Session 1 – The Chatham House rule, safe spaces, noplatforming, and other such self-imposed barriers to socialism
Speaker: Mike Macnair
Mike Macnair is a member of the Provisional Central Committee of the CPGB and writes on a wide range of issues in the Weekly Worker. He is the author of the book Revolutionary Strategy (2008), you can find Mike’s books here
Session 2 – Trans rights orthodoxy and its discontents
Speaker: Amanda MacLean
*** The views in this video do not represent the views of the CPGB or Labour Party Marxists ***
Amanda has written a number of articles for the Weekly Worker from a ‘gender critical’ perspective.
Session 3 – Free speech: unrestricted or restricted?
Debate between Norman Finkelstein and Tony Greenstein
*** The views in this video do not represent the views of the CPGB or Labour Party Marxists ***
Norman Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist, former professor, and author of the controversial book The Holocaust Industry (2000).
Tony Greenstein has been a political activist for all his adult life, mainly focusing on Palestine, anti-racist and anti-fascist activities. Tony is a founding member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in Britain and Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods. You can find Tony’s articles in the Weekly Worker here
Session 4 – A damning phrase? “The communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties”
Speaker: Lawrence Parker
Lawrence Parker is a Marxist historian of the (old) CPGB. He has written for the Weekly Worker and is author of The Kick Inside – Revolutionary Opposition in the CPGB, 1945-1991 (2012) and Communists and Labour — The National Left-Wing Movement 1925–1929 (2018).
Session 5 – Without a hegemonic Communist Party the Labour Party can never be transformed into a vehicle for socialism
Speaker: Kevin Bean
Kevin Bean is a member of the Labour Party Marxist steering group.
Session 6 – The poisonous logic of seeking, normalising, and joining coalitions with bourgeois politicians
Speaker: Gus Ootjers (Communistisch Platform)
Communistisch Platform is a Dutch organisation that strives for the revolutionary self-emancipation of the working class to free itself from the shackles of class society. You can find their website here
Session 7 – Amadeo Bordiga and ‘Left wing communism’: a long-established disorder?
Speaker: David Broder
David Broder is a Marxist historian of French and Italian communism, translator and Europe editor of Jacobin magazine. He has also written for the Weekly Worker
Session 8 – Yeomen and the English Revolution: The Missing Bourgeoisie?
Speaker: Dr Marc Mulholland
Marc is a Tutor in Modern History at St Catherine’s College, Oxford. You can find his articles in the Weekly Worker here
Session 9 – Iran-Israel’s new hot cold war
Speakers: Yassamine Mather and Moshé Machover
Yassamine is a regular author for the Weekly Worker and is an expert on Iranian and Middle Eastern politics, you can find her articles here
Moshé Machover is a mathematician and socialist activist who has been active in and written extensively on Middle-Eastern politics. In 1962 he co-founded the Israeli socialist organisation Matzpen. He is a member of Hands Off the People of Iran (HOPI). A collection of his essays on the Middle East, Israelis and Palestinians – Conflict and Resolution, is published by Haymarket Books
Session 10 – Capitalism as robbery: Time and revolution
Speaker: Camilla Power
Camilla Power is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Dept of Anthropology at UCL, and was Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of East London. Camilla has published many articles on the evolutionary origins of ritual, gender and the use of cosmetics in African initiation, and did fieldwork with Hadzabe hunter-gatherer women. She is also a leading member of the Radical Anthropology Group
Session 11 – The first human revolution: red ochre, the red flag of prehistory
Speaker: Ian Watts
Ian Watts is a founding member of the Radical Anthropology Group
Session 12 – Being human: what chimpanzees can teach us
Speaker: Chris Knight
Chris Knight is a British anthropologist, high-profile political activist and a founding member of the Radical Anthropology Group
Knight published his first book, Blood Relations: Menstruation and the origins of culture in 1991. Since then, he has been a major figure in debates on the origins of human symbolic culture and especially the origin of language. He is best-known for the theory that human language, religion and culture emerged in our species not simply by gradual Darwinian evolution, but in a process culminating in revolutionary social change – what is often termed “the first human revolution”.
Chris has also written extensively for the Weekly Worker, you can find his articles here
Session 13 – Israel-Palestine: does the solution still rely on a working class Arab revolution?
Speaker: Moshé Machover
Moshé Machover is a mathematician and socialist activist who has been active in and written extensively on Middle-Eastern politics. In 1962 he co-founded the Israeli socialist organisation Matzpen. He is a member of Hands Off the People of Iran (HOPI). A collection of his essays on the Middle East, Israelis and Palestinians – Conflict and Resolution, is published by Haymarket Books
Session 14 – Indyref 2: what position should Marxists take?
Speaker: Sandy McBurney
Session 15 – Border poll politics in Ireland: referenda and the British-Irish
Speakers: Kevin Bean and Anne McShane
Anne McShane has a long history of involvement in the workers movement, both in Britain and Ireland. She stood in a number of elections in Britain, for the CPGB and the Socialist Alliance. Anne has always been a dedicated advocate of women’s rights and has written and campaigned on abortion rights both in Britain and Ireland. She works as a lawyer and has recently commenced a PhD on the women’s section of the CPSU (Zhenotdel) at Glasgow University. You can find a selection of Anne’s articles for the Weekly Worker here
Session 16 – Do machines create value?
Speaker: Ian Wright
Session 17 – Do machines create communism? Accelerationism, AI, robots, and the working class
Speaker: Yassamine Mather
Session 18 – Marx’s so-called transformation problem in Capital
Speaker: Michael Roberts
Michael Roberts worked in the City of London as an economist for over 40 years. He has closely observed the machinations of global capitalism from within the dragon’s den. At the same time, he was a political activist in the labour movement for decades. Since retiring, he has written several books. The Great Recession – a Marxist view (2009); The Long Depression (2016); Marx 200: a review of Marx’s economics (2018). You can read his articles in the Weekly Worker here
Session 19 – Was the collapse of ‘really existing socialism’ inevitable?
Speaker: Hillel Ticktin
Hillel Ticktin was born in South Africa in 1937, and left the country to avoid arrest for political activism. He wrote his PhD thesis whilst living in the Soviet Union. Due to his critical approach towards the official Communist parties of the time, his work was rejected. In 1965 he began teaching at the University of Glasgow, and in 1973 he co-founded the journal Critique. He continues to lecture and also to write for Critique and other publications.
You can find his articles in the Weekly Worker here
Session 20 – China: the unexpected political economy
Speaker: Alan Hudson
Alan Hudson is Director of Programmes in Leadership and Public Policy at the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education and a Visiting Professor at Fudan University, Shanghai, Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Chinese Executive Leadership Academy Pudong. The work on Shanghai has led to the establishment of a joint Oxford University/CELAP Centre for Urban Studies, of which he is the Oxford Director.
Session 21 – Lenin and the Democratic Revolution: before 1917 and After
Speaker: Lars T. Lih
Lars T. Lih is a scholar who lives in Montreal. His books include Bread and Authority in Russia, 1914–1921 (1990), Lenin (2008), and the infamous Lenin Rediscovered: “What is to be Done?” in Context. You can find his articles in the Weekly Worker here
Session 22 – Anti-racism as the politics of consensus
Speaker: Paul Demarty
Paul Demarty is a member of the Communist Party, and a regular columnist for the Weekly Worker. You can find his latest articles here
Session 23 – Black Lives Matter: a mass moment?
Speaker: Daniel Lazare
Dan Lazare is an American journalist and author of ‘The Velvet Coup: The Constitution, the Supreme Court and the Decline of American Democracy‘ (2001) and ‘The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy‘ (1997). He regularly writes for the Weekly Worker on US politics, you can find his articles here
Session 24 – Democratic Socialists America: the necessity of a minimum-maximum programme
Speaker: Donald Parkinson
Donald Parkinson is a regular contributor to Cosmonaut magazine and operates within the Democratic Socialists of America. Cosmonaut is a Marxist magazine for revolutionary strategy, historical analyses and modern critiques. It aims to be a platform of debate and polemic in order to contribute to the formulation of a Marxism for the 21st century. You can find their website here
Session 25 – The transitional programme: the reformist banality of a supposed revolutionary profundity
Speaker: Mike Macnair
Mike Macnair is a member of the Provisional Central Committee of the CPGB and writes on a wide range of issues in the Weekly Worker. You can find his latest articles here. He is the author of the book Revolutionary Strategy (2008), you can find Mike’s books here
Session 26 – ‘Anti-zionism equals anti-semitism’: Why the big lie keeps getting bigger and bigger
Speakers: Tina Werkmann, Kevin Bean and Tony Greenstein
Session 27 – Economy, war, and climate change: the positivity, limits, and ultimate futility of protest politics. Why a working-class party and working-class rule are vital
Speaker: Jack Conrad
Jack Conrad is the current chair of the PCC of Communist Party of Great Britain and the founder editor of The Leninist, which was first published in November 1981. He has contributed numerous articles to the Weekly Worker and written a number of books and pamphlets which you can find here