Now that parliament has voted to increase tuition fees and abolish the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), the student movement needs to force universities and councils to refuse to implement the policies.

Youth and students in Britain have run an astonishing campaign against cuts to education funding, tuition fee increases and the withdrawal of central government funding for the Education Maintenance Allowance. The month of high-intensity protest saw public opinion sway in favour of the student demonstrators, a political crisis in the Liberal Democrats, and most importantly, […]

We staged a 24-hour “teach-in” on Wednesday 8 December in a form of protest against this coalition Government, which has now voted for the raising of tuition fees up to £9,000. The main reason for the occupation was to raise awareness through media coverage about this rise in tuition fees, and we feel we were […]

The day after the mass student walkout on 24 November, the Daily Mail ran the headline, “The Rage of the Girl Rioters”, supposedly exposing a new generation of mindless female thugs. Although the Mail described the images as “disturbing”, I think it was an inspiration to see so many young women protesting. Ninety years on […]

2010 may well always be remembered for its last few weeks when hundreds of thousands of young people came onto the streets in the first great battle against the Con-Dem government. It’s easy to forget that just a year ago, we were only anticipating a Tory government – now the fight has begun against this […]

Over 1000 Oxford students marched through Oxford protesting spending cuts and the Browne review. A student body noted for its conservatism battled the police in an attempt to occupy the university. Today we saw the birth of a new student movement. Organised An initial organising meeting of 200 students discussed the Browne review and its […]

Keith Spencer makes a case-study analysis of a ‘Great Power’ that was at the centre of the global financial whirlwind: Britain The British Conservative Party is openly saying that the cuts programme its government will carry out will touch everyone’s way of life for a generation, while blaming the poor condition of the public finances […]

Two years ago this month, the credit crisis erupted and the world banking system was moments from collapse. Governments carried out huge bank bailouts, pumped money into the economy and invested in order to stimulate the economy. There was even talk of reforming capitalism and ending the power of the speculators. The world economy was […]

The ConDem Cuts are part of an international offensive against working people. But how we can turn the tables on the bosses? Around what tactics and slogans should we unite and what action do we need to take? In this resolution Workers Power outline how we think the resistance should organise to defeat the new […]

Our series on the lives and struggles of great revolutionary women continues with Marija Cubalevska’s look at the life of Russian underground militant Ludmila Stal Ludmila Stal was born in 1872 in Yekaterinoslaw in the Russian Empire, which today is Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine. Although her family were well-off, she was a rebel from her early […]

We continue our series on revolutionary women with a look at the great German socialist Clara Zetkin pioneer of the struggle for women’s liberation, writes Natalie Sedley Clara Zetkin, born in 1857, was a key figure in the world’s first mass socialist party, the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), where she fought for the cause […]

“Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought!” Here we look at the life of Helen Keller as part of our series on revolutionary women in history Many people have heard of Helen Keller, the blind and deaf woman who learned to talk when her friends wrote sign language on her hands. Films […]

This site begins a new series on revolutionary women to highlight their often forgotten role in the communist movement. Katja Teran starts the first in the series on Yevgenia Bosch Yevgenia Bogdanovna Bosch was born on 11 August 1879 (23 August after the calendar was modernised) in Ochakiv in the Ukraine. Victor Serge, the communist writer, […]

The UK economy has officially come out of recession. Unemployment has fallen for the first time in two years. Consumers spent more than expected in the Christmas sales, the housing market appears buoyant and manufacturing companies are reporting levels of optimism not seen for more than two years. But the recovery will be a long, […]

2010 WAS A year of youth rebellion as the students from schools and colleges across the country took furious action against the Tories’ hike in fees and cuts in grants. Let no one speak of the apathetic, playstation generation again. The cry of ‘Tory scum’ went up in every town and city across Britain. Voiced […]

Recent months have seen an increase in the number of homophobic attacks across the country. Alex Kelby and Jim Parker argue for a militant campaign of resistance Over the summer, a number of gay men were attacked coming out of London bars. In one incident, a 21-year old was left paralysed after being repeatedly stabbed […]

Buying sex from a woman who is the victim of trafficking will be made illegal under new legislation. The law will also apply to men who knowingly pay for sex with a woman who has a pimp. Either offence could lead to a rape charge. In addition, new laws will also result in “kerb crawlers” […]

Originally published in our international magazine, fifthinternational.org In February 2008 the resignation of 81 year-old Fidel Castro as Cuban president due to his deteriorating health, and his succession by brother Raul Castro gave rise to debate over the path that Cuba was now to take. Recent economic reforms, particularly those in agriculture have fuelled speculation that […]

The specific role of women workers in the February revolution occurred because of the very acute way the war had affected them. The mobilisation of soldiers and production for the war effort led to enormous deprivation in the cities and villages of Russia. As early as April 1915 there were riots by women demanding bread, […]

“In Rosa Luxemburg the socialist idea was a dominating and powerful passion of both heart and brain, a truly creative passion which burned ceaselessly. The great task and the over-powering ambition of this astonishing woman was to prepare the way for social revolution, to clear the path of history for socialism. To experience the revolution, […]

Betty Heathfield, who died aged 78, will be chiefly remembered for the work she did to organise the miners’ wives movement during the Great Miners’ Strike of 1984-85. As chair of Women Against Pit Closures (WAPC), she helped pull together a mass movement of women, essential to raising money and food for the besieged mining […]

Betty Friedan, who died last month, was a key figure in the modern women’s movement. Her book, The Feminine Mystique, published in the United States in 1963, galvanised women into action and shook up the picture of the ideal family that dominated US life in the post-war boom of the 1950s and 1960s. Friedan came […]

Andrea Dworkin died last month. Dworkin was seen by most as an intransigent, man-hating radical feminist. She wrote extensively about male violence, drawing upon her own experiences.Dworkin had a very traumatic life. She suffered anti-Semitism and sexual abuse from a very young age. Then, after decades as a feminist writer and lecturer she was drugged […]

“Respect for women… can triumph in the Middle East and beyond!” President George Bush at the UN, September 2002 Since the US/UK invasion on Iraq something has practically vanished from its streets. That something is the sight of Iraqi women. Not surprisingly, the empty speeches promising liberation for the women of Iraq after the fall […]

Workers Power 279 October 2003 One hundred years ago this month the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) was founded. The WSPU became the militant wing of a mass movement of women fighting for the vote. Within this organisation many of the direct action tactics used today were first developed. Kirstie Paton and Stuart King […]

Sylvia Pankhurst developed a very different view from her mother and older sister of how the vote for women could be achieved. Although she did not speak out against it, she was opposed to the ‘terrorist’ turn which she believed “retarded a wonderful movement which was rising to a great climax”. For Sylvia a successful […]

George W Bush is set on war. He will not let anything get in his way. Not Iraq’s agreement to let weapons inspectors back. Not the United Nations meddlesome attempt to let diplomacy work to disarm Saddam Hussein. He will try to bully France, bribe Russia and berate China to get the UN Security Council […]

Globalisation strangles the global south, but how can the working class of the poorest countries come to the head of the struggle against it?

What is the programme and why is it important?

  The period of the 1880’s and 1890’s in Germany was a period of rapid industrialisation carried through under the guidance of the repressive German state. It saw the birth and growth of German Social Democracy as the mass workers party. It drew women, and children, into industry on a large scale. It was in […]