Something surprising happened in September. Ed Miliband managed to dominate the party conference season and even make mainstream politics spark to life for once. Miliband’s decision to respond to the Tories’ boast the economic “recovery” vindicates their austerity measures by focusing on what he rightly called the “cost of living crisis” gave some expression to...
The English Defence League (EDL) suffered a significant blow last month when they attempted to march through the heart of Tower Hamlets in East London. Instead of being a day spent intimidated the local Muslim community and its allies, the EDL found itself unable to set a foot inside the borough. This is an important...
At first glance Angela Merkel has won a brilliant victory in last month’s German election. The vote of her conservative CDU and its Bavarian sister party CSU rose from 33.8 percent in 2009 to 41.5 percent. However, they cannot continue to govern in coalition with the neoliberal FDP – its share of the vote dropped...
Manbij is a poor and rural town of some 200,000 people in north eastern Syria. The city is half an hour’s drive from the border with Turkey and the vital Tishrin Dam. It sits in the agricultural hinterland of Aleppo with one of the largest mills in the region, grinding some 500 tonnes of flour...
Ghayath Naisse argues that the local committees, councils and Free Syrian Army brigades that emerged out of the revolt are a testament to the popular nature of the revolution.
Zero hours contracts have become a symbol of austerity Britain. Workers at the Hovis bakery in Wigan have shown how they can be beaten.
Simon Basketter reports on an important step forward in the battle to rebuild union organisation across construction sites.
Socialist Review spoke to Hassan Mahamdallie, one of the contributors to the new book Say it Loud, about the fight against racism in Britain, the role played by socialists and the lessons for today.
October 2013 is the bicentenary of the birth of the great Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi. Sabby Sagall explains how his operas were not only profoundly shaped by the revolutionary times he lived in, but how they in turn helped inspire the unification movement to ultimate victory.
A whole series of new and renewed groups, protests and movements have appeared in response to the “new sexism” – personified by raunch culture popular on campus – that are increasingly defining themselves as feminist. Some of those involved with these movements are drawn to the ideas of “intersectionality”, which attempt to explain how race,...
A string of drugs scandals have highlighted the contradictions of sport under capitalism.
Bayard Rustin was a key strategist in the US civil rights movement and the main organiser of the March on Washington. He was also gay and a communist. Josh Hollands celebrates his life and achievements.
