Solidarity forever part 10: The turn to Bolshevism
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One of the most remarkable aspects of the general election was the extent to which young people rallied behind Jeremy Corbyn. Approximately 250,000 registered to vote on deadline day alone and two thirds of those who cast a ballot voted for Labour.
That electoral surge included the frankly astonishing sight of the decidedly uncool Corbyn being hailed by a host of young black musicians including Akala, Riz Ahmed and JME. Moreover that support coalesced into a movement, #grime4corbyn, and a range of activities including a campaign rally in north London.
One of the most entertaining aspect of the post-election analysis was the spectacle of the Labour right and the liberal commentariat desperately seeking to come to terms with their worst nightmare.
The outcome of the 2017 general election in Scotland was altogether more complex and contradictory than in England and Wales. The election result saw the forward march of the SNP — in power in Scotland since 2007 — not just halted but thrown sharply into reverse. The party went from 56 to 35 MPs, with leading figures such as Alex Salmond and Angus Robertson losing their seats to the Tories.
Emissions stop 400,000 Hiroshima bombs worth of heat from escaping the atmosphere every day. In Against Doom: A Climate Insurgency Manual (PM Press, £11.99) Jeremy Brecher warns the outcome will be either “doom” — 800 parts per million of atmospheric carbon, unsurvivable warming — or a plan to stop burning fossil fuels by 2050.
Part nine of our history of the Wobblies recounts how the First World War changed the terrain — and not for the better.
By 1914 there was a growing acknowledgement within the IWW that despite the huge part it had played in the class struggle, the union had not succeeded in becoming a mass revolutionary force. It had failed to sweep aside the conservative American Federation of Labour (AFL) and lead the American working class to socialism.
Workers in Britain, sick of war and inspired by the Russian Revolution, met in their thousands in June 1917 at the Leeds Convention to debate how to bring the lessons here, writes author Christian Høgsbjerg.
The Russian Revolution of February 1917 inspired many workers internationally, including in Britain. As Aneurin Bevan, then a young miner, once eloquently recalled:
“I remember so well what happened when the Russian Revolution occurred. I remember the miners, when they heard that the Tsarist tyranny had been overthrown, rushing to meet each other in the streets with tears streaming down their cheeks, shaking hands and saying: ‘At last it has happened’.”
The Pentrich Rising in June 1817 emerged from the economic crisis and political repression following the Napoleonic Wars. James Dean recounts the story of this early example of a workers’ insurrection.
This year marks the anniversary of more than one milestone in the revolutionary tradition. Two hundred years ago this month workers from the vicinity of Pentrich, Derbyshire, set out for Nottingham in a bid to overthrow the government.
Workers were denied the vote and the political system was corrupt. The Prince Regent’s treatment of his wife and lavish lifestyle had rendered the monarchy unpopular. Moreover, radicals had been inspired by the writings of Thomas Paine and William Cobbett, as well as the American and French revolutions.
Western societies’ beauty standards are underlain with a racism that has its roots in slavery and colonialism
Shadeism, also known as colourism, is the discrimination against an individual based not just on their perceived “race” but on their darker skin tone. Although two people may both be black, one may suffer further discrimination than the other due to being darker in skin tone, which has led to a sub-categorisation of black people as “light-skinned” or “dark-skinned”.
In the wake of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, the Scottish National Party swept all before it. At the 2015 UK general election it won 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats, taking half the popular vote.
The 2016 Scottish election confirmed the SNP’s dominant position, winning 47 percent of the vote and giving it just short of an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament.
