03.08.2023

Communist University 2023

A week of provocative and stimulating debates: Saturday August 12 to Saturday August 19 (inclusive)

CU is different from the run-of-the-mill schools put on by other left groups.

There is plenty of time is allocated to contributions from the floor.

Controversial debate is positively welcomed and, needless to say, there are no one-minute time limits.

Moreover, critical thinking is encouraged, as can be seen by our impressive list of speakers each and every year

Dates: Saturday August 12 to Saturday August 19 (inclusive)

Venue: International Student House, 229 Great Portland Street, London W1 (nearest tube: Great Portland Street)

Cost: Full day: £10 (£5) Single session: £5 (£3)

For the latest updates and zoom registration links visit communistuniversity.uk

Saturday August 12

Registration begins at 1pm

2pm - 4.15pm: ‘The Bolshevik adjustment’: was the October revolution legitimate? Lars T Lih

4.45pm - 7pm:  Climate crisis - no time like the present: end of the roadshow Tam Dean Burn

Sunday August 13

10am - 12.15pm: The revolutionary origins of language: how did we learn to speak? Chris Knight

2pm - 4.15pm: The rise and rise of the far right David Broder

4.45pm - 7pm: Labour and price: a simple bypass round an old conundrum Moshé Machover

Monday August 14

10am - 12.15pm: Clara Zetkin and the women’s and women workers’ question of our time Ben Lewis

2pm - 4.15pm: The pro-war ‘left’: the necessity of drawing hard lines of demarcation against social-imperialists Colin Turner (Communist Platform, Netherlands)

4.45pm - 7pm: The CPGB 1920-1941: unity and its travails Lawrence Parker

Tuesday August 15

10am - 12.15pm: Capitalism in the 21st century Michael Roberts

2pm - 4.15pm: ‘For Stalin and the tsar’: red-brown politics in modern Russia Edmund Griffiths

4.45pm - 7pm: Marx, Faraday and the spectral objectivity of value Ian Wright

Wednesday August 16

10am - 12.15pm: Are human beings about to be superseded by AI? Yassamine Mather

2pm - 4.15pm: Turkey: how not to stop the far right Esen Uslu

4.45pm - 7pm: Prospects for the DSA Joseph Perez (Marxist Unity Group, USA)

Thursday August 17

10am - 12.15pm: Iran protests and the failures of the Iranian left Yassamine Mather

2pm - 4.15pm: What’s left of Corbynism? Why the official Labour left has been so useless Tina Werkmann and Kevin Bean

4.45pm - 7pm: The challenge of communist unity Mike Macnair

Friday August 18

10am - 12.15pm: The struggle for reproductive rights in the early communist movement and its relevance for today Anne McShane

2pm - 4.15pm: Socialism and bourgeois feminism: from Marx and Engels to the Second International Marc Mulholland

4.45pm - 7pm: Nato’s proxy war in Ukraine and its strategic goal: encircling and strangling China Jack Conrad

Saturday August 19

10am - 12.15pm: Leaving deserts behind: ecological destruction in the ancient world Mike Macnair

1.30pm: Climate crisis and the limits of protest politics Jack Conrad

A short session for evaluation and feedback will follow the final session.