What must a young communist be by Che Guevara
In this excerpt from a speech delivered in 1962, Ernesto Che Guevara discusses the essential qualities of young communists not just in Cuba, but the world over. This oration was first delivered during a commemoration of the integration of Cuba’s revolutionary youth organisations.
Althusser’s epistemological break and modern China
‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’ is not just a justification for market economics, but the recognition of the economic, social and cultural relativity that obviously exists in the world, but more importantly, between socialist nations.
Communist Party of Cuba prepares for Eighth Congress
The 8th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, to be held 16 – 19 April 2021, will focus on core issues of the political, economic and social life of the country, as well as the role of the Party and steps taken to improve its work.
The Tories’ attack on democracy
James McLelland calls for the Left to unite against the Tories and their new Police Bill.
CP to hold online feminist festival on ‘Sisterhood, Socialism & Struggle’ on 8 May 2021
The Communist Party is organising a one day Marxist feminist festival celebrating ‘Sisterhood, Socialism & Struggle’ in Britain and across the world on 8 May 2021. The event aims to put women’s liberation at the heart of class struggle and explore how we should respond to the intensification of women’s oppression under modern capitalism.
To live life with purpose: 100 years of the Young Communist League
Very few political organisations in Britain can trace their story back over the course of a full century. But what does 100 years of history mean for Britain’s young communists in 2021?
How the YCL fought apartheid
Luke Tuchscherer meets Steve Marsling, one of the ‘London recruits’ who faced torture and prison on clandestine missions to fight the racist dictatorship in South Africa.
Connolly and Edinburgh’s real, radical underbelly
Louie Gibson writes on the neoliberal sterility of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, contrasting it with the former Edinburgh People’s Festival and the city’s working class history
Poetry Corner: Ballad of Aun, King of Sweden by Hugh MacDiarmid
Ballad of Aun, King of Sweden by Hugh MacDiarmid
Dr Christopher Murray Grieve, who wrote under the pen-name of Hugh Macdiarmid, was the greatest Scottish poet of the twentieth century. Best-known for what he called “Lallans”, a literary form of the Lowland Scots language that he developed, he also made use of English.
At different stages of his life he was a supporter of Scottish nationalism and communism. Famously, he stood for the Communist Party against Tory Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, in the Kinross & West Perthshire constituency in the 1964 general election, as part of an unsuccessful bid to get television time for the Party. His A Sprig of White Heather in the Future’s Lapel, written for former Communist MP Willie Gallacher on the occasion of the latter’s 80th birthday, is particularly famous among Britain’s Communists.
Here we feature Ballad of Aun, King of Sweden, one of McDiarmid’s strongly political poems.
Women in public: American and Soviet depictions
The depictions of women in the public life in the USSR and America reveal much about the progress of emancipation and liberation
