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The growth of Christianity during the first centuries of the modern era was phenomenal, especially among the lower orders. People who had nothing on earth and who lived in poverty were promised immense rewards in the after-life – provided they accepted their lot as slaves. This doctrine had an obvious appeal to the downtrodden masses, but it had equally obvious advantages for the ruling class. Eventually, the latter realized this and took the appropriate measures. But all these measures were in vain. The Church continued to thrive despite persecution – and possibly because of it.
For the Labour Party the 2011 general election defeat was the worst since 1928. The main factor for this was the historic low turnout as many workers stayed at home and were not enthused enough by the right-wing leadership of the Labour Party to go out and vote. The turn out was down from (what was considered then a low turnout) 79.46% at the 2008 general election to 73.83%. This was the lowest turnout since 1878!
Karmal
About Me
Afghan leftist , international revolutionary. Trained many revolutionaries from 1978 to 1992 in the art of armed insurrection. Hizb e Parcham All we know is that Marx was right. A graduate of USSR Intelligence school at Tashkent and Kiev. Originally a Baloch from Farah province in Afghanistan and now settled in Quetta Pakistan.
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The Occupy movement has many people looking to past movements to see what we can learn from them that can help us in today's struggles. The period of the 1960s and early 1970s was one of upheaval around the world: May 1968, the Tet Offensive, the revolution in Pakistan, etc. The USA was not exempt from these powerful social movements. In the 1950s, the movement to end Jim Crow segregation helped to spur on movements against the U.S. imperialist war on Vietnam, large strike movements by the working class, and the movements for equal rights for women and the LGBT community.
On November 30th 2011, three million public sector workers in Britain will strike over the government's attacks on their pensions. This coordinated strike action represents the biggest strike movement since the general strike in 1926. To all intents and purposes it will be a 24-hour public sector general strike. 
Events of the Arab Revolution and the movements across Europe and USA have once again vindicated the Marxist positions about the role of youth. It was the youth who initiated these revolutions and movements. Subcontinent and Pakistan have a rich history of the revolutionary role played by the youth. As the "best barometer of society", the revolutionary youth of Pakistan have realized the need to join hands in their common struggle against oppression, unemployment, fundamentalism, discrimination, costly education and capitalism.
As we write these lines the Papandreou government is staggering towards collapse. In a matter of days the whole situation has been thrown into turmoil.
Switzerland is also being affected by the global crisis of capitalism, with growing pressure on Swiss workers. In the recent elections, although the Social Democrats received the lowest number of votes in 20 years, where candidates posed the real issues facing workers, such as jobs, wages and housing, they did remarkably well. Here we publish an analysis by the Swiss Marxists of Der Funke.
Last Thursday's by election in Dublin West came down to a three horse race between Councillor Patrick Nulty of Labour who won and Councillor Ruth Coppinger of the Socialist Party who came third, while Fianna Fáil (FF) squeezed into second place after a tie for second and third place – on the basis that they had more first preference votes.
As Europe teeters once more, staring financial collapse and slump in the face, we provide an analysis of what happened in Iceland, the first country to go under as a result of the global crisis of capitalism.
We have received this report from Iceland about a protest outside a conference hosted by the Icelandic government and the IMF. The letter makes the point that the IMF package for Iceland has been unsuccesful and that ordinary Icelanders are struggling to make ends meet. It shows that the political and economic crisis in Iceland is continuing.
The 18th "Permanent Revolution" convention of Jammu Kashmir National Students Federation was held in Rawalpindi on 28th October in which a big number of students from Pakistani Occupied Kashmir and various cities of Pakistan participated.
On Friday more than a million Egyptian youth, workers and poor yet again assembled in Tahrir Square. The masses have once again risen in an attempt to remove the remnants of the Mubarak regime, which are still in power. Not far from Tahrir, in Abbassiya Square, not more than a couple of thousand people gathered in a pathetic demonstration in support of the SCAF. To the sceptics who did not believe in the revolution, this should be a clear demonstration of the real balance of forces. But at the same time the revolution clearly faces obstacles, not from external forces, but in its own internal contradictions.
Last Friday, 25th November, the Moroccan dictatorship organised sham elections for its puppet parliament. These legislative elections can only be understood as an attempt at survival on the part of the capitalist monarchy. The regime is desperately in search of a new legitimacy, but it failed miserably.
A powerful general strike and massive demonstrations on November 24 was the answer of Portuguese workers to the austerity budget proposed by the right-wing governmnent of Pedro Passos Coelho. The troika approved the measures taken as part of the bail out package but demanded more cuts as the economy is forecasted to fall by 3% next year.
We interviewed the young comrades of the Communist League of Action who speak out on how the Arab spring has affected the Kingdom of Morocco. They explain how it has deeply shaken the regime, and most importantly that "the movement has also rid the masses of the feeling of fear and transferred it to the other camp, the camp of the ruling class and its parties and repressive apparatus."
Although the Nigerian economy has been officially growing at over 6% for the past 5 years, the poverty rate keeps increasing; youth unemployment has risen to an unprecedented 47% and over 80 per cent of Nigerian youth don't have more than a secondary school certificate.
Events in Egypt are developing at lightning speed. Similarly to the last days of Mubarak in February this year, we see daily battles on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere. The Egyptian masses are determined to see the revolution carried through to the end. The clash between revolution and counter-revolution is provoking a crisis inside all political forces, as the rank and file instinctively move towards revolution and the leaderships vacillate and try to hold the masses back.
After overtaking Japan, this year China became the second largest economy in the world. Some experts have even predicted that by the end of this decade China may become the largest economy bypassing the United States. However, that is based on a mechanical, empirical approach that sees China maintaining its present levels of growth uninterruptedly for years to come. In the past Japan was also supposed to keep on growing, but then its apparent meteoric rise was cut across by a long period of stagnation.
