Are workers' co-operatives an alternative to capitalism?

The Social Democratic Workers Party in Austria was, after the German party, the largest Marxist organisation before the First World War. It organised workers on the multinational Austrian side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Both its approach to the "national question" and to class struggle differed dramatically from those of the Bolsheviks in Tsarist Russia, the other multinational empire in Europe. It also produced very different results: the breakup of the Austrian Party along national lines; and missed revolutionary opportunities.

Nationalism, reform and revolution in imperial Austria

The rise of the modern family

For eight decades, the world has been on the edge of a nuclear precipice. The US and the Soviet Union each had at their disposal a massive array of launchers ready to fire a barrage of nuclear weapons that could, in a single day, kill hundreds of millions of people.

The world is an even more dangerous place today. The capacity of nuclear armed superpowers like the US and China to obliterate human life with the touch of a button far exceeds that of the Cold War period. Nuclear weapons are the most obscene but logical conclusion of a whole system based on economic, political and military competition.

Nuclear imperialism: the destroyer of worlds

The Australian Labor Party: an enemy of the working class

Imagining the end of the world: apocalyptic cli-fi

A Marxist analysis of horror

Socialist Alternative is the biggest revolutionary organisation in Australia since the 1920s. We are the only socialist group with a national presence and an expanding membership. Founded by a few dozen people based overwhelmingly in Melbourne in the mid-1990s, SA has grown to over 500 activists spread across the country. While this is nowhere near what we ultimately need, it’s an important achievement in a context where the broader left has otherwise disintegrated.

This talk will examine the history of the group and explain our approach to building socialist organisation.

Socialist Alternative: our history and perspectives

The Struggle are a revolutionary socialist organisation based in Pakistan. The Struggle is involved organising workers through the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign, as well as carrying out work amongst unemployed workers and students. This session will feature guest speakers from The Struggle who will detail their project of building a revolutionary party in Pakistan today.

Observations on Pakistan

Asian Marxist Review

The Struggle

The writings of Lal Khan in particular Pakistan's Other Story – The Revolution of 1968–69.

Revolutionary politics in Pakistan: The Struggle group

The country is host to one of the most diverse and dynamic radical lefts in the world, with a long history of both collaboration and debate. With a country reeling from economic crisis and facing an insurgent far right, there are both opportunities for revolutionaries to find an audience and serious challenges. This session will feature a speaker from the Workers' Socialist Movement (MST), one of the largest Trotskyist groups in the country.

Argentina: Opportunities for the left grow amid debates within the FIT-Unidad

Trotskyism in Argentina: opportunities and challenges

L’Étincelle (The Spark) are a French revolutionary socialist group, active as a current within the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA). This session will feature guest speakers from the party who will explain the situation facing revolutionaries in France in the wake of the latest strike wave against Macron.

Revolutionary politics in France

The Revolutionary Socialist League is a Marxist organisation, founded in Kenya in 2018 by radicals who rejected the pro-China politics of the Communist Party of Kenya. This session will feature RSL activists who will outline their struggle to build an internationalist and socialist left in Africa.

Interview. Ezra Otieno, leadership of the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) of Kenya

Kenya: Manifesto of the Revolutionary Socialist League

What’s behind Kenya’s protests?

The Kenya Socialist journal

Books by Shiraz Durrani on the history of the Kenyan left

Building a socialist left in Africa: the Revolutionary Socialist League of Kenya

Despite the fact that real wages have fallen at the fastest rate in decades over the past 12 months, there has been little resistance in Australia in the form of working class struggle. Union coverage and industrial action are at historic lows. This situation may seem daunting, but it isn't completely new. This talk will look at the roots of this defeat, and explain how organised radicals have rebuilt the union movement from the ground up before.

What can we learn from past union revivals?

Our unions in crisis: how did it come to this?

Trade Unionism in Australia

Rebuilding unions and class power in 2024

From below-inflation wage 'rises' to the end of progressive income tax, from privatisation of public housing to further restrictions on the right to strike- the ALP and the Australian capitalist class today in lock-step attacking workers. How do we explain Labor's appalling record, and what can activists and workers do to build resistance to a right wing Labor government?

Workers under attack from ALP and capital

In many parts of the world, the major electoral battles are between the so-called political centre and the far right 

Trump vs Biden, Le Pen vs Macron, and so on. The threat of insurgent far-right forces is used in an attempt to re-legitimise ailing mainstream capitalist parties. But the parties of the centre are invariably the ones that have laid the basis for far-right victories through their wholesale adoption of neoliberalism and normalisation of racism.

Paul Mason’s ‘popular front’ of failures is not the way to beat the right

The Extreme Centre

Can the political centre defeat the far right?

WW2 is popularly presented as a crusade against the threat to humanity and democracy posed by fascism. The war saw massive popular armed movements emerge to resist the Nazis from France to Yugoslavia, driven by the desire of ordinary people to rid the world of the poison of fascism. So why did the victory of these movements and the military defeat of the Axis powers not wipe fascist politics from Europe?  This talk will explain how the the 'anti-fascist' Allied imperialists gave the fascists a lifeline, preserving their influence in key sections of the state and society, and laying the basis for their eventual resurgence

Chapter 4 from A People's History of Europe From World War I to Today

Nazi Billionaires. The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties

Where did all the Nazis go? Post-war Europe and the limits of "denazification"

Indian politics is dominated by the personality of Narendra Modi. Since his re-election in 2019, there has been a steady erosion of democracy and an increase in state and mob violence towards India’s 195 million Muslims. But Modi, and the government he leads, cannot be understood without looking at the growth of the powerful National Volunteer Organisation (RSS), an extra-parliamentary fascist movement of 4 million active members. The RSS is rooted in Hindutva, an extremist Hindu nationalist tradition which has had links with European fascism since the 1920s. This session will discuss the politics behind the rise of fascism in India today.

Fascism, Hindutva and the Modi government

Fascism confronts us today not just as a dark chapter in twentieth century history, but as an emerging danger in our own times. It demands serious analysis, yet the explanation offered by mainstream thinkers is deeply unsatisfactory. Theorising fascism requires an understanding of the capitalist societies in which it emerges, the crises these societies produce and the class tensions inherent to them. This is the focus of the session.

Fascism: What It Is and How To Fight It

Marxism and Fascism

Fascism and the working class

We got Trumped Results and prospects after the 2016 election

Social class and fascism

After decades of recurring economic crisis, state-sponsored racism and the failure of the political centre, far right parties have swept into government in Sweden, Finland and Italy. Many of these parties have roots in the explicitly anti-democratic fascist tradition, but claim to have changed their stripes and embraced constitutional methods. But how deep does this commitment really run? Come along to this session to discuss the relationship between the far right and parliament today.

Neoliberal capitalism implodes: global catastrophe and the far right today

Fascism’s return to Italy? The meaning of the Fratelli d’Italia

A race to the right: Éric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen and France’s presidential election

The far right and parliamentary democracy in Europe today

The situation is dire: after a record-breaking heatwave in the northern hemisphere this year, the UN chief warned we now face 'global boiling'. Capitalists and their governments have openly abandoned the 1.5C target for average temperature rises that is the acknowledged ceiling for a liveable planet and stable ecosystem. So is it too late? Have we missed the boat? This talk will make that climate action is still possible, and explain why a socialist society based on democratic workers' power is the only way we are going to save the planet.

Why it's not too late to save the planet

The concept of "degrowth" has in recent years received greater attention as a framework for developing a serious response to climate change. Theories of degrowth argue that environmental destruction is inherent to societies organised for economic growth, and that resolving ecological crisis requires the restructuring of society to implement a contraction of economic production and consumption.

This session will present a Marxist engagement with degrowth theorists, evaluating the extent to which it may or may not be a positive contribution to Marxism as a theory of working-class revolution.

Thinking about ecology with Marx – A review of Kohei Saito’s "Marx in the Anthropocene"

Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism

What do Marxists say about degrowth communism?

It's estimated there are around 1.5b cars in the world today. Of the ten largest corporations of the world, three are car manufacturers and six are oil companies. There's no doubt about it- capitalism loves cars. Cars debt-burden working class people, they mean we spend hours log jammed in traffic just trying to get to work, they devour public space, and poison the air. This isn't the fault of working class people- private car ownership is promoted aggressively by the capitalist class, and cities are constructed to make cars necessary. This talk will look at the relationship of cars to industry, urban planning and social control.

Auto-capitalism: a political history of cars

Capitalism shapes every element of our lives, from the conditions we work in to what we put on our plates. Food production, distribution, and consumption patterns are shaped by the capitalist class. This has created a world where a billion are undernourished, millions go without food every day, and the biggest food company in the world, Nestle, admits that more than 60% of its products are bad for people. This session will cover how the priorities of capitalist rule determine what we eat.

Gastro-capitalism: a political history of food

From the opium wars of the 19th century to the opioid epidemic of the 21st, capitalism's drive for profit has driven addiction and dependency on drugs for centuries. At the same time, the use of drugs has been regulated and criminalised by the state, as a means of social control and a pretext for political repression. This talk will explore the relationship between capitalism and drugs.

Capitalism is turning us into addicts

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America

Narco-capitalism: a political history of drugs

The COVID pandemic, economic crisis and climate catastrophe have all exposed the continued and seeming irresolvable divide between the first and third worlds. To many, this divide can be explained as a simple case of rich countries getting rich off the back of poor ones. This can find echoes in the left in concepts like 'unequal exchange' and the 'labour aristocracy', which argue that first world workers benefit alongside their bosses from the exploitation of the third world. This talk will provide a critique of these ideas and argue that the central divide is the same across the globe- one between the bosses that organise exploitation, and a working class who have an interest in ending it.

Why the world is unequal

Is there a labour aristocracy in Australia?

“Exploring working-class consciousness: a critique of the theory of the ‘labour aristocracy’”

Do workers benefit from the exploitation of the third world?

Karl Marx was scathing of most of the professional philosophers of his day- writing famously in 1845 that "Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."  Today, bourgeois academic philosophy is further removed than ever from a real engagement with the world and strategies for radical change. At the same time, Marx and many Marxists since have engaged seriously with the ideas of mainstream philosophy. Can Marxists learn anything from the discipline? Come along to this talk to find out.

History and Class Consciousness

The Point is to Change It! An Introduction to Marxist Philosophy

Marxism vs bourgeois philosophy

The role of union officials is to act as bargaining agents over the terms under which their members’ ability to work is sold to bosses. They are under pressure from their members below, who want to defend and improve wages and conditions, and from employers and governments above, who want to maximise profits and the economic growth they generate. Consequently, as British Marxist Tony Cliff argued: “At all decisive moments the union bureaucracy is bound to side with the state, but in the meantime it vacillates”. This talk will explain the roots and nature of trade union bureaucracies, and explore the role they play in constraining and shaping class struggle – a central question for revolutionaries to confront.

The rank and file and the trade union bureaucracy

Managers of Discontent

Chapter 2: Marxism, bureaucracy and the trade unions from Marxism & Trade Union Struggle: The General Strike of 1926

Understanding the trade union bureaucracy

In most of the world, Stalinist states have long since disintegrated. Many of the Communist parties that supported them have likewise collapsed. But even where organised Stalinism appears to have vanished, its ideological legacy lives on. As in every oppressive state, the Stalinist bureaucracy had to produce an ideology that justified its existence. We are used to the rulers of free market capitalist societies promoting some mixture of nationalism, “democratic” values and religious piety to convince their victims that we're all on the same team. Stalinism had its own versions of those tricks. But they were almost all expressed in the language of Marxism. That has left a poisonous legacy that holds back social movements to this day.  This talk will explain how Stalinism distorted Marxism, and why these ideas persist in parts of the left today.

The fraud of Stalinism

Stalinism's long shadow

Stalinism today

There are few historical figures who have been subject to as much abuse as Leon Trotsky. In Stalin's Soviet Union he was slandered as a Nazi collaborator or agent of Western imperialism. Winston Churchill, on the other hand, labelled him the “ogre of Europe” for fighting to extend socialist revolution across the continent. The ire that Trotsky has provoked in defenders of the status-quo stems from his uncompromising struggle against a world built on exploitation, violence and oppression. He dedicated his life to the socialist revolution and held a profound belief that the working class has the ability to lead it. This talk will explore Trotsky's life and role in the Russian Revolution, and his fight against the counter-revolutionary crimes of Stalinism.

Who was Leon Trotsky?

The Prophet: The life of Leon Trotsky by Issac Deutscher. Trotsky (Vol 1 - 4)

Marx was one of the most contested figures of the 20th century. Within the socialist movement, he was an object of conflictual interpretations with their political and theoretical stakes in play. This talk will be about three key moments of twentieth century Marxist interpretations of Marx. The focus in the first section will be on the Second International. This phase of interpreting Marx was a foundational moment marked by the republication of writings like The Poverty of Philosophy as well as the revisionist debates that opened up in Germany, flowing into Italy, France and Russia. At issue will be at the ways in which Marx was taken up, popularised and theoretically worked through in the context of the Second International. The second part will concentrate on interpretations of Marx that followed from the Russian and German revolutions in the context of the split within Social Democracy and the emergence of the Third International. This is a remarkable phase of the Marxist interpretation of Marx because of its emancipatory potential opened up by the process of revolution. The third part deals with the postwar debates about Marx - rich not only because of the new resources and materials that were available but also because of their comprehensive theoretical content, although with the caveat that the interpretations of Marx were often marked by the dominance of Stalinism. This phase of the talk will explore the conflict between the young and the old Marx, the philosophical and scientific Marx, reformist and revolutionary interpretations of Marx's politics, with an eye to the theoretical and political content that emerges from each interpretation.

Interpretations of Marx in the 20th century

On 30 November 1999, tens of thousands besieged a meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle. Facing down riot cops firing tear gas, workers and activists raged against the calamities wrought by the free-market fundamentalist brand of capitalism known as neoliberalism: exploitation, third-world debt and environmental destruction. The protests gave a boost to an emerging global justice movement that provided a focus for a revived international left in opposition to neoliberal capitalism. This talk will examine the impact of the Seattle and the politics of the global "anti-capitalist" movement which followed in its wake and ignited politics and protest across the world, from Greece to Australia.

Seattle and the Global Justice Struggle

Today’s Socialist Revival Began on the Streets of Seattle 20 Years Ago

How the Battle of Seattle ignited a movement for global justice

The contemporary narrative of Jewish history is one of ghettos, pogroms, suffering, oppression – Jews as the eternal victims. 

But in the 1930s, Jewish political currents engaged with non-Jewish socialists in struggle: they fought fascists, engaged in tenants' strikes, formed defence groups, led mass demonstrations and linked up with the struggles of other oppressed groups. From New York to London to Warsaw, Jews engaged in class struggle and fought anti-Semitism as part of a wider left. Janey Stone, co-author of forthcoming book 

The Radical Jewish Tradition: Revolutionaries, Resistance Fighters and Firebrands

, will look at the different political currents and how their strategies played out in this tempestuous decade.

Revolutionaries, resistance fighters and firebrands - the radical Jewish tradition

Socialists, communists, Bundists and Zionists: Jews on the left in the 1930s

The neoliberal offensive of the 1980s saw a massive attack against the gains that workers had managed to win from the system in the post-war years. Wages were cut, unemployment rose, public services were privatised, the banks deregulated and union rights were restricted. We are still living through the consequences of this turn in international politics and economics today. This talk will explore the origins of the neoliberal turn and explore its legacies for today.

Theorising Neoliberalism

The Neoliberal era in Britain

Chapter 9 and 10 from Zombie Capitalism

The origins of the neoliberal order

The period from the end of the Second World War until the recession of the mid 1970s saw one of the longest and most sustained economic booms in the history of capitalism. Why did this take place? And why did it finally come to an end? While the success of these years is often put down to Keynesian economics this talk will unpack the real roots, and limits, of capitalism's "golden age" and explain why even during this period the system continued to be one of exploitation and oppression.

Chapter 3 from Explaining the Crisis

Chapters 7 and 8 from Zombie Capitalism

Western capitalism since the war

The post-war boom: capitalism's golden age?

The Wall Street crash of 1929 was a watershed moment. It not only plunged millions of workers into poverty but had a dramatic economic and political impact on world capitalism. In its wake, major economies embraced protectionism and state intervention and turned away from the "free" market. This laid the basis for a renewed intensification of international and domestic political tensions on everything from the remilitarisation of Europe to the expansion of Japanese imperialism into China and the crisis of the Weimar Republic in Germany. This session will unpack both the reasons why the Great Depression broke out and how it reshaped world capitalism for years to come.

Chapter 26 from The Deluge: The Great War and the Making of the Global Order, 1916-1931

Chapter 2 from Prisoners of the American Dream

Chapter 6: The Great Slump from Zombie Capitalism

Chapters 2 - 6 from The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

How the Great Depression reshaped world capitalism

When it comes to a socialist analysis of cities, David Harvey is a towering figure, with decades of influential writing on the subject. He offers a searing critique of how our urban environments are shaped by the priorities of capitalism, and champions urban rebellions.

However, his analysis rests on a problematic reading of Marxism and capitalist crisis, and an approach to anti-capitalist resistance which takes us away from working class struggle, in favour of more ill-defined and ultimately ineffective struggles over space. This session will offer a critique of Harvey and an alternative Marxist approach.

David Harvey’s theory of uneven geographical development: A Marxist critique, Capital & Class

Social Justice and the City: Revised Edition

The urbanization of capital : studies in the history and theory of capitalist urbanization

Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution

David Harvey's Theory of Accumulation by Dispossession: A Marxist Critique

Capitalism and cities: a critique of David Harvey's theory of urban development

Australia is one of the most expensive places to live in the world. Data shows that the cost of housing has increased 412% over the past 25 years. After an endless construction boom, housing is more unaffordable than ever, mortgage and rental stress have increased and homelessness is on the rise. How did it come to this? This talk will explain the market failure at the heart of the housing crisis.

Property profiteers: who benefits from the housing crisis?

Socialist solutions to the housing crisis

Capital City: Gentrification and the Real Estate State

Greedy landlords and rising mortgages: a guide to the housing crisis

At the height of the Great Depression, eviction was a constant threat for working-class people. By 1932 the unemployment rate had reached 29 percent, with no sign of economic recovery on the horizon. Abandoned by the system, workers organised to resist eviction and fight for tenant protection. The Communist Party-led Unemployed Workers' Movement showed the way, organising direct militant direct action to keep working class people in their homes, and eventually won a moratorium on evictions in NSW. This talk will explore the relevant lessons of this struggle as we face a new housing crisis.

We met them at the door: resisting evictions in the Depression

The unemployed who kicked: a study of the political struggles and organisations of the New South Wales unemployed in the Great Depression

When renters fought back: the anti-eviction struggles of the 1930s

The history of anti-Chinese sentiment in Australia has been driven by the Australian ruling class’s agenda, their strategic concerns and their imperialist aims. This was true in the period of White Australia, and is true today as a result of rising tensions between the US and China. This talk will investigate the history of anti-Asian racism in Australia to shed light on its roots and explain its relationship to capitalism.

Revisiting the roots of anti-Chinese racism

The yellow peril: a history of anti-Asian racism

National identification is today taken for granted by virtually the whole of humanity. An underlying assumption is that such identification is natural and therefore of very long duration.

Similarly, the idea of national borders and the need to police them is assumed to have a long history.  Yet, in reality, the nation is a recent phenomenon, and so are the closed borders that surround it. Nations and nationalism are constructs forged in the capitalist era. The prime beneficiaries are the ruling classes, who use narratives about the “national interest” to divide workers and restrict our movement, while their corporations move investments with ease across the globe, exploiting and pillaging as they go.

This talk will look at the construction of nations and borders under capitalism and make the socialist case for global freedom of movement, and ultimately a world without national division altogether.

Border crimes: The case for global freedom of movement

Can there be a world without borders?

The civil rights and black power movements of the 1960s saw an upsurge in Black nationalism- a varied political tendency which expressed the desire to struggle for independence from the oppressive structures of the American state. These ideas inspired organisations from the Nation of Islam to the Black Panther Party, spread across the world, and still shape discussions about racial justice today. This session will explore the difference between revolutionary Marxist and Black nationalist strategies for defeating racism.

Race and Class

Mistaken identity: can identity politics liberate the oppressed?

Chapters 10 and 11 from Black Liberation & Socialism

Marxism vs Black nationalism: strategies for defeating racism

Women's lives are radically different today compared to 50 years ago. The position of women has improved and their horizons widened--no longer is family life the main determinant of a woman's value. But this has brought with it an relative decrease in living standards for many working women. The position of women today is a lesson in how capitalism incorporates the gains of the oppressed and uses them to its advantage, and what is needed to win real liberation. This session will look at the women's liberation movement of the 20th century, the debates within it, and why it failed to end gendered oppression.

Brazen Hussies and the weaknesses of the women’s liberation movement

Chapters 8,9 and 10 from Sex, Class & Socialism

Debates and legacies of the women's liberation movement

Issues of gender and sexuality—whether it be abortion rights, marriage or who uses what bathroom—have become a particular focus of the Christian right both here and in the United States in recent years. To defend the important gains that have been made in these areas over the last few decades, it is essential for the left to effectively confront and defeat the right. This session will look at how we can best do that.

Why sexism persists

Will we learn the lessons from the defeat of Roe?

Andrew Tate is a misogynistic monster pimp

Trans rights are under attack

Marxism, moral panic and the war on trans people

The global backlash against women's & LGBT rights

The relative acceptance of lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the advanced capitalist world has not come about without a fight. An important phase of this fight occurred in the 1960s and 70s with the advent of the Gay Liberation Movement. This session will look at how the movement emerged and developed in Australia, it’s politics and the legacy it has left.

A thousand rainbows will shake the sky: the left and gay liberation

Chapter 4 from Sexuality and Socialism

Revolution is for us: The left and gay liberation in Australia

Out of the bars and into the streets: the gay liberation movement

Human sexuality is a challenge to understand in a society where it is so profoundly shaped by oppression and social expectation. Queer theory and Marxism offer competing insights. One concerns itself with explaining why sexuality is expressed the way it is, and how it could be different, while the other proposes an integrated theory of human liberation. This session will make a case for a revolutionary Marxist understanding of how sexual liberation can be won.

Queer theory and politics

Chapter 6 from Sexuality and Socialism

In perspective: Judith Butler

Marxism vs queer theory: fighting for sexual liberation

First articulated in the 1980s, intersectionality has its origins in legal theory. It has since been taken up by progressives and others, ostensibly as a way to integrate different forms of oppression into political theory and practice. But like most buzzwords, intersectionality means different things to different people. This session will look at whether it adds anything new to the fight against oppression and the system that causes it.

Limits of Intersectionality

The failure of identity politics: A Marxist analysis, Marxist Left Review

A Marxist critique of intersectionality

The vote wasn't handed down by generous benevolent capitalists or enlightened reforming politicians- across the world democratic rights are the product of working class and popular struggle. This talk will focus on the struggle for suffrage in England, the radical working class aspirations that drove it and how the capitalist class constrained real democracy in order to protect their power and privilege.

The Vote: How it was Won and how it was Undermined

The Southern Tree of Liberty: The Democratic Movement in New South Wales Before 1856

How we won the right to vote

Equal pay for women was only made law in 1974. The systematic underpayment of women for the same work as men was an important profit-making mechanism for the capitalist class - one which they weren't willing to give up without a fight. This session will it look at the industrial militancy, defiance and rebellions led by working class women and men, which paved the way for legal wage equality in Australia.

Australian unions and the fight for equal pay for women

Some are more equal than others' : Australian trade union campaigns for equal pay, 1968-1975

The fight for equal pay for women

From sit-ins to urban rebellions, the movements for Civil Rights and Black Power saw explosive struggles that rocked the foundations of the American state and the racism which is it is built upon. This inspiring and radical period continues to be an important reference point for anti-racist activists today. With the emergence Black Lives Matter, there has been a renewed interest in the lessons from this history. This session will explore the development of these movements and the political debates which coloured this high point of anti-racist revolt in the United States.

Roots of the Civil Rights Movement from Black Liberation and Socialism

Race, Class and the Civil Rights Movement

Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

The civil rights movement and the struggle against Jim Crow

For almost five decades, racial segregation was enshrined and institutionalised South Africa. Apartheid was a system based on brutal racism which oppressed and exploited the majority of Black workers while maintaining the enrichment and rule of a white minority. This session will discuss what it took to overthrow apartheid - the heroic resistance within South Africa along with the solidarity of workers and student movements across the globe, as well as explore the broken promises and betrayals of the ANC.

How South African apartheid was ended

South Africa Between Reform and Revolution

Between Apartheid and Capitalism Conversations with South African Socialists

How the South African working class defeated apartheid

At the turn of the 20th century, Germany was one of the world's most advanced capitalist countries, yet also one of the youngest. Economic and military competition between Germany and the established empires of Britain and France helped to foster a crisis in the global system which would eventually break out into WWI. It also drove the organisation and radicalisation of the German working class, who would eventually end the war by overthrowing their old rulers in the November Revolution of 1918. This session will discuss the experience of revolutionary socialists in Germany as they attempted to clarify their tasks and strategies at a time of unprecedented turmoil.

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