Socialism Today

The global power of the British empire, which at its height encompassed nearly a quarter of the world’s population and its landmass, was not overturned by one single event alone but through a succession of ruptures, of economic crises, wars and revolutionary mass movements, against a backdrop of decline. And so it is the same now with the brief period, historically speaking, of the US as the world’s hyperpower, that began in the 1990s after the collapse of the Stalinist regimes of Russia and Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War.

The transition underway from US hegemony to a new era of an increasingly multi-polar world will also occur not in one big bang, but through a series of convulsive leaps and bounds as the shifting geopolitics of a crisis-ridden global capitalist economic and political system work their way through. The devastating Israeli-US aerial blitzkrieg on Iran is another such turning point.

A leadership election is under way in the Green Party between the incumbent shared leadership of two Green MPs Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns (who is replacing the Bristol MP Carla Denyer on the ticket) and Zack Polanski, currently the deputy leader of the Green Party and a member of the London Assembly since 2021.

Polanski is standing for leader as an ‘eco-populist’, wanting to say to the millions of people who have supported Labour in the past, “you’re not leaving the Labour Party. The Labour party has left you”.

According to Jimmy Goodrich, a senior advisor at the Rand Corporation, an organisation with close links to the US military, “whoever masters it (fusion energy) will gain enormous advantages – economically, strategically and from a national security perspective”. Goodrich is warning the Trump administration of the dangers of cutting funding, when China is mobilizing huge resources in this area.

Nuclear fusion, the source of the sun’s heat, could provide nearly unlimited power without releasing any of the greenhouse gases driving global warming. By fusing together atomic particles rather than splitting them, as in conventional nuclear power, no toxic radioactive waste is given off. Also, again unlike in conventional nuclear reactors, fusion has a built-in fail-safe mechanism, if there is a power failure the reactor automatically shuts down.

The following is an introduction, written by HANNAH SELL, for a forthcoming centenary reprint of Leon Trotsky’s important book, Where is Britain Going?, which has as much relevance today as when it was first published in 1925.

Leon Trotsky, along with Vladimir Lenin the key leader of the Russian revolution, wrote Where is Britain Going? to try and prepare the young British Communist Party for the epic class battles which he could see ahead. It has many lessons for a new generation drawing Marxist conclusions today in an era of increasingly stormy events.

As Trotsky says in his autobiography, My Life, when he wrote Where is Britain Going? it was clear that “the fight in the coal industry would lead to a general strike”. Yet the book, Trotsky reported, was treated by the “official leaders of British socialism” as “the fantasy of a foreigner who did not know British conditions”. Just a year later, sooner even than Trotsky expected, the 1926 general strike erupted – the highest peak reached by the class struggle in Britain to date.

At every stage of struggle in the hundred years since it was written this book has had huge value for Marxists. Nonetheless, it is more relevant in 2025 than at any time since the era in which it first appeared. The ailing character of capitalism worldwide and in Britain, and the increasing bitterness of the class struggle, have far more in common with the early 1920s than any period since 1945.

MARTIN POWELL-DAVIES reviews a recent book by Socialist Party member Pete Dickenson that gives a comprehensive socialist solution to capitalism’s environmental destruction of the planet.

Planning For The Planet

By Pete Dickenson

Published by Socialist Books, 2025 (second edition), £11-99

Planning For The Planet – How Socialism Could Save The Environment, is essential reading for anyone serious about ensuring urgent global action is taken to prevent the growing threat of environmental catastrophe.

When its author, Socialist Party member Pete Dickenson, wrote the first edition of his book back in 2011, global temperatures had risen by around 1^◦C above pre-industrial levels. But in 2025, when Pete’s updated second edition is being published, that rise is now already consistently being recorded at above 1.5^◦C.

Back in 2011, the link between rising greenhouse gas emissions and the increase in extreme weather events was still just a theoretical debate. Now it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt, based on measurements of ocean temperatures.

Ash Sarker’s recent book on identity politics has drawn media attention for its criticism of the left as well as the right. But it does not adequately deal with the issues it raises, argues BEA GARDNER, in particular relating to identity and class.

Minority Rule

By Ash Sarkar

Published by Bloomsbury, 2025, £18-99

Minority Rule is the first book by Ash Sarkar, who over the past decade has built a sizeable influence as a left political commentator. She also describes herself as a Marxist. Her rebuttal to Piers Morgan in a 2018 TV debate – “I’m literally a communist, you idiot” – has received over eight million views on the YouTube account of Novara Media, which Sarkar is a contributing editor of.  

Given her left profile, Sarkar’s book will be a pole of attraction to a sizable layer looking for an explanation about the rise of the far right and attacks on migrants and trans people continuing under the new Labour government. It is therefore necessary to engage with her core ideas and appraise what they offer to those seeking answers.