The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.”  Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party.

Lenin or Kautsky?

Today we are facing a massive retreat from Leninism on the left. Under attack from the global crisis the working class and the oppressed are moving to the left in opposing its effects – austerity, ‘precarity’, mass unemployment and political repression – and launching Arab Springs, riots, occupations and armed struggles against bourgeois dictators.  The masses are hungry for ideas on how to challenge and overcome capitalism. Yet there is no revolutionary mass party to turn to. The ostensible revolutionary left moves to offer this…