Economists estimate extreme poverty could be drastically reduced for a fraction of global defence spending, yet military budgets continue to expand year on year, says JON TRICKETT MP, ahead of the Stop the War International Conference on Saturday
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Understanding the defeat of fascism
NICK WRIGHT examines the British ruling class's complex relationship with fascism before, during and after the second world war
RED FLAG FLYING: The Soviet flag is hoisted over the Reichstag after the Red Army’s liberation of Berlin
As Unison launches its Year of Women Workers, ANNIE COGAN-THOMAS argues that stronger organisation and collective bargaining are essential to winning equality
Trade unions, trades councils and community organisations must work together to build lasting solidarity and resistance to the far right, argues DREW GILCHRIST
Recent violence in Belfast was not spontaneous — it was built on years of failure and political neglect, argues STIOFAN O NUALLAIN
As delegates meet in Brighton this week, Unison faces pressing questions about pay, organising, workers’ rights and political representation, explains ANDY CHAFFER
Andy Burnham’s growing stature has fuelled hopes of a Labour revival – but ALAN SIMPSON warns that Britain’s crisis runs far deeper than just its leadership and traces its roots to decades of financialised capitalism
MY MUM told me how, as an 18-year-old worker in a Dunstable aircraft factory, she traced every advance of the Red Army on a map, illustrated with the image of Uncle Joe, on her bedroom wall.
For her the threat of fascism was real. Throughout the war my grandparents housed a Dutch family, refugees from the Nazi invasion. My father, as a 21-year-old factory worker, was prepared by the Communist Party for clandestine work and was given a false identity in anticipation of a Nazi occupation. The party even bought up a local newspaper in preparation for the suppression of the Daily Worker.
In the working class there was tremendous opposition to war but a great fear of a Nazi invasion combined with a real sense that the ruling class was preparing to do a deal with the Nazis.
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In a speech to the 12th Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, SEVIM DAGDELEN warns of a growing historical revisionism to whitewash Germany and Japan’s role in WWII as part of a return to a cold war strategy from the West — but multipolarity will win out
