News

– A four-part narrated PowerPoint lecture by Barbara C. Allen focusing on the experiences of Alexander Shlyapnikov in 1934-7 during Stalin’s Great Terror. It derives from the narrator’s book, Alexander Shlyapnikov, 1885-1937: Life of an Old Bolshevik (Brill, 2015; Haymarket Books, 2016). 

– Marxism Translated: Introduction – https://youtu.be/pnciIQR1cSE

– Seminar in Contemporary Marxist Theory warmly invites you to a Book Launch: Routledge Handbook of Marxism and Post-Marxism, with Prof Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Columbia University) and Dr Trevor Ngwane (University of Johnannesburg) in conversation with the Editors and Contributors, Wednesday 17 February 2021, 4-6pm GMT. Register here:

– Jacob A. Zumoff is the author of The Communist International and U.S. Communism, 1919-1929. His forthcoming book, The Red Thread: The Passaic Textile Strike, be published by Rutgers University Press in July 2021. 

– Stuart Hood (1915-2011) – Scottish dominie’s son, Edinburgh University Communist student, Tuscan partigiano, reforming BBC executive, distinguished academic and admired Scottish novelist – died in Brighton at the end of January 2011. Marking the tenth anniversary of Hood’s death and the publication of Stuart Hood – Twentieth-Century Partisan (Cambridge Scholars Publishing: eds. David Hutchison and David Johnson), an online event – to which all are invited – will be held at 1730 GMT on Tuesday 26 January 2021. Contributors to the book, in addition to the editors, are Haim Bresheeth, Terry Brotherstone, Philip Cooke, the late Tony Garnett, Nick Havely, Hilary Horrocks, Robert Lumley, Alan Riach and Stephen Watts. For further details and sample chapters, see <https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-5447-4>. To register for the event, go to <https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/stuart-hood-twentieth-century-partisan-tickets-133843542639>.

– Theory in Crisis Seminar: Alberto Toscano, ‘Fascist Times’ Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmLUfG5h_no

– ULIP Theory in Crisis seminar series, with Deborah Cowen: ‘Crisis in Motion’. Friday January 29: https://ulip.london.ac.uk/events/theory-crisis-seminar-deborah-cowen-crisis-motion

The question of anti-Semitism has been at the forefront of much political discussion and debate in recent years. We are seeing the rise of a new wave of anti-Semitism – not only driven by the street fighting far right, but in close proximity to the Trump presidency and part of the arsenal of those in power in Hungary. An outspoken anti-Semitic right has again become more visible across Western societies as part of the rise of racism and the far right across the board. It is virulent and dangerous. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories target finance, ‘globalists’, and shadowy groups who run the world as responsible for the systemic crises of capitalism, inequality, and war. Violence against Jews in the street intensifies, synagogues are defaced and assaulted, while anti-Semitic theories multiply online and manifest themselves outside the circles of the classic neonazi margins. Much of the new right which develops these ideas does so while proudly supporting Zionism in the Middle East.

The question of anti-Semitism has been at the forefront of much political discussion and debate in recent years. We are seeing the rise of a new wave of anti-Semitism – not only driven by the street fighting far right, but in close proximity to the Trump presidency and part of the arsenal of those in power in Hungary. An outspoken anti-Semitic right has again become more visible across Western societies as part of the rise of racism and the far right across the board. It is virulent and dangerous. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories target finance, ‘globalists’, and shadowy groups who run the world as responsible for the systemic crises of capitalism, inequality, and war. Violence against Jews in the street intensifies, synagogues are defaced and assaulted, while anti-Semitic theories multiply online and manifest themselves outside the circles of the classic neonazi margins. Much of the new right which develops these ideas does so while proudly supporting Zionism in the Middle East.

As an alternative to the annual London Conference, the Historical Materialism Editorial Board has curated a small number of panels to maintain conversations and give comrades intellectual nourishment between the 5th and the 15th November. 

Over the past decade racism, racialisation, empire and solidarity have re-emerged as some of the most central and contested issues to contemporary political struggles. The political right has mainstreamed and instrumentalised explicit and implicit forms of racism to reach the halls of power. This racism has not simply been rhetorical, as successive right-wing governments have implemented exclusionary and discriminatory policies. This official racism has been deployed internationally – to legitimate and drive imperialist interventions and restructurings – and domestically – to channel social discontent away from the status quo and towards sub-proletarianised migrants and racial marginalized subjects.

By Ben Fine and Alfredo Saad Filho