Features

Our Congress! Our Struggle! Our Future!

Greetings and solidarity to all of the delegates attending the YCL’s historic 50th Congress this weekend at Ruskin House and to all the comrades and branches who have participated in Congress debate and discussion this year from the length and breadth of Britain. Our Congress meets at a time when the stakes for our class and for humanity could not be higher.

Being Fidel and doing so now

We must assume the phrase “I am Fidel” in practice, as the best tribute to the person who showed us that the only option we should never contemplate is surrender writes Miguel Cruz.

Interrupting the solemnity of the moment, like a wave gaining strength, the clamour rose and little by little the Plaza de la Revolución became a single voice chanting: I am Fidel. It was Tuesday, November 29, 2016 and the people of Havana, representing all of Cuba, had gathered there to pay tribute to our undefeated Comandante who had departed to immortality.

Ireland: time to go

The Labour Party’s stated intention to campaign to keep partition must be ignored — the British working class will find it’s strength in giving the Irish people the right to choose their future, writes Nick Wright.

The Struggle for the Soul of Celtic

On a rather wet Glasgow afternoon, you’d be forgiven for thinking that any attendees of Celtic’s home match with Dundee would want to dart from the car and into the dry safety of the stadium, however for many this presented an opportunity to protest the regime at the club that allowed them to stagnate and fail so spectacularly last season. The Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou and his charges were met with rapturous cheers, and the full back catalogue of songs from a support who had been desperate to cheer on their men for the best part of 18 months.

Welsh Communists mark 85th anniversary of Spanish Civil War and legacy of International Brigaders

A range of speakers contributed to the event at at the Welsh International Brigades Memorial earlier this month (21 July 2021) in Cathays Park Cardiff including Will Barton, secretary of the Cardiff branch of the Communist Party (whose speech is published in full below), Robert Griffiths General Secretary of Communist Party and Marc Bilbao Asensio from the Communist Party of Spain. There were revolutionary songs from Cor Cochian Caerdydd and a poem and reading from International Brigades Cymru. Keeping alive the memory of the Welsh international brigaders: Yn cadw’r cof am y brigadwyr rhyngwladol o gymru yn fyw.

YCL100: ‘The Defence of Madrid’ by Phil Gillan (1937)

Phil Gillan, a Young Communist League member from Glasgow, was the first of 549 volunteers from Scotland to join the Spanish Civil War. Fresh from the battlefield, he writes about his time training in the Tom Mann Centuria before serving within the Thälmann Battalion, and the realities of war against the fascists. After miraculously surviving a serious injury inflicted by German Nazis, he returned home where he told his story, and helped to recruit many others to join in the united fight for freedom

Remembering Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954) was born in the early 20th century in an era of global political upheaval, revolutionary uprisings and world war. In turn, the artist´s native country was not immune to such instability and in 1910 Mexico was plunged into revolution. Kahlo´s childhood was set against a backdrop of armed rebellion against the suppression of the peasant classes, calls for land reforms and nationalisation of resources.

Cuba: ‘The US blockade asphyxiates and kills, just like the virus, and must end!’

Last month the United Nations General Assembly once again overwhelmingly voted in favour of Cuba’s resolution demanding the end of the US blockade. In a strong show of support for the socialist island, 184 countries voted in favour, and only 2 against (USA and Israel), while 3 countries abstained (Brazil, Colombia and Ukraine). Challenge proudly carries in full the address by Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodriguez, to present the draft resolution “Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba” at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 23 June 2021.