September 2024
Leicester meeting on Council Communism - Tues 25 April 2017
Here’s an advance reminder of our forthcoming libertarian socialist discussion meeting which takes place at 7pm on Tuesday 25th April. The topic for this month’s discussion is:
What is council communism and is it still relevant today?
Council communism was an influential, historic left-communist current which developed mostly in Germany (where it became a significant force within the working class movement) and the Netherlands, with notable theorists and supporters such as Anton Pannekoek, Herman Gorter, Otto Rühle, Sylvia Pankhurst, Paul Mattick and Reichstag fire starter, Marinus van der Lubbe. Lenin dismissed it as an “infantile disorder” but council communist ideas have since influenced a range of more libertarian left-marxists as well as non-marxist groups such as the Anarchist Federation. So what is it exactly and what can we learn from it today?
This meeting is organised by the Leicester group of the Anarchist Federation and takes place at the Regent Sports & Social Club, 102 Regent Road, Leicester LE1 7DA which is just a short walk from Leicester train station.
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- Navigating the Basics
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Glasgow Bookfair
RED AND BLACK CLYDESIDE BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a stall at the Red and Black Clydeside Bookfair, there will also be an NBWCW meeting.
When: Saturday, 7 December 2024
Where: TBA
London Public Meeting
ANTI-FASCISM AGAINST THE WORKING CLASS
PUBLIC MEETING AND DISCUSSION
On 30 July riots broke out across the UK which targeted Muslim neighbourhoods and places sheltering migrants, following a stabbing in Southport the day before. The riots were fuelled by fascist groups and far right websites spreading the conspiracy theory that the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker.
Decades of racist propaganda from mainstream news sources, which blame immigrants for workers’ decline in their standard of living, have led to many thinking that immigration into Britain is the cause of reduced wages, homelessness, a collapsing health service, failing schools etc. rather than increased exploitation of the working class and capitalism’s economic crisis.
The response to this from capitalism’s political left has been to organise against fascism, with national demonstrations of the ‘great and good’ against the riots and against racism in defence of democratic freedoms. But fascism and democracy are simply strategies of the capitalist class to continue exploiting us. Strategies they use to recruit us to fight their wars. Organising specifically against fascism, amounts to supporting one section of the capitalist class against another. It is still in favour of the capitalist system. What we need is to oppose the entire capitalist system through the broader class struggle, leading to the eventual overthrow of capitalism itself.
While other approaches to anti-fascism involve small groups, engaged in physical confrontations with fascists, it is an approach that similarly offers no solutions to a system that breeds racism.
We argue that only the end of capitalism can put an end to poverty, misery and racism and only the working class can achieve this.
Come join us in a public meeting to discuss this.
When: Saturday, 9 November 2024, at 2:00pm
Where: The Lucas Arms, 245A Grays Inn Rd, London, WC1X 8QY (nearest tube: King's Cross)
Communist Workers' Organisation
IWG Meetings
IWG MEETINGS
The IWG will be holding regular in-person meetings where sympathizers are encouraged to come and get in contact.
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Los Angeles: Please contact to get in touch.
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Recent publications
August 2024
Aurora is the broadsheet of the ICT for the interventions amongst the working class. It is published and distributed in several countries and languages. So far it has been distributed in UK, France, Italy, Canada, USA, Colombia.
Out now!
Journal of the Communist Workers’ Organisation -- Why not subscribe to get the articles whilst they are still current and help the struggle for a society free from exploitation, war and misery? Joint subscriptions to Revolutionary Perspectives (3 issues) and Aurora (our agitational bulletin - 4 issues) are £15 in the UK, €24 in Europe and $30 in the rest of the World.
Written by Jock Dominie. £12, 276pp.
The Russian Revolution remains a landmark event in history. For the bourgeois historians, the October Revolution is thought to be a tragedy that set back the achievements of the “democratic” February Revolution, and allowed the Bolsheviks to wreak havoc on their citizens and the world. For the Stalinists, the events of 1917 paved the way for the birth of the USSR, which they point to as a prototypical example of “socialism in one country”. In reality, the February and October Revolutions were both part of the same proletarian revolution.
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Hello!
Hello!
Was this meeting recorded? Are there any transcripts or anything of the sort available?
Thank you!