Solidarity 311, 29 January 2014

In the early hours of Monday 20 January a Greek coastguard patrol detected a small boat near then Greek island of Farmakonisi, in the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey. This is a longer version of the article than in the printed paper. On board were 28 asylum seekers, 25 Afghans and 3 Syrians, including many women and children. The survivors say that the coastguards attached a rope to their boat and towed it towards Turkish waters at high speed and in rough seas. The boat capsized. The coastguards eventually picked up 16 survivors. Six people were found dead, amongst them a woman and a five...

Barry Wilton, an activist involved in Transition Heathrow, spoke to Solidarity about the campaign to oppose airport expansion in the communities around Heathrow. The issue of the expansion of Heathrow Airport, which was pushed by the Labour government in 2006-7 but was defeated, after a long campaign, in 2010, has been completely revived. The Davies Commission into airport expansion in the south east is considering a number of options, several of which are Heathrow-focused. A leak that was published in the Independent showed that the non-Heathrow options are not being seriously considered, so...

In his New Year's message to members, RMT rail union general secretary Bob Crow declared: "On the political landscape RMT will be backing a slate of No2EU, yes to workers' rights candidates in May offering a positive alternative to the bankers-led EU and the narrow, right wing opportunism of UKIP. We will offer the working class a real political alternative". "The only rational course", says Crow, "is to leave the EU and rebuild Britain with socialist policies". When No2EU was first launched in 2009, we argued that it was a bad move. Crow and his associates do want to defend workers' rights...

Socialist Worker of 21 January cites approvingly "a statement issued by the Revolutionary Left Current [in Syria which] spoke of 'the double repression' suffered by the popular movement - from the regime and armed Islamist groups". It quotes an RLC activist: "people say we need a second revolution". Until now, mostly, Socialist Worker , and related currents of thought, have been willing to criticise Islamists only when, and on the grounds that, they are neo-liberal, pro-IMF, etc. The Islamist ultras of ISIL/ISIS in Syria are not particularly pro-IMF. They are more "anti-imperialist", if "anti...

Asylum seekers detained by the Australian government on Christmas Island are staging hunger strikes in protest against their treatment and forced separation from family members. At least 78 men have joined the strike; hundreds more, including children, are participating in sit-ins. Some people are self-harming with glass and razors, and others are sewing their lips together. Christmas Island is a tiny Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, uninhabited when first found by European explorers. Its settled population is now mostly Chinese-Australian, but the Australian government uses it as a...

The Labour Party will hold a special conference on 1 March at ExCeL in London. The Labour leadership will put proposals to carry through some version of Ed Miliband's call, in July 2013, to change the relationship between trade unionists and the Labour Party. Ray Collins, who is charged with drafting the detailed proposals, had suggested that he would present his conclusions before Christmas. Now it looks as if the detailed draft may be much more delayed, maybe even after the Labour Party National Executive meeting on 4 February. This is good insofar as it reflects opposition from the trade...

1. Gramsci, Lenin and Western Marxism | 2. The Modern Prince | 3. The many Gramscis: Post-Marxism, contemporary philosophy and class politics ( [Althusser] ) | 4. Post-Marxism | 5. Anderson’s interpretation of Gramsci | 6. Gramsci and philosophy This is a longer version of the article than in the printed paper . Gramsci, Lenin and Western Marxism Martin Thomas starts off his broad evaluation of Gramsci, through the prism of Peter Thomas’ instant classic The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism (2009), with the accurate remark that Eurocommunist and Post-Marxist/New Labour...