Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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‘The most fundamental issues for working people are being left by the wayside’
Communist candidate for the Scottish Parliament elections JOHNNIE HUNTER tells Niall Christie why the party’s focus is on recovery from coronavirus rather than constitutional upheaval
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
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NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
A COMMON attribution to Scotland is that as a country, it is generally more left-wing than its neighbours south of the border — the one-time dominance of the Labour Party often held up as an example of this.
In recent years, this grip on Scotland has significantly loosened as the SNP shifted to become the dominant force while other left-wing parties have peaked and troughed in their popularity since the reopening of the Scottish Parliament.
Why, then, has it taken 22 years for a widespread and co-ordinated campaign of communists to run for Holyrood?
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The new Scottish Parliament looks set to continue a cycle of managerial tinkering while public services face the axe, writes STEPHEN LOW
Last weekend’s inaugural conference mixed warmth, unity and ambition with the unmistakable echo of old arguments. MATT KERR wonders whether the fledgling party’s difficulties can be overcome
JOHN CALLOW examines what went wrong for the Czech communist party in the recent parliamentary elections, where it failed to meet the threshold to return deputies and some now talk of the party abandoning its commitment to socialism
Our charter’s demands for fair pay, affordable housing and environmental security will recruit working-class youth into the political struggle for socialism, emulating the success of the Women’s Charter, writes YCL general secretary GEORGINA ANDREWS