Class Follow

Alongside the protests of the unemployed, two mass campaigns dominated politics in the 1930s – against fascism and war. The working class movement and its activists played a central role in spreading the message.

During the Vietnam War, the US ruling class reacted to growing domestic opposition to the conflict by getting locally recruited forces to take over the bulk of the fighting, and thus the bulk of the casualties. The process was known as "Vietnamisation".

The British working class movement experienced some of its darkest days in the 1930s. It had suffered three major blows to its confidence and organisation – the defeat of the 1926 General Strike, the collapse in 1931 of the second Labour government and the impact of the world economic slump that began in 1929.

The television series The Line of Beauty asks questions about sexuality and class.

For 12 years Tony Blair and his coterie have driven New Labour towards its slavish worship of the free market. Its decision to back George Bush and his wars flowed from a shared commitment to serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful. At each stage the Blairites have treated Labour’s traditional working class supporters with contempt.

Labour minister Margaret Hodge said last Sunday that all the political parties have abandoned the white working class.

It was the day the British working class reminded everyone of its power.

In May this year we will be marking the 80th anniversary of the General Strike of 1926. It was one of the struggles that, during the 20th century, marked out the British working class as having tremendous strength and combativity – but also craven and incompetent leaders.

We tend to think that societies are either capitalist or not, class societies or not. But ignoring the smaller differences means we fail to see one of the most important processes shaping human sociality.

Socialist historians met in London last week for a conference on 1956, a key year which saw the Suez crisis and a workers’ revolution in Hungary. Stan Newens, the former left wing Labour MP, was a young activist in London at the time. He spoke to Socialist Worker about the impact of that year on working class people.

Acclaimed Marxist geographer David Harvey talks to Joseph Choonara about the rise of neo-liberalism, and why it should be seen as a ruling class project.

Around 350 people met in London last Saturday for a meeting organised by the RMT union on the crisis in working class political representation.