Marxist Voice

Britain was once the workshop of the world. Today, British capitalism is struggling with stagnant growth, declining productivity, collapsing public services and a deepening economic crisis. In this discussion, Adam Booth examines the decline of British capitalism and the historical roots of Britain’s economic problems. Why has British industry gone into decline? Why is productivity so low? What li...

In this episode of Marxist Voice, Ben Gliniecki, General Secretary of the RCP, outlines the Marxist theory of the state, explains why the Epstein revelations have exposed the true nature of liberal democracy, and discusses how a working-class alternative to bourgeois rule can emerge through dual power. Drawing on Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky, Ben explains how the capitalist state was born to d...

Did Napoleon change history? Did Lenin make the Russian Revolution? Or do individuals simply express much deeper historical forces? Jack Tye Wilson tackles one of the biggest questions in Marxist theory: the relationship between the individual and society. This episode explains how history is really made, and why understanding this matters for revolutionaries today.

The Frankfurt School has had an enormous influence on universities, culture and much of the modern left. But how does Critical Theory compare with the Marxist method? Daniel Morley examines the ideas of Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse, explaining where they came from, why they became so influential, and why Marxists reject their philosophical and political conclusions.

Trade wars, inflation, recession, debt and protectionism; the world economy has entered a new and unstable period. But why? Adam Booth explains the laws governing capitalism in the imperialist epoch, drawing on Marx, Lenin and Trotsky to explain why the system has entered an era of crisis, conflict and revolutionary upheaval. If you want to understand the world economy through the lens of Marxism,...

Silvia Federici has become one of the most widely read ‘socialist feminists’ of the last fifty years. But is her explanation of women's oppression Marxist, and does it work?  Sarah Vedrovitch examines Federici's ideas on housework, social reproduction and the origins of capitalism, comparing them with the revolutionary conclusions of Marx and Engels on freeing women. Frederici imagines she...

Marx and Engels didn't develop their ideas in a vacuum. They built on centuries of philosophical development, including the ideas of the English materialists. Georgina Ryan explores how thinkers like Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke challenged religious explanations of the world and helped lay the foundations for modern science and, ultimately, Marxism. At the same time, she explain...

How did philosophy begin? And why are arguments from over 2,000 years ago still central to Marxism today? In this episode of Marxist Voice , Khaled Malachi traces the origins of materialism and idealism in Ancient Greece. From Plato's world of perfect ideas to Aristotle's more grounded approach, we explore the philosophical roots of dialectical materialism and why Marxists continue to stud...

Art is a necessity of life which is kept shackled by the profit motive. Art is something which workers yearn for. But what really is art? And can it change the world? What is the relationship between art and revolution, and revolutionaries?  In this talk from the RCP summer camp, Nelson Wan discusses all these questions.  Books to delve deeper: Art and Revolution , The necessity of art  

The United States has existed as the dominant imperialist power for over 80 years. In that time it has meddled in countries across the entire globe, setting the world order. Now that is coming to an end. The American Empire is collapsing and the anger of the workers in the US is growing.  In this talk from the RCP summer camp, Will Collins discusses the prospects of a 3rd American Revolution.  Boo...

Despite vast technological progress, modern society has yet to achieve abundance. Instead, global capitalism continues to drive deepening contradictions, regional conflicts, and an accelerating crisis of imperialism. In this talk from the RCP Summer School, Lubna Badi explores the main forces shaping today’s world: from the relative decline of US hegemony and the fracturing of Western alliances, t...

Since he came to power in September 2022, the leader of Burkina Faso’s military government, Ibrahim Traore, has attracted attention all over the world.  Echoing Thomas Sankara, the leader of the Burkinabé Revolution of 1983-87, Traore has used radical anti-imperialist and pan-Africanist rhetoric, calling for a determined struggle for genuine sovereignty and development for the people of Africa. In...

Whilst the Chinese Communist Party rule over China, it works with a capitalist mode of production. This is a historic peculiarity which originates with the successful Chinese Revolution in 1949. This revolution overthrew capitalism, but without workers power. This meant a slow return to capitalism was inevitable without successful revolutions internationally. But how did they return to capitalism...

The relative decline of US imperialism is a process having enormous effects on every corner of the globe and every capitalist market. The US is struggling through its death agony which is resulting in a deeply unpredictable world. From wars to trade wars, to foreign policy on truth social, anger is building towards the US government rapidly. This exists in countries imperially dominated by the US,...

Those on the left are increasingly being pushed the idea that we must support, vote for and publicly defend the 'lesser evil' in politics. Many liberal politicians orient their campaign around the idea that they are not as bad as the other candidate.  This is not a new phenomenon but a rehashing of the ideas of the Popular Front, popularised by Stalin in the 1920s/30s to excuse his distast...

A revolutionary wave swept through Europe towards the end of the Second World War. In France, communists formed the backbone of the armed resistance to fascism. In Italy, workers occupied the factories, peasants took over the land, and communists led a mass armed partisan force. In Greece, the communist party led the resistance movement, and was in a strong position to take power. But in all these...

Most people today are well aware of what they are against, poverty, austerity, racism, imperialism and much more. However, very few people have an idea of what they are fighting for. Politics promises things it can never achieve, demoralising people in the process. This is where Marxism is different. Instead of starting with what we want, we begin with what is possible and what is getting in our w...

From the Renaissance to Marx, this talk from the London Marxist School traces the revolutionary developments of materialist philosophy. Beginning with the scientific breakthroughs of figures like Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, it explores how humanity fought to understand the world through reason, science, and experience. The talk examines the limits of English empiricism, explaining the triumph...

The Cuban Revolution stands as one of the most revered revolutions in the history of capitalism. Fidel Castro and Che Guevara began as anti-imperialists and did not initially consider the revolution to be socialist. However, in the course of the struggle, they realised that the fight against imperialism, if it was to succeed, also had to be a fight against capitalism. With this understanding, they...

Dialectical materialism, the philosophy of Marxism, did not fall from the sky. Nor was it just a ‘good idea’ that Marx came up with one afternoon. As Marxists we owe an immense debt to the philosophers of the past, in particular the German idealist Hegel. Before Marx was a ‘Marxist’, he was a student of Hegel, and was amongst those who saw in Hegelian philosophy a revolutionary method of understan...

The name Malcolm X is synonymous with the black liberation movement internationally. His life was dedicated to this struggle, ultimately leading to his murder in 1965. His view that liberation should be fought for 'by any means necessary' was a battle cry to the oppressed masses globally, who could see the limits of peaceful protest and abiding by a law set up to oppress you. Beginning as...

In order to change the world, you must first understand it. This is why communists discuss politics, economics and the state of class consciousness. In a world defined by economic collapse, political turmoil and growing anger at the establishment, the 3rd Congress of the Revolutionary Communist Party met to discuss this. Here we share the introduction on World Perspectives given by Alan Woods.

Men and women have looked up at the night sky and speculated about the nature of the universe since prehistoric times. Those speculations were the first gropings towards science. But science was bound up with myth; cosmology with cosmogeny; astronomy with astrology. Since the scientific revolution of the 16th century, however, myth has been squeezed in cosmology. But in the last century, a century...

There is no doubt that the Chinese revolution is one of the greatest events in human history. It freed China from the shackles of imperialism after a heroic, decades-long struggle. This revolution was the fruit of the tremendous determination and spirit of sacrifice of the Chinese masses. And at the head of this movement was Mao Zedong. Since Mao’s death, capitalism in China has been gradually res...

“Let there be no blinking the question. These are not the times to be nice about mere words: the fact is that there is but one mode of obtaining the Charter, and that is by  insurrection .” George Julian Harney Chartism was the first time ever that British workers fixed their eyes on the seizure of political power: in 1839, 1842 and again in 1848. In this struggle, they conducted a class war that...