Britain: socialism or barbarism – why you should be a communist

We are living in an era of revolution and counter-revolution; of both reaction and radicalisation. In the famous words of Rosa Luxemburg, the future facing humanity is either socialism or barbarism.

[Originally published at communist.red]

The horrors of capitalism are playing out in real time. Our world is being ravaged by war, crisis, and climate catastrophe. The mega-rich and their representatives, meanwhile, are living on another planet from the rest of us.

In Ukraine, European leaders are helping to prolong the carnage, sending ever-more bombs and missiles to Kyiv, despite every indication that Zelensky’s NATO-backed regime has been defeated.

In the Middle East, Netanyahu is pushing ahead with his murderous campaign against the Palestinian people. And despite their occasional display of crocodile tears, politicians in London and Washington are continuing to aid and abet this slaughter: financially, militarily, and diplomatically.

This imperialist aggression abroad translates into intensified austerity and repression back home.

Welfare is being slashed to pay for warfare, with Starmer’s Labour attempting to make pensioners and disabled people foot the bill for the British establishment’s rearmament drive.

And thousands of pro-Palestine activists are being arrested and branded as ‘terrorists’ for daring to oppose the genocide. Meanwhile, the real criminals – the warmongers in Westminster and the White House – remain at large.

Britain on the brink

In Britain, years of cuts to public services and attacks on living standards are being made atop decades of decay and decline.

NHS waiting lists remain swollen. Local councils are running on empty. Hospitals, schools, infrastructure, and utilities are crumbling. Universities across the country are on the brink of bankruptcy.

And while rents and prices continue to rise for ordinary households, the landlords and bosses are laughing all the way to the bank.

Workers and their families are already shouldering the burden for capitalism’s neverending crisis. Yet things are only set to get worse.

Hammer and anvil

Every effort by Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to revive the fortunes of British capitalism has fallen flat.

The latest official figures showed that the UK economy failed to grow in July. Unemployment and inflation are stubbornly refusing to go down. And factory closures continue apace, with the instability and uncertainty of a rumbling global trade war only adding to British industry’s mounting problems.

The billionaires and bankers are therefore piling pressure on Starmer’s government, demanding that the Labour leaders commit to even deeper cuts in their upcoming Autumn Budget, in order to ‘balance the books’ and ensure that investors get their pound of flesh.

Yet Starmer and his ministers have already struggled to push their draconian austerity measures past Labour backbenchers, who are fearful of facing the wrath of local constituents.

Any attempt to implement further cuts will therefore see this crisis-ridden government pounded between the hammer of the financial markets and the anvil of an enraged working class.

Rotten establishment

The Prime Minister has reshuffled his cabinet, in advance of the coming storms. But this is a case of rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

All of these besuited ladies and gentlemen are cut from the same cloth: whether it be war criminal David Lammy, taxdodger Angela Rayner, or Blairite Peter Mandelson – the former US ambassador and close friend of billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Cynical charlatans like Nigel Farage are capitalising on the hatred towards Britain’s rotten political establishment, alongside the burning anger in working-class communities over austerity, inequality, and deindustrialisation.

This has driven Reform UK to the top of the polls. The latest surveys put support for Farage’s outfit at 31 percent, compared to 20 percent for Labour and 16 percent for the Tories. Although this has more to do with the loathing of Britain’s traditional parties and politicians, than with any wider enthusiasm for Farage and Reform.

The upcoming Labour and Conservative party conferences are therefore set to be gloomy affairs. By contrast, there was a celebratory spirit at Reform’s recent gathering in Birmingham, with Farage and co. confidently predicting their ascendency to power at the next general election.

“They’re not fit to govern,” stated Farage in his keynote speech, referring to Starmer and his disgraced cabal. “We are the party that stands up for decent working people, and we are the party on the rise.”

Reaction on the streets

The pressures in society, combined with the absence of any real outlet on the left, have led to accumulating anger finding a distorted, reactionary expression on the right.

This graphically revealed itself on Saturday 13 September, when hundreds of thousands of flag-waving Tommy Robinson supporters took to the streets of London, outnumbering counter-protestors by at least twenty-to-one.

The composition of the right-wing demo was a motley mix: a hardened core of fascist thugs, looking for a fight; other far-right elements, hoping to whip up racism against migrants; and a broader bulk – frustrated with the status quo, disenchanted with the government and the establishment, and bought in by the culture war rhetoric of Robinson, Musk, et al.

Farage will no doubt be the main political beneficiary of these events. The Reform UK founder is more than happy to play on these tensions, opportunistically tapping into the mood of discontent with demagogic promises to fix ‘broken Britain’ by ‘stopping the boats’ and deporting migrants.

This only highlights the dismal role of the ‘left’ leaders. From the trade unions, to Corbyn and other prominent reformists, to the SWP and their ‘Stand Up to Racism’ campaign: all of these figures and organisations have completely failed to offer a clear class-based solution to the ills of capitalism – and, consequently, have been utterly incapable of mobilising workers and youth.

This has left the field wide open for Robinson and Farage to channel indignation towards asylum-seekers huddled in hotels, when it should be directed against the bosses, bankers, and billionaires occupying the City’s skyscraper offices and penthouse apartments.

Youth in revolt

The sight of this large, reactionary ‘Unite the Kingdom’ protest will no doubt have left many feeling shaken and fearful.

It is important that we are not dazzled and paralysed by these warning lights, however. Instead, such shocks should be an impetus to get organised as revolutionaries, in order to overturn the system that breeds all this chaos and misery.

Above all, rather than fixating on developments on the right, we must recognise the untapped potential that exists on the left.

Hundreds of thousands have signed up to support Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s initiative to launch a new left party. Over the past two years, millions in Britain have demonstrated against the genocide in Gaza, and ‘our’ government’s complicity in this atrocity. And millions more are organised in the trade unions, raring for industrial action.

Amongst the youth, the mood is even more radical. According to recent surveys, almost a third of 18-24 year-olds in Britain have a positive view of communism. Amongst 25-34 year-olds, this number rises to 40 percent. And elsewhere, polling suggests that almost half of Gen Zs want a revolution.

These changes in consciousness are part of a global phenomenon. The same conditions and events that are radicalising the next generation in Britain are pushing young people in Nepal, Indonesia, and France to come out en masse against their own political elites; to burn down government buildings and blockade roads; to revolt and rebel.

Join the revolution!

If you’ve been inspired by these recent movements, or feel compelled into action by the barbarism of imperialist war, the devastation of capitalist crisis, and the menace of the far right, then you should be a communist.

Already, hundreds have joined the communists of the RCP in recent months, as part of our ‘revolution against the billionaires’ campaign. And hundreds more will be following suit this autumn at universities, colleges, and schools across the country.

It’s time to get organised. It’s time to fight back. It’s time to join us in the struggle for world revolution.