AWL

Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour power to another, the capitalist class which owns the means of production. Society is shaped by the capitalists' relentless drive to increase their wealth. Capitalism causes poverty, unemployment, the blighting of lives by overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the environment and much else.

Against the accumulated wealth and power of the capitalists, the working class has one weapon: solidarity.

The Alliance for Workers' Liberty aims to build solidarity through struggle so that the working class can overthrow capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership of industry and services, workers' control and a democracy much fuller than the present, with elected representatives recallable at any time and an end to bureaucrats' and managers' privileges.

We fight for the labour movement to break with "social partnership" and assert working-class interests militantly against the bosses.

Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, supporting workers' struggles, producing workplace bulletins, helping organise rank-and-file groups.

We stand for:

• Independent working-class representation in politics.
• A workers' government, based on and accountable to the labour movement.
• A workers' charter of trade union rights - to organise, to strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action.
• Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, education and jobs for all.
• A workers' movement that fights all forms of oppression. Full equality for women and social provision to free women from the burden of housework. Free abortion on request. Full equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Black and white workers' unity against racism.
• Open borders.
• Global solidarity against global capital - workers everywhere have more in common with each other than with their capitalist or Stalinist rulers.
• Democracy at every level of society from the smallest workplace or community to global social organisation.
• Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal rights for all nations, against imperialists and predators big and small.
• Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate!

If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity to sell - and join us!

Uncaptive minds?

On the evening of Monday 1 September, the new group the Commune/Group of International Communists (two of whose three known supporters are recently ex-AWL members David Broder and Chris Ford) attempted to ban the AWL from their first public meeting. When we arrived at the venue for their - publicly advertised - meeting on workers' struggles in 1968-74, we were told by Chris Ford, before we had opened our mouths, that it was not a public meeting, that we had come to disrupt and that we should "fuck off". After ten or so minutes of arguing, David Broder, to his credit, let us in; that was...

No to any attack on Iran: for working-class resistance to imperialisms big and small.

1) TO CONDEMN OR NOT CONDEMN? 2) THE "BURNING, IMMEDIATE QUESTION". 3) BACK TO THE CHESS BOARD 4) THE ISSUE IS AGENCY 1) TO CONDEMN OR NOT CONDEMN? I’ve found the bogging down of the debate in the question of whether we would condemn/not condemn/oppose/support/advocate/call for/take responsibility for a particular action (specifically, an Israeli attack) rather unhelpful. They’re all potentially confusing categories and on a certain level, talking about “condemnation” is all a bit abstract anyway; the key thing is how such “condemnation” (or otherwise) translates into concrete action for us...

Letter: The Irish Workers’ Union and the Catholic Church

I have read with interest — and some amusement — Sean Matgamna’s history of the “Irish debate” in IS and elsewhere on the left in the period from the late 1950s to (presumably) the early 1970s. I will not comment on the series as a whole until it is completed. However I would like to comment on the most recent in the series dealing with the Irish Workers’ Group and — more specifically — its predecessor, the Irish Workers Union. Sean’s account is broadly correct. But it is ludicrous to assert that the IWU enjoyed sympathy from from Irish Catholic clergy or some “unidentified” part of the Irish...

Resources

Basic information about joining the AWL, our constitution, code of conduct, safeguarding policy and so on can be found here. Political study, education, and training courses | Reference documents and forms for AWL members | For organising AWL activity | AWL conferences | Other Political study, education, and training courses AWL books and pamphlets AWL basic political education course, and other educational and study courses AWL training courses on contact work, public speaking, how to do educationals, choreographing debates, etc. Reference documents and forms for AWL members Standing order...

What is Women’s Fightback?

Women’s Fightback is a paper produced by women in the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. We hope it stimulates debate, but whether you agree or disagree please get in touch, and contribute articles, reviews and letters to this paper. Here is a brief explanation of who we are and what we stand for. Who we are We need to revive the women’s movement in the UK, Europe and world wide. That movement needs to be able to inspire the many young people who want to fight sexism, but who may not call themselves “feminist”. What kind of feminists are we? We stand for a socialist feminism. We believe women’s...

AWL basic education programme

Download as pdf (see "attachment" below), or read on. Capital, workers, and socialism: sections A1 to A6 How class struggle changes the world: sections A7 to B5 The revolutionary outlook: sections C1 to C6 The state and revolution: sections D1 to D8 The AWL and Trotskyism: sections E1 to E8 Glossary

Workers’ Liberty and the “Third Camp”

By Paul Hampton “The attempt of the bourgeoisie during its internecine conflict to oblige humanity to divide up into only two camps is motivated by a desire to prohibit the proletariat from having its own independent ideas. This method is as old as bourgeois society, or more exactly, as class society in general. No one is obliged to become a Marxist; no one is obliged to swear by Lenin’s name. But the whole of the politics of these two titans of revolutionary thought was directed towards this, the fetishism of two camps would give way to a third, independent, sovereign camp of the proletariat...

The Lies Against Socialism Answered

For most of the 20th century, the common image of "socialism" was the USSR and the other states modelled on it, China, Cuba, and so on. There were always socialists who were critical of Stalin's or Khrushchev's USSR, seeing it as an unacceptably bureaucratic version of socialism, and keen to create a more democratic version in their own countries. By the late 1960s or early 1970s, a big majority even in the official Communist Parties was highly critical of Brezhnev's USSR. But most of those who criticised the USSR clung to the idea that some other USSR-model state - China, Vietnam, Cuba.... -...

Who was Joseph Stalin?

Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) was a revolutionary in his teens and until after the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1920s he became the key leader of that section of the Bolshevik Party who, under pressure of isolation, exhaustion, and the extreme poverty of Russia, were abandoning their socialist ideals and joining up with the state bureaucrats inherited from the old regime. The working class had been dispersed and battered by the long civil war (1918-21) against counter-revolutionaries backed by forces from no fewer than 14 other states. Stalin's faction defeated the loyal...

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