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Winter 2020
Table of Contents
The New Intake
Newly elected socialist MPs from across the country introduce themselves to Tribune readers.
Features
Why We Lost
In 2017, Corbynism was a vibrant socialist project with a real prospect of power — in the two years since, it inflicted many of its own wounds.
Getting Away With War Crimes
Former British soldiers with friends in high places ran a mercenary enterprise from Sri Lanka to Nicaragua, leaving a trail of death and destruction in their wake.
No Going Back
Ignore the pundits cheering on the return of ‘sensible’ politics. If humanity is going to tackle the challenges it faces, socialism remains the only answer.
A Decade on the Left
The past ten years have seen the socialist movement emerge from the margins to challenge power. But after a series of defeats, where does it go next?
The Broken Mythologies of Silicon Valley
The high-profile collapse of WeWork is a parable of venture capitalism — and a world where our collective future is determined by the whims of billionaire investors.
Secondary Modern
Wirral’s Solar Campus was a global pioneer in the field of ecology. Its gradual destruction tells a story about how idealistic social and architectural ideas have been ground down by class and regional inequalities.
A Letter to the Movement
Laura Pidcock may have lost her seat in December, but she remains unbowed. Her advice? Stand tall, defend your community, and prepare for the fightback.
Opinion
Assessing Defeat
To understand December’s loss, socialists should look beyond the ‘Brexit or Corbyn’ binary to deeper problems facing the labour movement — which can’t be solved by charting a course towards the centre.
Rebuilding the Red Bases
To popularise the hope of a better future, socialists must once again become a meaningful part of working-class communities.
Why Unions Matter
There is only one force on earth that can challenge the stranglehold of capital: a fighting trade union movement with organisers at its core.
The Hollow Government
When Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings were in charge of the Department for Education, their scorched earth reforms left chaos in their wake. Now, they have their sights on the entire civil service.
Organising the Housing Struggle
The housing crisis isn’t going away just because Labour lost the election. Now is the time for those who want to continue the fight to throw themselves into grassroots campaigns.
Breaking From Westminster
If Labour is to rebuild itself in the twenty-first century it has to commit to a fundamental transformation of Britain’s political institutions.
The Real Continuity Candidate
Only economic radicalism and internationalism can achieve the change the Labour Party hopes to see in British politics.
Empowering Scotland
Unless the Labour Party gets bolder on constitutional questions, defeats like the one it suffered in Scotland in December will be permanent.
Labour’s Midlands Rout
The Midlands, which was once a heartland of militant trade unionism, saw thousands of Labour voters switch to the Tories this election. Only a politics that truly embraces community, solidarity and dignity can reverse this trend.
Culture
A Letter From Berlin
West Berlin’s thriving Kreuzberg district was regarded as a ‘ghetto’ until it was reshaped as a public housing showcase in the 1980s by a complex alliance of migrants, architects, and the city council. Now its success is pushing out the people who rebuilt it.
Eccentrics Against the Apocalypse
The Greenham Common peace camp was not just a protest, but a community trying to live a better world in the present day.
Spiral Scratch
The ‘Scratch Orchestra’ founded in the 1970s by composer Cornelius Cardew was an experiment in democratic music-making, turning the orchestra into the microcosm of a new society.
Why Be Miserable?
The history of Les Misérables has been characterised by popular acclaim in the face of critical disdain and ruling-class anxiety. Maybe it’s time to hear the people sing.
To All of Us With Nervous Systems and Nightmares
Anne Boyer’s book The Undying speaks of the equality of human illness — and the inequality of care under capitalism.
Secrets and Lies
A tense thriller about the trial of Katherine Gun and the propaganda of the Iraq War is a useful reminder that ‘post-truth’ politics is a lot older than Donald Trump.
China’s Poet-Generals
An annotated anthology of verse by Chinese revolutionaries, from imprisoned Trotskyists to Mao himself, tells the story of how poetry, power, and insurrection so often ran together.
The Photography of the Oppressed
The Wellcome Collection exhibition Misbehaving Bodies reminds us of the pioneering work of Jo Spence, whose photographic projects brought together agitprop, therapy, and working-class pride.
The Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe
In this month’s Red Library, we look at a pile of biographies, travelogues, and memoirs about state socialist Eastern Europe, and ask whether they can teach us anything new about how and why it collapsed.