Ken Loach to speak at UCL!

Details: Wednesday, 10 October 2012; Written by Stella Christou, UCL Marxist Society President

Monday 15th October 6pm, Malet Place Engineering Building room 103, UCL Campus, London,W1

(Note change of venue from that prev announced)

contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more info

Click here for Facebook event

At a meeting of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), earlier this month something out of the ordinary happened. At the meeting of the General Council a motion moved the Prison Officers’ Association that included a proposal to ‘explore’ the possibilities of a General StrikeThe motion was deadlocked at the General Council, but at the meeting of the TUC itself delegates voted overwhelmingly in favour of the motion.

This represents a big shift to the left in the trade union movement in Britain. It follows on from remarks made by the General Secretary of Britain's largest union - UNITE - Len McCluskey earlier this year to the effect that they would be sending 5,000 trade union militants into the Labour Party to begin the process of winning it back for working people.

It is against this backdrop that on October 20th we will witness a huge display of trade union force against the Tory austerity programme.

This is part of a European-wide movement of opposition to austerity measures, with the latest mass demonstrations being held in Spain and Portugal

.Everywhere workers are beginning to organise. As the Marxists said at the end of 2010, after the defeat of the magnificent student movement against £9,000 tuition fees - this is not the end, but the beginning.

The movement of the youth was an anticipation of the entry of the working class onto the political stage, which they did so with force with the biggest trade union demonstration in history - 750,000 workers on the streets in March 2011.

It is only in alliance with the heavy battllions of the working class that students can effectively struggle against the government of millionaire Tories. Not a light bulb shines, not a telephone rings, withouth the permission of the workers. It is therefore the responsibility of all students wanting to fight back against austerity in our education system to build bridges with the workers in a general fightback against the bosses.

1926: General Strike

It is with this in mind that the UCLU Marxists are hosting a film screening of ‘1926: General Strike’, from the Days of Hope series by Ken Loach made for the BBC in 1975.

In this brilliant piece of television you will see the full drama played out of the high water-mark of the class struggle in Britain, where for 9 days the workers ground society to halt.

During this time the workers began to organise themselves in councils, and carried out the running of society without the bosses. These councils, like the Russian Soviets, were the embryos of workers democracy.

However, the difference with Britain as opposed to Russia was that no revolutionary Marxist tendency existed to any degree compared to the forces of reformism at the tops of the Labour movement. They sold out the workers before they had a chance to flex their muscles - more workers were out on the day they called of the strike than on the first. The workers were willing to go to the end to change society.

The students in 1926 were used by the bosses to scab on the workers. How very different to the class of 2012! The UCLU Marxists will be out with the other Marxist Societies on Oct 20th, side by side by their natural allies, the working class.

Come to the film screening and help us build on campus a serious student presence at the TUC March For a Better Future.

Join the UCLU Marxists! We meet every Thursday at 6pm in Room 204, Bloomsbury Theatre.

London UCL Marxists: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.