Marxist Voice

Alan Woods - editor of In Defence of Marxism - analyses last week's UK election results, explaining the real reasons behind Labour's dramatic defeat. In doing so, Alan answers the lies of the establishment media and the Blairites, who have falsely attempted to place all the blame for Labour's election loss on Jeremy Corbyn. In reality, however, it is not Corbynism that has failed, but Blairism, li...

In this talk from Revolution Festival 2019, Adam Booth - editor of www.socialist.net - compares and contrasts the economic ideas of Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, and MMT. The crash of 2008 brought all the established neoliberal economic ideas into question. As Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman told an audience at the London School of Economics in the wake of the financial crisis: “Most...

In this talk from Revolution Festival 2019, Ben Curry (of the Socialist Appeal editorial board)discusses the Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism and its application to the natural world. Dialectics is a philosophy of change, explaining that all matter is in a state of motion and flux. But how does this change take place? Using a number of examples from science - from thermodynamics, to e...

In this talk from Revolution Festival 2019, Jorge Martin - editor of American Socialista and writer for www.marxist.com - discusses the recent revolutionary developments in Latin America, including in Chile, Ecuador, and Haiti. Until recently, commentary about Latin American politics was full of pessimism and talk about a swing to the right, with the election of the Macri and Bolsonaro governments...

In this talk from the recent Revolution Festival, Marie Frederiksen - editor of the Danish Marxist paper 'Revolution' - discusses the impact of the Berlin Wall, which was broken apart 30 years ago, on 9th November 1989. This marked the beginning of the end for the Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Subsequently, liberal commentators declared that these events marked the fina...

Speaking at a day school in Manchester earlier this year, Josh Holroyd of Socialist Appeal discusses the events surrounding the Peterloo massacre of 16th August 1819, when thousands of protestors demanding political rights were brutally repressed by local representatives of the ruling class. As Josh explains, the Peterloo massacre marked a turning point for the working class in England. In the yea...

Alan Woods, editor of In Defence of Marxism, discusses the current contest between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt to succeed Theresa May as leader of the Conservative Party. As Alan highlights, it is a farce of democracy that a 160,000-strong reactionary rabble of Tory members will decide who becomes the next Prime Minister. Whilst the Tory leadership candidates out-compete each other over Brexit,...

Daniel Morley, writer for Socialist Appeal, discusses the mass movement that is taking place in Hong Kong against the repressive extradition law. Millions have participated in the protests against the newly proposed extradition bill - this in a city of around 7.5 million. This shows the scale of the anger that exists towards the Hong Kong government, and the Beijing regime that stands behind them....

Hamid Alizadeh, writer for In Defence of Marxism, discusses the increasing friction between the USA and Iran, with Washington accusing the Tehran regime of attacking two oil tankers and shooting down an American drone. The US President, with the support of belligerent influential figures like John Bolton, has escalated tensions and threatened military strikes in retaliation. But he has been forced...

Fred Weston, editor of www.marxist.com, discusses the revolutionary events taking place in Sudan. In April this year, after decades in power, long-standing dictator Omar al-Bashir was toppled by a mass movement. Following this, a military junta - the Transitional Military Council (TMC) - stepped into the vacuum. But workers across Sudan recently shut down the economy with a powerful general strike...

Alan Woods, editor of In Defence of Marxism, comments on President Trump's recent state visit to Britain. With Theresa May stepping down, Tory leadership contenders have made a lot of noise about how Britain will 'reclaim sovereignty' and 'take back control' after Brexit. But the events surrounding Trump's visit expose this as a complete charade. Far from achieving a favourable trade deal with the...

In this talk from a recent London-wide meeting of the Marxist Student Federation, Daniel Morley discusses the Tiananmen student protests that shook the regime in China 30 years ago. The Tiananmen square protests were the largest student movement in history, with over 1 million involved at the height of the demonstrations. But, as Daniel explains, the protests were not confined just to students. Wo...

In this talk from a recent London-wide meeting of the Marxist Student Federation, Hamid Alizadeh - writer for In Defence of Marxism - discusses the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, and the links between jihadi organisations and Western imperialism. After every barbaric terrorist attack, right-wing politicians and commentators attempt to whip up the idea of a "clash of civilisations" between Muslims...

In this talk from a recent meeting of the Marxist Student Federation in London, Francesco Merli - writer for www.marxist.com - examines the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and discusses the solution to the crisis in the Middle East. The chaotic situation in Israel and Palestine is one imperialism's worst ever crimes. By dividing up Palestine and creating the Zionist state of Israel, the...

Alan Woods - editor of In Defence of Marxism - discusses the battle in the Labour Party over the question of a second referendum. The Tories are torn apart over Brexit. Yet rather than uniting behind their party leader, right-wing Labour MPs are putting all of their energies into attacking Jeremy Corbyn. Sooner or later, judgement day will come for Theresa May, and the opportunity for Corbyn’s Lab...

In this video from the 2018 Revolution Festival, Francesco Merli of In Defence of Marxism (www.marxist.com) discusses the events and lessons of the 1968 Prague Spring - a revolt against the Stalinist bureaucracy that was put down by Moscow. In 1968, over 50 years ago, USSR-backed tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring. But could the movement have been successful? The Prague Sp...

In this talk from last year's Revolution Festival, Ben Gliniecki looks at the current collapse of the liberal status quo, providing a Marxist analysis of liberalism's rise and fall. In November 2016, American voters dispatched “the electoral equivalent of a suicide bomber to Washington”, according to the Financial Times. Only months before, the British public had delivered a shocking blow to the E...

Speaking at the recent Peterloo day school in Manchester, Mike Hogan of Liverpool Wavertree CLP discusses the lessons from the struggles waged in the 1980s by Liverpool city against Thatcher and the cuts. With Marxist Labour councillors in the leadership, a mass movement involving the entire labour movement and working class communities was built up in Liverpool in the 80s, in order to oppose cuts...

In this talk from the 2018 Revolution Festival, Ben Curry of the Socialist Appeal editorial board discusses the life of James Connolly: the man, his ideas, and their relevance for Marxists today. James Connolly was born in 1868 to Irish parents in Edinburgh’s Cowgate slum. He would grow to be the greatest Marxist ever produced by these islands; an iconic figure in the history of the Irish working...

In this talk from the Revolution Festival 2018, Daniel Morley of the Socialist Appeal editorial board examines one of the most long-standing questions of philosophy: what is consciousness? This is a question that has become increasingly relevant with the rise of artificial intelligence. Modern technological advances have raised the idea of creating machines capable of thinking for themselves. This...

In this talk from the 2018 Revolution Festival, Rob Sewell (editor of Socialist Appeal) explains the causes behind the 2008 crash and discusses the revolutionary way forward for society. September 2018 marked the 10th anniversary since the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the beginning of the deepest economic crisis in the history of capitalism. Now, over a decade on, none of the mainstream economi...

To mark International Working Women's Day - 8th March - we publish a talk from the 2018 Revolution Festival, where Ellen Morton and Fiona Lali of the Marxist Student Federation discuss the modern struggles taking place internationally against women's oppression. Ellen introduces the discussion by outlining how the crisis of capitalism has impacted upon working class women, who are doubly affected...

Speaking at the 2018 Revolution Festival, Jack Halinski-Fitzpatrick of Socialist Appeal provides a Marxist analysis of what role morality plays within class society, and how revolutionaries should derive their ethical framework and decisions. Many critics of Marxism attempt to paint it as being a cold and inhumane philosophy, far more concerned with economics than ethics. But, in fact, Marxism has...

In this video from the recent national conference of the Marxist Student Federation, Ian Hodson (president of the bakers' union) and Rob Sewell (editor of Socialist Appeal) discuss the turbulent political situation in Britain and the misery facing workers under capitalism. Ian Hodson highlights the devastating impact of Tory austerity on working class communities, and emphasises how Brexit has div...

In this video from the 2018 Revolution Festival, Alan Woods (editor of In Defence of Marxism) discusses the events of the English Civil War - England's revolution. The civil war in the 17th century saw the forces of Parliament battling against the monarchy of Charles I, fighting for power over England. In essence, this was a revolutionary struggle for domination by the rising bourgeois class of me...