If you weren’t able to attend our Socialism in the Park sessions or want to rewatch them again, click below!
The Origins of Class and State, July 26, 2017
This opening session examines the origins of inequality, the division of society into antagonistic classes, and the emergence of the state as an instrument of minority class rule. Mitchell will explain how feudalism replaced the slavery-based city states, how capitalism, based on generalized commodity production, replaced feudalism, and spread its tentacles worldwide. He will show how capitalism at its highest stage, imperialism, not only came to dominate the world, and deliberately under-develop three-quarters of humanity, but ushered in an epoch of world wars and revolutions.
Referenced Material here.
Permanent Revolution, Stalinism and the Transitional Programme, August 2, 2017
How was the world’s first workers’ state, the USSR, established, and how did its political degeneration cripple the revolutionary workers’ movement for generations? How was fascism, a feature of capitalist decay, utilized to decimate labour and the left, while permitting big business to re-stabilize its rule? How did revolutionary socialists kept Marxism alive, apply its scientific method (including the strategy of Permanent Revolution). Only Marxism is fully able to explain the post-World War 2 rebellions, the Cuban Revolution, feminism, anti-racism and current anti-imperialist movements from Venezuela to Palestine. Julius will present the Transitional Programme — a platform of democratic, defensive and transitional demands employed by socialists to raise class consciousness and to win concrete gains for the vast majority.
Referenced Material here.
Socialism in Canada (An Introduction to Socialism) – August 9, 2017
In this culminating session, Yasin will examine the background and present prospects for socialism in Canada, and explore the strategy necessary to advance it. What do we mean by socialism? What are the ideas and political programme associated with the class struggle of workers and our allies in the quest for an egalitarian, democratic and environmentally sustainable world? What is the movement in each country organized to achieve socialism?