool on the trade unions.
Sunday's sessions
Israel-Palestine: what should the left say? Two states and workers' unity or single state and right of return? Camila Bassi (Workers' Liberty) debates Marcus Halaby (Workers Power)
• Workers' Power on Middle East.
• AWL on Middle East.
• Introduction to the politics of Workers Power.
Women and women's liberation in the Russian revolution. Elaine Jones
On Inessa Armand.
Alexandra Kollontai.
Why Trotsky on fascism is so important. Max Munday
Trotsky on the United Front against fascism in Germany. Readings (see especially Section 2).
Why UAF is not the kind of campaign we need.
Protest songs and working-class culture. Jill Mountford.
Google books extracts. Timothy P Lynch: Strike Songs of the Depression.
Or listen here.
Where does women's oppression come from? Engels' The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State. Rosie Woods
• Brief overview.
• The book.
Is fighting inequality enough? Becky Shah (The Equality Trust), John Moloney (Workers' Liberty)
Review of the Spirit Level
PCS dodges issues on cuts and equality.
Do revolutionaries need a party? Cathy Nugent
Section 2 of our document What We are and What we Must Become (1966)
Bourgeois education and working-class self-education. Colin Waugh (Editor, Post-16 Educator)
The League of the Plebs
The working class and the Eurozone crisis, with Greek Marxist economist Costas Lapavitsas
Interview with Costas Lapavitas.