The upturn in industrial militancy that took place from 1970-4 remains the most intense period of British class struggle since the turbulent years at the end of the First World War when Britain stood on the brink of revolution.
Guy Smallman is in Beirut to document the human cost of the war for Socialist Worker - here is his diary and photographs for this week
"The Arab people now consider Hizbollah to be heroes because they are confronting the enemy Israel and protecting their land... Even if Hizbollah were destroyed, another Hizbollah would emerge within a year or two somewhere else - maybe in Jordan, in Syria, in Egypt or in Iraq."
Israel claims its war on Lebanon was triggered by Hizbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers, and says it holds only two Lebanese prisoners.
‘We are living through the beginning of the end of international law." These are the words of Irish Labour Party president Michael Higgins, faced with the carnage Israel is unleashing on Lebanon. The attacks’ brutality has led to a chorus of denunciations of Israel’s apparent disregard for international law.
"How long before there’s a revolution?" This question was asked by the journalist Robert Fisk in the Independent last week as he considered the implications for the Arab world of the turmoil in Lebanon.
The last time the Arab world saw such radicalism was in the 1950s and 1960s when a struggle against colonialism and imperialism looked like it could herald a new era for the region.
Thirty years ago a small group of Asian workers at the Grunwick plant led a historic fight - and faced an onslaught from the right wing gang that would help to launch Thatcherism.
Today it is hard to imagine that sections of the British establishment, faced with a Labour government, would begin to organise to bring it down.
Postal workers were in the forefront of the solidarity with Grunwick. Derek Walsh was one of the postal workers involved in the dispute.
I got involved with the strike on the second day. Someone in the flat downstairs who worked at Grunwick told me, "It’s a little place you’ll never have heard of, but we’re on strike."
Since the start of the new millennium, a new generation of activists has risen to challenge capitalism.
