Adverts
Liverpool Bookfair
LIVERPOOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a stall at the Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair.
When: Saturday, 18 March 2023
Where: Black-E, Great George Street, Liverpool, L1 5EW
Online Public Meeting
IWG EDUCATION GROUP MEETING
Discussion of part II of the Class Consciousness and Revolutionary Organisation pamphlet.
When: Monday, 13 March 2023, at 7:00pm (EST)
Where: Zoom (request an invite by contacting us through our social media: linktr.ee)
Internationalist Workers’ Group
Online Public Meeting
IWG EDUCATION GROUP MEETING
Discussion of part I of the Class Consciousness and Revolutionary Organisation pamphlet.
When: Monday, 27 February 2023, at 7:00pm (EST)
Where: Zoom (request an invite by contacting us through our social media: linktr.ee)
Internationalist Workers’ Group
Sheffield Bookfair
SHEFFIELD RADICAL BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a stall at the Sheffield Radical Bookfair.
When: Saturday, 4 February 2023
Where: DINA, Fitzalan Square, Sheffield S1 2AZ
Derry Bookfair
DERRY RADICAL BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a stall at the Derry Radical Bookfair.
When: Saturday, 28 January 2023
Where: Pilots Row Centre, Rossville St, Londonderry BT48 6LP
Glasgow Public Meeting
NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR
PUBLIC MEETING AND DISCUSSION
The war in Ukraine has intensified the antagonism between rival imperialisms, with neither side willing to back down. NATO's decision to integrate Sweden and Finland, and Russia's recent annexations of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaphorizhia, are leading both into a more generalised, possibly nuclear war. Meanwhile, closer to home, wages continue to fall in real terms against inflation, and many will soon have to choose between whether to eat or keep the heat and lights on this winter. The working class have begun to fight back, but the usual suspects are cynically co-opting the rage and fury for their own ends. The working class needs its own internationalist organisations to dismantle the capitalist system and create a new world without war or immiseration. Join us in Glasgow to discuss the future of the class war and what the working class must do to win it!
When: Friday, 9 December 2022, at 7:00pm
Where: Govanhill Neighbourhood Centre, 6 Daisy Street, Glasgow, G42 8JL
Anarchist Communist Group & Communist Workers’ Organisation
London Public Meeting
WORKERS' FIGHTBACK, IMPERIALIST WAR IN UKRAINE AND TASKS OF REVOLUTIONARIES
PUBLIC MEETING AND DISCUSSION
The working class worldwide is fighting massive cuts in its living standards while in Ukraine workers are being press-ganged and sent to be slaughtered as cannon fodder in an imperialist war. The Ukraine war is a dress rehearsal for a Third World War, the inevitable outcome of competing imperialist interests. The root cause of all this is the capitalist system itself which has now become a threat to human existence. How should revolutionaries react to the present situation? Come to a discussion of these issues at our public meeting.
When: Saturday, 19 November 2022, at 2:00pm
Where: The Lucas Arms, 245A Grays Inn Rd, London, WC1X 8QY (nearest tube: King's Cross)
Communist Workers' Organisation
Manchester Bookfair
MANCHESTER & SALFORD ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a presence at the Manchester & Salford Anarchist Bookfair.
When: Saturday, 5 November 2022
Where: People’s History Museum, Left Bank, Manchester M3 3ER
Peterborough Bookfair
PETERBOROUGH RADICAL BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a presence at the Peterborough Radical Bookfair.
When: Saturday, 29 October 2022
Where: The George Alcock Centre, Whittlesey Rd, Stanground, Peterborough PE2 8QS
Montreal Public Meeting
Public meeting on capitalist crisis and imperialist war.
When: 23 October 2022, 6pm
Where: Bibliothèque DIRA (3rd floor), 2035 Saint-Laurent Blvd, Montreal, QC H2X 2T3
NWBCW Montreal
Liverpool Public Meeting
WHY INTERNATIONALISM?
Public debate about the war in Ukraine, the cost of living crisis, and the working class.
Come along to hear what internationalists have to say.
When: Thursday, 6 October 2022, at 6:00pm
Where: Fly in the Loaf, 13 Hardman St, Liverpool, L1 9AS
NWBCW Liverpool
Newcastle Public Meeting
INTERNATIONALISM AND THE WAR IN UKRAINE
NO WAR BUT THE CLASS WAR
PUBLIC MEETING AND DISCUSSION
People in Ukraine today, like those in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere previously, are suffering the consequences of a system in freefall towards generalised global war.
As if the threat of climate change were not enough, the world capitalist system is bringing us famine, massive inflation and greater job insecurity, all for the profits of a few. Only the exploited of the world can halt this descent into the abyss, but we need to begin to organise now before it is too late.
To find out more about how we can fight back both to defend our living standards and our lives come along and join the debate.
When: Saturday, 1 October 2022, at 2:00pm
Where: Bar Loco, 22-4 Leazes Park Road, Newcastle, NE1 4PG
Communist Workers' Organisation
London Bookfair
ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR IN LONDON
The CWO will have a stall at the Anarchist Bookfair In London.
When: Saturday, 17 September 2022
Where: Bishopsgate Institute, 230 Bishopsgate, London EC2M 4QH
Bradford Bookfair
BRADFORD ANARCHIST / RADICAL BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a stall at the Bradford Anarchist / Radical Bookfair.
When: Saturday, 3 September 2022
Where: 1in12 Club, 21-23 Albion Street, Bradford BD1 2LY
Montreal Bookfair
MONTREAL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR
Klasbatalo will have a presence at the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair.
When: Saturday and Sunday, 6-7 August 2022
Where: CÉDA, 2515 Rue Delisle, Montréal, QC H3J 1K8
Montreal Public Meeting
Klasbatalo will be having an open meeting at DIRA to discuss the lessons of the 1972 Quebec general strike 50 years on and to open the NWBCW initiative in Montreal. All those interested in opposing the bosses attacks and their wars welcome.
When: 22 July 2022, 4pm
Where: Bibliothèque DIRA (3rd floor), 2035 Saint-Laurent Blvd, Montreal, QC H2X 2T3
Klasbatalo
Newcastle Bookfair
NEWCASTLE EWAN BROWN ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a presence at the Newcastle Ewan Brown Anarchist Bookfair.
When: Saturday, 21 May 2022
Where: Star and Shadow Cinema, Warwick St, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 1BB
Liverpool Bookfair
LIVERPOOL ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a stall at the Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair.
When: Saturday, 14 May 2022
Where: Black-E, Great George Street, Liverpool, L1 5EW
Glasgow Bookfair
RED AND BLACK CLYDESIDE BOOKFAIR
The CWO will have a stall at the Red and Black Clydeside Bookfair. At 17:50pm there will also be a public meeting on the topic of...
NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM
PUBLIC MEETING AND DISCUSSION
With an eye towards the current war in Ukraine, presenting a "No War but the Class War" perspective with the CWO in the Electron Club or Cinema.
When: Saturday, 7 May 2022
Where: Centre for Contemporary Arts, 350 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, G2 3JD
Montreal Public Meeting
OPEN MEETING ON THE HOUSING CRISIS
Join us at pub Le Trèfle in Verdun to discuss the housing crisis and working class struggle! The meeting is open to all concerned and will be on the second floor.
When: 27 March 2022, at 4:00pm
Where: 4718 Rue Wellington, Verdun, QC H4G 1X3, Canada
Klasbatalo
Liverpool Public Meeting
NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM
PUBLIC MEETING AND DISCUSSION
More than 170 years ago, the Communist Manifesto raised the banner: “workers of the world, unite!” It became the guiding motto of the First, Second and Third Internationals. And yet the national question continues to divide would-be-revolutionaries to this very day.
What does it mean to be an internationalist? Can the Marxist debates of the past inform our perspectives today? What should communists say about national liberation, independence referenda, and international wars?
Join us to discuss these questions as well as the current war in Ukraine.
When: Saturday, 26 March 2022, at 12:30pm
Where: Fly in the Loaf, Hardman St, Liverpool, L1 9AS
Communist Workers' Organisation
Zoom Public Meeting
WAR IN UKRAINE: THE INTERNATIONALIST POSITION
PUBLIC MEETING AND DISCUSSION
The drums of war are sounding again in Europe. Russia's invasion of Ukraine opens up a new historical phase. NATO powers have responded with increased sanctions and indirect support to Ukraine, while Putin is threatening the world with the prospect of nuclear war.
How did we get here? What does this mean for the working class and the future of humanity? What should internationalists say about the war?
Join us to discuss these questions and more at the first public Zoom meeting of the CWO.
When: Sunday, 13 March 2022, at 11:00am (GMT)
Where: Zoom (request an invite by contacting us through Facebook, Twitter, or by email)
Communist Workers' Organisation
Cardiff Public Meeting
NATIONALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM
PUBLIC MEETING AND DISCUSSION
More than 170 years ago, the Communist Manifesto raised the banner: “workers of the world, unite!” It became the guiding motto of the First, Second and Third Internationals. And yet the national question continues to divide would-be-revolutionaries to this very day.
What does it mean to be an internationalist? Can the Marxist debates of the past inform our perspectives today? What should communists say about national liberation, independence referenda, and international wars?
Join us to discuss these questions and more at the first public meeting of the CWO in Wales.
When: Saturday, 16 October 2021, at 2:00pm
Where: Cornerstone, Charles St, Cardiff, CF10 2GA
Communist Workers' Organisation
London Public Meeting
RUSSIA: REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION
BOOK LAUNCH AND DISCUSSION
Our first public meeting post-lockdown will be a launch of the CWO's new book – Russia: Revolution and Counter-Revolution, 1905-1924 - A View from the Communist Left – followed by a discussion.
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. The whole of 1917 was a struggle of the working class to prevent their revolution from being stolen by a series of unelected Provisional Governments. The October Revolution finally smashed the capitalist state and put power into the hands of the soviets (workers’ councils). But this world-historic achievement couldn’t last forever, if the revolution of the working class was to survive, it needed to become an international revolution. As the proletariat failed to gain power in Europe, the Bolsheviks found themselves needing to build up their own state power to defend the revolution in a civil war. When the civil war was finally over, the soviets had withered to barely anything.
The Bolsheviks, for their part, had been vital in bringing down the bourgeois Provisional Government, but by the time of the Kronstadt Revolt in March 1921, they held all the power in Russia and were about to capitulate to the peasantry via the New Economic Policy. The revolution had died and the Communist International adopted the strategy of a united front with the same Social Democrats who had been behind the murders of so many workers across Europe.
But, while the Russian Revolution failed to build an international communist society, it did not just leave a negative legacy. The revolution was the work of the proletariat, and in the workers’ councils they found an instrument to ensure the running of their own affairs. Once we have smashed the capitalist state globally, and abolished exploitation and wage labour for good, the workers’ councils will be the foundation through which the international working class will create a society based on the satisfaction of the needs of the many, rather than the accumulated wealth of a few.
When: Saturday, 11 September 2021, at 2:30pm
Where: Calthorpe Arms, 252 Grays Inn Rd, London, WC1X 8JR
Communist Workers' Organisation
Liverpool Public Meeting
DAYS OF HOPE? CLASS STRUGGLE IN THE 1970s
FILM SCREENING AND DISCUSSION
As the post-war accumulation cycle was coming to an end, capitalist states of the West and the East alike were facing a crisis of stagnation. They responded in the only way they could: by extracting more and more value out of the working class and reducing its share of national product. In practice this meant layoffs, unemployment, deskilling, reduced job security, lower wages and higher prices for basic necessities.
The working class did not take this lying down. A wave of protests, strikes and occupations spread across the industrial centres of the world, with some workers beginning to pose the social question. The 1970s gave birth to a plethora of organisations – including in Britain, where the ideas of the Communist Left were revived for the first time since the 1920s.
Alas, as harsh state repression was meted out and the initial enthusiasm died down, the class was diverted into political dead-ends, and the trade unions re-established their control. By the 1980s the capitalist class found a temporary solution: massive restructuring of production, as manufacturing was exported to the low-wage periphery of countries like China, changing the composition of and disorganising the class for decades.
Join us for a screening of two documentaries on class struggle in 1970s Italy and Poland, and a discussion on what we can learn from that decade and how internationalists should relate to future struggles to come.
When: Monday, 17 February 2020, at 6pm
Where: Next to Nowhere, Liverpool, L1 4HY
Communist Workers' Organisation
Liverpool Public Meeting
COMMUNIST ABSTENTION – NOT ELECTORAL CON TRICKS
PUBLIC MEETING/DISCUSSION
Whoever You Vote For... The Bosses Still Win!
Once again the working class is being urged to play a part in keeping up the pretence that electing M.P.s can provide us with a better future. This is a lie that we need to resist.
In Britain there has been almost a century of "Universal Suffrage". Now, in 2019, the working class is faced with the "gig economy", Universal Credit, queues for Food Banks, shortage of housing, hospitals and schools creaking at the seams, and working class communities continuously being destroyed with young people prey to the fantasies and poisons peddled by both social media and drug dealers.
The Labour Party and all its supporters hope that they can again become Her Majesty's Government by relying on working class votes. Like every other Labour Government, the next one will run the bosses' system not help to overthrow it. The Blair Government waged wars to try and preserve British influence in the imperialist world order and Brown's Government used billions of pounds to prop up the capitalist banking system. Further back, as the capitalist system moved into crisis, it was Callaghan's Labour Government in the 1970's that cut spending on public services to get a loan from the International Monetary Fund.
Any improvements that working people get from a Labour, or any other Government, will always be limited by the need to maintain the bosses' system based on profit not need. Any steps forward will be clawed back or disappear when capitalism sees a need.
Don't Fall for Capitalism's Election Con Trick! For Communist Abstention!
When: Saturday, 30 November 2019, at 12pm
Where: The Caledonia, Liverpool, L7 7DX
Communist Workers' Organisation
Oxford Public Meeting
COMMUNISM NOT CORBYNISM
PUBLIC MEETING/DISCUSSION
Working class people have seen their living conditions under attack for many years. In Britain, benefits continue to be slashed, people work in increasingly precarious situations and are not being paid enough to cover their food bills. Homeless people are sleeping rough in every town and city, health services are creaking at the seams and schools are not given enough resource to buy basic necessities. Life for many is turning into a living nightmare while the loan sharks and drug pushers leech off the most vulnerable. These hardships are no accident but flow directly from the crisis of the bosses’ system, capitalism.
For the boss class any hardship, war or ecological disaster is worthwhile as they desperately try to boost their profits. This grim situation has developed whether Parliament and the Town Halls are filled with Tory or Labour. Hoping that we will be fooled by “old wine in new bottles” Momentum has dragged many desperate people back into the deceit that electing well-meaning representatives can somehow challenge the horrors of capitalism. Organising ourselves to start a fight back has never been more important. If we want to start on the road to a better future then we have to make sure sure that the Labour Party and their hangers on don’t lock us into the bosses’ system.
Join us to discuss these ideas and the way forward.
When: Saturday, 26 October 2019, at 3pm
Where: Hall Garden Room, St. Hilda's College, Oxford, OX4 1DY
Communist Workers' Organisation
Sheffield Public Meeting
ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER - NO SOLUTION WITHIN CAPITALISM!
Evidence of the crisis threatening the entire planet is increasingly stark. Desertification, flooding, hurricanes and cyclones, uncontrolled forest fires all destroy the very basis of life for the "women and men of no property" - the worldwide working class. This, of course, is massively increased by the spreading "wars without end". Whole communities are forced to migrate while the bosses' states raise barriers and walls.
The ecological devastation has been highlighted by the mushrooming mass actions around the School Students' Strikes and the activities of groups such as Extinction Rebellion (XR). Their campaigning focuses on a wish for Governments to save the planet, for corporations to be more considerate and for those who neither own nor control to alter their consumption patterns.
Such arguments put forward by those who seek a "kinder capitalism" are fatally flawed. The root causes of this ultimate ecological crisis are not about gaps in the democratic facade, neither can it be solved by tweaking our lifestyles while the bosses' system based on profit and ruination leads us to the brink of an abyss.
In the latest edition of our broadsheet Aurora the main article is headed "Climate Change: Capitalism is the Problem". CWO has called this meeting to highlight the unbreakable link between the continuation of capitalism and the accelerating degradation of the planet.
Many thousands of people have begun to realise that we cannot allow "business as usual" to continue. The meeting will explore the "hows and whys" of the vital need to move towards a truly sustainable future for humanity. At the core of the required change is the need for a revolutionary replacement of the capitalist system with a world-wide association of freely associated producers - a world without alienation or exploitation.
We welcome anyone interested in joining the discussion.
When: Saturday, 22 June 2019, at 3pm
Where: Rutland Arms, 86 Brown St, Sheffield, S1 2BS
Hosted by: Communist Workers' Organisation (CWO)
London Public Meeting
TOWARDS THE FUTURE INTERNATIONAL!
From Iran to Mexico, a rising tide of strike actions across the globe shows that class resistance to the horrors of capitalism is still the "spectre that haunts" the capitalist class.
At the same time we are also encouraged by the appearance of new militants attracted to the ideas of Internationalist Communism — the only alternative to the abyss towards which capitalism is dragging the entire planet.
This meeting aims to deepen and extend that communist understanding in the convinced belief that without a clear communist political organisation the international working class will be left without a compass in the tumult ahead.
The CWO and our comrades in the ICT wrote some years ago: The revolutionary programme serves no purpose at all if it exists only in the minds of a limited number of “thinkers” who are deluded into assuming their ideas are being transmitted “to the class” when they appear in a journal of equally restricted readership, or on the html files of some site on the Internet.
More recently we have written: Our earnest hope is to engage with those new forces which do come to a consciousness of the need to overthrow the system, to give them a political compass, something to rally around, whilst at the same time, we seek dialogue with those forces which already exist to actively cooperate where possible, agree to disagree where necessary, and ultimately to unite as history inexorably moves on and a real class movement develops.
We welcome anyone interested in this vital task to come and discuss with us.
When: Saturday, 11 May 2019, at 3pm
Where: Calthorpe Arms, 252 Grays Inn Rd, London, WC1X 8JR
Hosted by: Communist Workers' Organisation
Liverpool Public Meeting
COMMUNISM NOT CORBYNISM
PUBLIC MEETING/DISCUSSION
Working class people have seen their living conditions under attack for many years. In Britain, benefits continue to be slashed, people work in increasingly precarious situations and are not being paid enough to cover their food bills. Homeless people are sleeping rough in every town and city, health services are creaking at the seams and schools are not given enough resource to buy basic necessities. Life for many is turning into a living nightmare while the loan sharks and drug pushers leech off the most vulnerable. These hardships are no accident but flow directly from the crisis of the bosses’ system, capitalism.
For the boss class any hardship, war or ecological disaster is worthwhile as they desperately try to boost their profits. This grim situation has developed whether Parliament and the Town Halls are filled with Tory or Labour. Hoping that we will be fooled by “old wine in new bottles” Momentum has dragged many desperate people back into the deceit that electing well-meaning representatives can somehow challenge the horrors of capitalism. Organising ourselves to start a fight back has never been more important. If we want to start on the road to a better future then we have to make sure sure that the Labour Party and their hangers on don’t lock us into the bosses’ system.
Join us to discuss these ideas and the way forward.
When: Wednesday, 17 April 2019, at 7pm
Where: The Black-E, 1 Great George St, Liverpool L1 5EW. Ask for the 'communist' meeting at the reception.
Communist Workers' Organisation
Pages
Start here...
- Navigating the Basics
- Platform
- For Communism
- Introduction to Our History
- CWO Social Media
- IWG Social Media
- Klasbatalo Social Media
- Italian Communist Left
- Russian Communist Left
The Internationalist Communist Tendency consists of (unsurprisingly!) not-for-profit organisations. We have no so-called “professional revolutionaries”, nor paid officials. Our sole funding comes from the subscriptions and donations of members and supporters. Anyone wishing to donate can now do so safely using the Paypal buttons below.
ICT publications are not copyrighted and we only ask that those who reproduce them acknowledge the original source (author and website leftcom.org). Purchasing any of the publications listed (see catalogue) can be done in two ways:
- By emailing us at uk@leftcom.org, us@leftcom.org or ca@leftcom.org and asking for our banking details
- By donating the cost of the publications required via Paypal using the “Donate” buttons
The CWO also offers subscriptions to Revolutionary Perspectives (3 issues) and Aurora (at least 4 issues):
- UK £15 (€18)
- Europe £20 (€24)
- World £25 (€30, $30)
Take out a supporter’s sub by adding £10 (€12) to each sum. This will give you priority mailings of Aurora and other free pamphlets as they are produced.
User login
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.