Features

Kamala Harris isn’t the first black woman to run for US vice president

Yesterday’s (11 August 2020) announcement that US Senator Kamala Harris, former California Attorney General, would be Joe Biden’s running mate in November led many to label her the first black woman for the US vice presidency. But that’s not true. There have been a number of African-American presidential and vice-presidential candidates in the past. One of the most famous is US communist and black liberation fighter, Angela Davis, who ran on the Communist Party ticket in 1980. Here we reproduce a short biography of her life and contribution to the struggle originally compiled for the YCL’s 2019 International Women’s Day Series.

Llanelli 1911 Railway Strike Commemoration – 13 to 22 August

Over a hundred years ago, during the first national railway stoppage in Britain, the military were called out in force to quell the strike. They were deployed in Llanelli where mass picketing had stopped all rail traffic. Troops from the Worcestershire Regiment shot dead two unarmed men and wounded two others, sparking the Llanelli Rising of 1911.

#CP100: the YCL, always with the Party

As part of the Communist Party’s Centenary Red Wedge meetings Robin Talbot gives a whistle-stop tour of the 99 year history of Britain’s young communists and why you should join today. This is a transcript a speech delivered online on 1 August 2020.

#CP100: a century against imperialism and militarism

As part of the Communist Party’s Centenary Red Wedge meetings Johnnie Hunter discusses the legacy of struggle of Britain’s young communists against imperialism and war and the contemporary fights occurring in South America. This is a transcript a speech delivered online on 1 August 2020.

Indian Americans and Black Lives Matter

Debadrita Chakraborty, PhD research scholar in Gender and Culture Studies at Cardiff University, argues that Indian immigrants fail to acknowledge their complicity in injustices both in India and the USA.

Trump takes hostility toward Cuba to new heights

Washington’s current foreign policy toward Cuba, following a script of more than six decades of aggression, is part of the reactionary global projection of a desperate government writes Francisco Arias Fernández.

How Cold War socialist space cooperation broke new ground

In contrast with the commercial, militarist and billionaire-dominated nature of much current space exploration, Sean Meleady celebrates the important achievements of the Soviet led ‘Interkosmos’ programme, not just for the socialist countries, but for all humanity.

Poetry Corner: Communism is the Middle Term by Bertolt Brecht

Communism is the Middle Term by Bertolt Brecht.

Bertolt Brecht was a German Marxist poet, playwright and theatre director. Brecht lived through a turbulent era. Narrowly avoiding conscription at 16 during World War One, he worked prodigiously through throughout the period of the Weimar Republic. Brecht was forced to flee with the rise of the Nazis in 1933. He left the USA during the McCarthyite “Red Scare” returning to what was then the German Democratic Republic. He died on the 14th of August 1956.

Foodbanks & the Covid Crisis

Daniel Lambe talks about his experience volunteering with his local foodbank and makes the case for all socialists to be active in their community, their tenants union and their trade union branch.

We can’t wish away the National Question

Zoe McKeown provides a rounded view on the questions facing the left in Scotland – and across Britain – and the considers the potential of a campaign to achieve real Home Rule.

Poetry Corner: ‘Du Ydwyf, ond Prydferth’/‘Black am I, but Beautiful’ by TE Nicholas/’Niclas y Glais’

‘Du Ydwyf, ond Prydferth’ (Negro a fu’n cydweithio â ni am wythnos yn y carchar) ‘Niclas y Glais’ (1879-1971)

‘Black am I, but Beautiful’ (A Negro who worked with us in prison for a week) by TE Nicholas (1879-1971).

TE Nicholas ‘Niclas y Glais’, congregational minister, pacifist, champion of the disadvantaged, initially a member of the Independent Labour Party and then a founder member of the Communist Party, remaining in it till his death. Niclas was an internationalist who loved the Welsh language and the culture of the Welsh people. Writing almost entirely in Welsh, he won 17 eisteddfod chairs. In July 1940, during the Second World War, he and his son Islwyn were arrested on trumped-up charges of fascism during his 4-month imprisonment in Brixton, he wrote 150 sonnets, from which the following are selected. aWe present here the original Welsh and the English translation of his work side by side; the latter of course cannot capture the full expression of the former.

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Online activism during COVID-19

Amy Field makes the case for better use of social media in organising based on her recent success fundraising for the people’s daily, the Morning Star.

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