Bolshy

War has begun. British and American bombers are blasting away at the Iraqi people right now. Thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians will die in this horrible onslaught. Many more will die in the coming weeks after the destruction of Iraqi electricity and water infrastructure. Thousands will become homeless, hundreds of thousands of refugees. But this does not mean the anti-war movement should die away - it must raise its voice even louder. We must let our so-called leaders know that we will not let them conduct their war in our name, and the best way to do this is to walk out against the war...

War on two fronts? As it made the final preparations for war on Iraq, the Blair government must have let out a collective sigh of relief. With the March 20th firefighters' strike cancelled and the FBU executive recommending that firefighters accept the employers' latest pay offer (16% over three years with strings), the threat of a major class struggle coinciding with the war seemed to have vanished. It looked like the government had effectively defeated the most significant piece of industrial action for years. That was until the FBU special conference went and ruined everything! Meeting in...

Blair and Bush say we are going to war for 'democracy' and 'freedom.' But the powerful friends who put Bush where he is, and who get the favours from New Labour are rich corporations that couldn't care less about 'freedom' for their workers. Big oil companies like BP and Esso, garment giants like Nike and Puma, make billions every year from the labour of people all over the world, often in regimes as despotic as Hussein's Iraq or countries like China. When the bombs stop falling, the profits will keep climbing and the workers will keep suffering. Will you keep protesting?

School and FE students are excluded from political life. We're denied the vote, no union exists to represent us, and our views are often disregarded as angst-ridden adolescent ramblings. But the students who walked out of school on the 5th, 7th and 19th of March made their views very clear, and demanded that their voice be heard. In Leicester on the 7th, International Socialist Resistance helped co-ordinate walkouts that culminated in a demo of nearly a thousand in the city centre. 8 students were arrested but the charges against them have now been dropped. School student Tom said that student...

Ariel Sharon's right wing Israeli government seems set to build a massive, 20-metre high security wall, which will encircle a large part of the West Bank. The enclosed area - only a part of the West Bank - could form the basis for a future Palestinian semi-state, although Sharon denies that this is his intention. The PLO's Michael Tarazi has accused Israel of wanting to grab even more of the Occupied Territories, including good agricultural land, and to fully control future movements between Palestinian-controlled areas and Jordan. The Israeli government has also announced its opposition to...

(please note; may not be entirely authentic) This week, President Bush voiced America's readiness for war with Iraq, proclaiming that "we've come too far as a species to resort to the archaic measures of peace and negotiations. I want the U.N. to show that it is a legitimate forum for international exchange by reflecting the interests of the Bush family as well as its shareholders and subsidiaries." As American and British bombers undertook a third straight week of daily "practice drills", that targeted "facilities routinely used to sustain Iraqi life", the Bush administration maintained its...

Student walkouts against the war are absolutely fantastic, but we can do so much more to strike a blow to Blair. By organising meetings and teach ins at our schools and colleges, we can begin to build a movement that has its basis in positive ideas, not just reaction. Inviting trade union activists to speak at an anti-war meeting is always a good idea - find ways of linking up with workers and tying your anti-war campaign in with workers' struggles. How, for example, can this government afford a £1,000,000,000 war when it cannot afford a few million to pay the Fire Service? We need a Fire...

Much of the "anti-capitalist" movement which has grown up since the demonstrations of the late 1990s claims to be influenced by anarchism. The result is that thousands of (particularly young) people all over the world now call themselves anarchists, but without necessarily having a clear idea what that means. One of the attractions of the anarchist movement is that, where many socialist groups can be perceived as authoritarian both in terms of means (undemocratic internal structures) and ends (support for the Stalinist states etc), anarchism appears to provide a clearly anti-authoritarian...

Despite strikes having been repeatedly cancelled, and media attention turning from the fire fighters towards Iraq, the FBU pay dispute is still alive. Public support for the firefighters' claim is still fairly high, but it would be much higher if socialists and trade unionists thought more seriously about organising solidarity, rather than just paying lip service to slogans like 'victory to the firefighters.' Firefighters risk their lives every time they go to work - surely this is worth more than £5.50 an hour? The government talks of modernisation, but what it really means is job cuts and...

What the hell’s going on? Israel is a tiny little country with a population about 1/6 of the UK’s. The two main peoples living in the area are Israeli Jews (who have their own state and first world living standards) and Palestinian Arabs (who live under Israeli occupation, have no state, and have third world living conditions). Israel, which has an incredibly powerful military, has subjugated and oppressed the Palestinians for years. In 2000, the Palestinians began a second intifada, or uprising. This means a spate of vicious, unjustifiable suicide bomb attacks against innocent Israeli...