Beyond Waving the Red Flag: Towards a Political Critique of the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Revolutionary Student Movement
Why we’re writing this We are writing this because in
The Marxism of C.L.R. James
Cyril Lionel Robert James (1901-1989) has begun to enjoy a
Socialists, the NDP and Electoral Politics
Recent months have seen a flurry of debates on the
The Contradictions of Corbynism
The debates currently taking place in Canada over Niki Ashton’s
One Hundred Years of the Russian Revolution: A Retrospective View
At a distance of one hundred years, the Russian Revolution,
Cooptation, trust and organizing in institutions: a reply to David Camfield
We agree with both Alan and David that grassroots organizing
Transforming the NDP requires an Independent Approach
After the excitement around the Sanders and Corbyn campaigns, the reasons to be excited about the renewed possibilities within the NDP are evident. It’s clear that whatever their shortcomings, left electoral campaigns can energize new activists, open the political imaginations of millions, and shift the spectrum of acceptable opinions to the left in a short period of time.
Brief Thoughts on the Trudeau Government’s Militarism
The Trudeau Liberals – them of the “sunny ways” – have just announced an increase in military spending
Assad Must Fall: An Interview with Joseph Daher
In the years since the Arab Spring began the international left has become increasingly divided over Syria…
Migration and Capitalism, in the Age of Trump: Toward the Freedom of Movement for People, Not Capital
This past May 1st, across the United States and here in Quebec, the spirit of May Day was alive and well…
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: A Campaign In Defence Of People Without Status
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell: A Campaign In Defence Of People
The NDP Convention: A Leap to the Left?
Optimistically, left-wing observers have celebrated the convention as “a solid defeat for the [party] bureaucracy, visited upon them by a rank-and-file revolt,” or more cautiously suggested that…
Decolonizing Canada
Canada is a colonial-settler state. This society was built by Europeans and their descendents on land taken from the indigenous peoples of Northern North America…
What is a Revolution?
When asked to define revolution, socialists often quote a famous statement by Leon Trotsky: “The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historical events.” …
Three Reasons to Hope for an NDP Victory (in spite of what the party has become)
A statement by the editors of New Socialist Webzine
If you’re not horrified by the 2015 federal election, you’re not paying attention. As the long campaign rolls on, many people are turned off politics by the shallow rhetoric and tightly-controlled discussion orchestrated by the major parties and the mainstream media. Just as bad, the range of political options being offered to people by the leaders of the parties is shrinking.
NDP Election Win in Alberta: Hope for Change?
To the surprise of many, the social democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) was able to rally center-left and protest voters in Alberta to build a credible alternative to the governing Tories. The NDP’s leader, Rachel Notley, won a majority of the legislature’s seats with two-fifths of the popular vote in the May 5 election. The two main conservative parties (the governing Progressive Conservatives and the opposition Wildrose Alliance) won just over half of the popular vote. This was a drop from the right’s much more dominant position in 2012, when the two parties won almost four-fifths of the vote.
Decolonizing Property Rights in Canada
Review of Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ronald M. Derrickson, Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call (Between the Lines, 2015)
This vivid political memoir is co-authored by two prominent Indigenous leaders from interior British Columbia, Arthur Manuel (Secwepemc) and Grand Chief Ronald M. Derrickson (Syilx/Okanagan and Grand Chief of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs). Manuel’s voice predominates in the balance of the book, while Derrickson has written the afterword.
Stories Capitalists Tell
Review of Nicole Aschoff, The New Prophets of Capital (Verso Books, 2015)
Storytelling is important to humans. Storytelling is equally as important to capitalism. In her new book Nicole Ashoff examines the elite in in our society and the stories they tell. She calls them, as the title suggests, “The New Prophets of Capital.”
Many people go to jobs they don’t like and produce things that don’t improve human life. Nicole Aschoff asserts – and I am inclined to agree with her – that this is a strange way to organize society.
Lessons from the CUPE 3902/3903 Strikes at UofT and York
By Umair Muhammad
The simultaneous strikes at the University of Toronto and York University have come to an end. Teaching and Graduate Assistants at both universities (joined in the beginning by Contract Faculty at York) walked picket lines through much of the month of March after contract negotiations with their respective employers broke down.
Following repeated avowals that it could not possibly provide what was being asked of it, York ended up agreeing to meet all of the major demands made by its striking workers. In the case of the strike at UofT, the outcome was not as decisive.
Another Politics
By Steve D’Arcy
Review of Chris Dixon, Another Politics: Talking Across Today’s Transformative Movements (University of California Press, 2014)
If there’s one thing that activists often lack, it is opportunities to reflect about what they’re trying to do, and how it might be done differently and better. Often overworked and pressured to focus on pragmatic and tactical questions under urgent timelines, it can be difficult to give political and strategic reflection the attention it deserves.
Just in the past couple of years, however, a number of widely discussed and important books have been published, inviting serious thinking and sometimes rethinking about what left activists are up to when they organize for social change.