As this article was written on 14 July, during reports of a fourth day of rioting involving the throwing of a pipe bomb at police officers in Crumlin Road in North Belfast and other clashes involving the use of petrol bombs in East Belfast are starting to appear in the media.

This article was published in the run up to the SYRIZA congress and poses the need for a genuine revolutionary programme to be adopted by the party. We publish it as we await a more detailed report of the congress. What we can say for now is that two comrades of the Communist Platform were elected to the Central Committee of the party.

During the recent SYRIZA congress the Press Office of New Democracy issues a press release, pointing the finger at the ideas defended by the Communist Platform. We publish here a short note from the Communist Platform and the text of the Press Release for the information of our readers.

We received today this statement from the Communist Tendency of SYRIZA, which explains that, while prior to the party congress rules had been established allowing alternative documents to be presented on condition they received the backing of a sufficient number of party members (the Communist Tendency managed to get the required signatures), now as the national congress of SYRIZA is unfolding the party leadership is manoeuvring to remove the Communist Platform document from the agenda!

On Tuesday 09th of July Socialist Appeal and the SOAS Marxist Society hosted a discussion at SOAS to analyse and discuss the current revolutionary situation in Egypt and, more broadly, in the Middle East. Jorge Martin and Hamid Alizadeh from the International Marxist Tendency opened the meeting to a crowd of around 40 attendees. 

The founding congress of SYRIZA is taking place July 10-14, where all the component parts that previously made up the alliance are to dissolve into one unified party. In the process, however, party leader Tsipras has moved to the right, endangering the significant gains made by the party in the recent period. We publish here an article explaining the emergence of the Communist Tendency within the party and its struggle for a Marxist programme and policy.

In July 1888, 1,400 female workers walked out on strike at the Bryant and May factory in East London. 125 years later, that struggle still holds a place of honour in the history of the labour movement.

The row over the selection process for a new Labour candidate in Falkirk (Scotland), which has highlighted relations between the unions and the Labour Party, sees new battle lines being drawn for the future of working class political representation in Britain.

From 28-30 June, Socialist Appeal, in conjunction with the UCLU Marxist Society, hosted the 3rd Marxist Summer School, with over 100 attending during the course of the weekend.

Today, hundreds of thousands of Portuguese workers went on a 24 hour general strike. This is the fourth general strike in two years that the centre-right government has faced. Today’s strike though, was by far the largest show of strength by the unions in the past few years.

The current Czech political crisis erupted on 13^th June 2013 when the Unit for Combating Organised Crime and the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office (from Olomouc) raided the cabinet building and several ministries of the Czech Republic along with several offices of politicians and entrepreneurs. The next day, the police confiscated gold and money from these people that they had in a bank in Wenceslas Square.

The crisis facing the Greek coalition government continues, thus strengthening in the minds of thousands of militant activists of the labour movement the secret hope that new elections are coming soon. Now all the mass organisations of the working class – political and trade union – must put all their resources into escalating the militant anti-government movement that has built up following the closure of ERT (the national public broadcaster).

The May county council elections in Britain this year brought some crumbs of comfort to the Labour Party as it gained more than 260 seats and its share of the vote stood at 29%. Given the dismal record of the Coalition, Labour had hoped for more gains.

As we write this article a 24-hour general strike is taking place in Greece against the Samaras government’s decision to shut down the state broadcasting company ERT and sack 2,700 jobs. In Athens workers are marching on the ERT headquarters.

The Dublin lockout which took place from the 26^th August 1913 to 18^th January the following year stands as one of the most marked episodes of entrenched class conflict in Irish history.  Over 20,000 workers and 80,000 dependents were directly affected as over 400 employers locked out members of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) for refusing to sign a pledge to resign from the union and against sympathetic strike action. The city was paralysed by the dispute and saw pitched battles between scabs with police backing and picketing workers who went onto organise the Irish Citizens’ Army.