Party & Programme > Programmes
Hidden from history
22 Nov 2007
Lawrence Parker, The kick inside - revolutionary opposition in the CPGB 1960-1991 2007, £4.00 (+ £1.15 postage), pp75
Cold war economism
17 Jul 2025
Members of TAS have fielded all sorts of arguments - some serious, most spurious. Mike Macnair cuts through the thicket to show why we need a minimum programme and a period of transition between capitalism and the highest phase of communism
One step back
03 Jul 2025
Marx provided many lessons of how to draft programmes. However, they were not only about building unity around concrete aims: they were also about drawing clear lines of demarcation, says Jack Conrad
Completely different foundations
26 Jun 2025
As with now, the economic significance and politics of the middle classes was being hotly debated among socialists back in the 1890s. Some claimed their growth as disproving Marxism. Others could only see proletarianisation. Ben Lewis has translated a highly pertinent passage from Karl Kautsky’s Anti-Bernstein (1899), which offers still valuable insights. Mike Macnair provides the introduction
Learning some elementary Russian
12 Jun 2025
Worthwhile unity can only be forged around a democratically agreed programme. But that necessarily involves minorities accepting majority votes. Demanding that majorities discard their programme and compromise on their principles is a non-starter, says Jack Conrad
Programme ’n’ chips
08 May 2025
Differences are inevitable. Unity can, however, be forged around a democratically agreed programme and the commitment to building a mass party. Jack Conrad reports … and considers organisational cultures, good and bad
Rediscovering our words
10 Apr 2025
Communist unity needs solid programmatic foundations if it is going to succeed. Towards that end, Jack Conrad says that we need to return to our common language to overcome common misunderstandings
Minimum demands are maximal
03 Apr 2025
Let us not understate our radicalism or drive ourselves into sterile propagandism. Mike Macnair reports on the latest meeting of Forging Communist Unity
Getting down to details
13 Mar 2025
Our first face-to-face meeting took place on March 8. The aim was to find out where we agreed and where we disagreed. Mike Macnair reports on Forging Communist Unity
Operating on a hunch
06 Mar 2025
The International Socialist tradition is nowadays characterised by an almost pathological fear of adopting a programme. Yet without a comprehensive, fully worked-out programme there is every chance of falling into opportunist incoherence, argues Jack Conrad
Programmatic starting point
27 Feb 2025
Without a comprehensive, fully worked-out programme, our party will have no chance of taking coherent form, guarding against opportunism or navigating the road to socialism, argues Jack Conrad
What sort of partyism?
09 Jan 2025
Archie Woodrow is quite good on identifying the left’s problems, less good when it comes to giving answers. Mike Macnair continues his series of articles on the ‘party discussion’
What sort of partyism?
05 Dec 2024
Since September a range of left groups have put forward ‘pro-party’ arguments. Mike Macnair explores the good and the bad
A hundred years is enough
19 Sep 2024
Three books, all published in 1924, laid the ideological groundwork for a Lenin cult, which is still responsible for the confessional sects and academic historians alike getting the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution so wrong. Lars T Lih shows that there was no Hegel moment, no April theses break, no conversion to Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. Lenin and the Bolsheviks consistently upheld revolutionary social democracy
Primary task set
18 Jul 2024
Theory and programme are treated seriously, but there are leftist and anarchistic carryovers. Martin Greenfield reports on the Revolutionary Communist Organisation conference in Australia and the next steps that are needed in what will doubtless be a long journey
Breaking the grip of Zionism
06 Jun 2024
There is a way out of the hell into which the Palestinian masses have been consigned by Israeli settler‑colonialism. Jack Conrad presents the communist solution