Editor's Choice

Why should Marxists want to narrow our appeal to 'the workers', enrolling people from other classes only to the extent that they rally behind the working class? Why not seek a broader unity of 'ordinary people'?

Originally published in Workers' Liberty magazine, January 2001. By Chris Reynolds

The pivot of Marx's critique of political economy is the concept of abstract labour, or universal social labour - labour as the expenditure under standard conditions of a quotient of average labour-power. Abstract labour, according to Marx, is the substance of value.

• Why the Working Class is Central
• Trotsky Taught Us Class Action
• What is Leninism?
• What is Trotskyism?
• Leon Trotsky: A Life For Socialism — October 1879 - August 21 1940
• October 1917: Revolution for Freedom In Equality
• An Eye-Witness Account of the October Revolution (HD)

[The fuse to the explosion that engulfed the old, Protestant- ruled Northern Ireland sub-state and led to the British Army taking control of N I in August 1969, was lit when Orange police attacked a civil rights march in Derry, on October 5,1968. This brief eye-withness report was written by Peter Graham in a letter to Sean Matgamna* Three years later, in October 1971, Peter Graham would be murdered by members of the urban guerilla group, "Saor Eire" (Free Ireland) of which he was a member..
*(Middle name, family name, Anthony: thus "Tony") ]

Dear Tony,

The origins of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty: the thirteen questions
(This is an expanded version of the text in Workers Liberty 3/26)

The political tendency now organised as AWL originates from Workers’ Fight, a small Trotskyist group formed in 1966. Why, and how?

Workers’ Fight came into existence as a distinct tendency in response to two linked “crises”.

C L R James died on 31 May 1989, at the age of 88.

Born in Trinidad in 1901, he was an agitator for West Indian and African independence, and an associate of the pioneering West Indian and African nationalists; a militant in the US and British Trotskyist movement; a prominent mainstream Trinidadian politician in the late 50s and early 60s; a lone, aged prophet for the generation of black militants who became active in the 60s and 70s; and author of many books and articles on a wide range of subjects.

In the 1980s, fervent - and paid - supporters of Gaddafi were accepted by many as a respectable section of the British left! This article from Socialist Organiser 343, 28 January 1988, tells about it, and the lessons we must learn.

The cast of characters:

A very well-known actress and film star, Vanessa Redgrave.

Her brother, a less well-known actor, Corin Redgrave.

Colonel Gaddafi, military dictator of Libya.

Various unnamed members of the Libyan intelligence service.

THE history of colonialism contains many scenes of half-naked
men with spears charging machine guns — but even they could
hope to see off some of their enemies. Israeli's April war in
Lebanon — like the US-British-Europcan Gulf war of 1991 — goes
far beyond that.