Solidarity 614, 17 November 2021

Academic freedom is contingent on the epistemologies and politics of the time. A case in point are the past debates in the University and College Union (UCU) for an academic boycott of Israel, which premises that Israel’s curbs on academic freedom for Palestinians should consequently negate academic freedom for Israel. A paper co-authored by the left-wing Israeli academic Oren Yiftachel and the Palestinian academic Asad Ghanem was submitted to the journal Political Geography in the spring of 2002. The paper, which identified the state of Israel as “dedicated to the expansion and control of one...

At the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU) virtual Special General Conference on 7-9 November, motions passed on the “New Deal For Workers” (published by Labour when Andy McDonald was shadow minister) called for a mobilisation in the Spring of 2022 for a New Deal demonstration with other unions. There was also confirmation from the leadership that the CWU would remain a stand-alone union (rather than merging into a bigger general union). There has been no national discussion of General Conference business (i.e. what affects the whole union, not the industrial policies of differing sectors...

Mike Davis reviews Corbynism: what went wrong? This is a thoughtful if polemical book charting the rise and fall of the Corbyn project. The essence of the analysis is that Corbynism ran aground on two political issues: antisemitism and Brexit. The remedy for which could have been debate and education. Additionally only a meagre culture of political discussion was developed. Membership mushroomed with Corbyn’s election in 2015. However, the older rejoiners were already "formed" and youth were not drawn into regular activity and education—youth and student activity declined, while the right...

The Alliance for Workers' Liberty has issued Corbynism: What Went Wrong? , a 60-page assessment of the collapse of the Corbyn project. At the outset, the pamphlet correctly identifies the ‘real lost promise’ of Corbynism. Rather than building an independent socialist movement in workplaces and communities which could have ousted the right in the Parliamentary Labour Party and in local government, propelled Labour to power and held the leadership to account on its promises, Corbyn kept the membership as an auxiliary social movement only to be mobilised at times of leadership or parliamentary...

Martin Thomas, author of Corbynism: What Went Wrong? , responds to the reviews of the booklet by Mike Davis and Urte March in this issue of Solidarity and earlier ones by Richard Price and Andrew Coates online . Solidarity and Workers’ Liberty work to transform the existing labour movement, not to create “our own” labour movement alongside it. We do our work by organising and educating for the battles of today, which, as yet, perforce, are “reform” struggles. That far we agree with Mike Davis — that nine-tenths of the work for the socialist revolution is “in the womb of the existing society”...

Slightly more than half the original text is missing from the version of this article in circulation, in the Cork Workers’ Club pamphlet Ireland Upon the Dissecting Table.

The year 1949 is pivotal in modern Chinese history. The military victories of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP, who for brevity I will describe as the “Communists”, although in my view they were not communists in any sense used before the 1930s) and the foundation of the People’s Republic of China constitute key components in the “creation myth” of today’s China. The events furnish the current regime with its legitimacy. Many aspects of the Communist seizure of power in 1949 form part of the “furniture” of Chinese politics today. Graham Hutchings’ book, China 1949: Year of Revolution (2021)...

Workers at the Rolls Royce site in Barnoldswick have voted to accept a new offer from the company in their dispute over staffing at the site. Ross Quinn, a Unite officer involved in the dispute, spoke to Solidarity . The key concession in the settlement is the extension of the no-compulsory-redundancies guarantee to five years. That’s a three-year extension on what was on the table previously. The deal also includes an agreement for a company furlough scheme for up to 70 workers, which is a kind of baseline insurance policy if work streams dry up in future. But that’s not something either...

A re-vote has been announced on the defeated deal in the dispute at John Deere agricultural equipment factories, in Iowa and Indiana and elsewhere in the USA. 10,000 workers had vowed to continue, but union officials from the United Automobile Workers (UAW) announced on 12 November that there would be a re-vote on the agreement already overwhelmingly voted down on 3 November, with only small alterations made. This is reminiscent of the UAW actions at Volvo trucks earlier this year, where 3,000 workers voted down three UAW sell out agreements. It takes the total UAW backed contracts rejected by...

The Dreyfus Affair, which began in 1894, is a cause célèbre that refuses to go away. The framing of Captain Alfred Dreyfus on espionage charges split public opinion in France into pro and anti Dreyfusard camps. What gave the case added resonance and placed it high on the list of historic miscarriages of justice was the overwhelming stench of anti semitism surrounding the entire episode. France was recovering from the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71) and the German annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. Ultra-nationalists in particular were out for revanche (revenge) against Germany to win back the...