Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER
An empire of appearances
Trump’s policy on Ukraine has shifted the transatlantic order and the illusion of European power has been dispelled – leaving behind the harsh reality of the continent’s irrelevance and its inability to shift the geopolitical dial, writes PAWEL WARGAN
BEHEMOTH: Dmitrii Moor’s poster ‘Death to World Imperialism’
A judge in a German court ruled that the ban activity imposed on renowned Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR
From Gaza protest bans to proscribing Palestine Action, political elites are showing a crisis of confidence as they abandon Roy Jenkins’s apologetic approach for Suella Braverman’s aggressive ‘hate march’ rhetoric, writes PAUL DONOVAN
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today
Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
IN A 1920 poster by the Soviet artist Dmitrii Moor, a snake-like behemoth is prodded and repelled by a colourful army waving bayonets and red flags — the world’s colonised and oppressed.
The snake is coiled around a giant factory, representing not only the precious spoils of imperial plunder but also, as hawk-eyed students of Marx might recognise, the fetters that monopolisation imposes on development. “Death to imperialism!” the poster reads.
The image comes across as a curious relic today, if we take the snake to be those European leaders who, with notable snubs and omissions, met in London on Sunday to discuss Ukraine’s humiliation by Washington. Like a century ago, the snake is all grimace and panic. But where is the factory? And where, really, is the threat?
More from this author
PAWEL WARGAN juxtaposes the thriving industrial centre Jiayuguan in China, with the prevailing images of decaying East European great industrial cities
The obfuscation of Nazism’s capitalist roots has seen imperialism redeploy fascism again and again — from the killing fields of Guatemala to the war in Ukraine, writes PAWEL WARGAN
PAWEL WARGAN examines how the nation’s infrastructure projects reflect its journey from poverty to lightning-fast development by combining ancient civilisation with modern socialist construction
In Havana’s streets, where past and future dance, PAWEL WARGAN traces the island’s unwavering socialist commitment, a torch lighting the path for liberation movements from Angola’s battlefields to Palestine's besieged streets
