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
Oil, natural gas and capitalism
War in Ukraine and the Middle East plays into the hands of the US oil and natural gas imperialists, warns ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
[Boyd Norton / Documerica / Creative Commons] 
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
THE great powers — the leading players in the imperialist system — have always required a source for the energy to drive their economic engines. They needed energy resources to build and empower their military might; they needed energy to grow their national economies and power their vessels of trade and transport. Indeed, their socio-economic systems would have collapsed without ample and available energy sources.
At the dawn of the capitalist industrial era, that source came mainly from coal. Coal powered the machines that grew the productivity of labour to great new heights. It is reasonable to think that only those countries with easy access to coal could then become great capitalist powers.
Beginning at the turn of the last century, oil — an abundant, efficient, and easily stored and transported energy source — became essential for the exercise of economic and military might. As modes of transport became dependent upon petroleum products, an intense rivalry was stoked for access to oil, often found in more remote areas of the world, far removed from the great urban centres of the great capitalist powers.
More from this author
The prospect of the Democratic Socialists of America member’s victory in the mayoral race has terrified billionaires and outraged the centrist liberal Establishment by showing that listening to voters about class issues works, writes ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
In 2024, 19 households grew richer by $1 trillion while 66 million households shared 3 per cent of wealth in the US, validating Marx’s prediction that capitalism ‘establishes an accumulation of misery corresponding with accumulation of capital,’ writes ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
The transformation of a stable secular state into a fractured ruin largely ruled by Western-backed fundamentalists exposes the hollow nature of ‘multipolarity’ and the absence of principled anti-imperialism today, writes ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
ZOLTAN ZIGEDY reflects on the lessons from two books looking at the US labour movement and the recent history of spontaneous mass uprisings – and finds two pernicious ideologies working against the interests of the people
