Given the US domination of the world system, some on the left claim that any nation that opposes the US - such as China, Iran and Russia - should be supported when they clash with Washington. This approach, known as campism, is often associated with an attempt to paint these nations as socialist or, in some way, progressive. This talk will discuss the historic roots of campism and why anti-imperialist leftists should reject it. Recommended Reading: Confronting the Stalinist legacy by Corey Oakley in Marxist Left Review Internationalism, Anti-Imperialism, And the Origins of Campism by Dan La Botz China and the U.S. Left - A Dialogue Between Critical China Scholars and Spectre

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The 2011 uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa started in Tunisia and spread across the region as far east as Bahrain on the Arabian Gulf. They shook and overthrew decades-long repressive monarchies and presidencies and opened up the possibility of social transformation. Yet, within a couple of years, the uprisings had been snuffed out as a result of both repression and their political weaknesses. What lessons can we learn from these uprisings and their defeat? All are welcome to reflect on and analyse these momentous events. Recommended Reading: Ten years since the great Arab revolutions by Omar Hassan in Red Flag Marxism and the Arab revolutions by Sandra Bloodworth in Marxist Left Review

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The far right is on the march everywhere. Donald Trump and his MAGA coterie now command the world’s most powerful and violent state. Across Europe, parties with historical links to 1930s fascist parties are surging in France and Germany, are on the verge of taking power in Austria, and currently rule Italy and several other Central European countries. Pogromist violence directed at migrants erupted in the United Kingdom last year and Nigel Farage’s Reform party is now surging in the polls. Narendra Modi’s BJP party both commands the Indian state and a paramilitary organisation of millions. Are we witnessing the birth of a new era of fascism? This session will draw on the revolutionary Marxist tradition and the historical experience of fascisms past in order to understand the unique and terrifying threat the far-right poses in our present—and what we can do today to fight and ultimately defeat them. Recommended Reading: *‘No-one saves us but ourselves’: we have to resist the far right in Red Flag* *The many faces of fascism by Ruby Healer in Red Flag* *For revolutionaries, the period must be defined by the international fight against the far right by Thomas Hummel in Tempest Magazine* *Disaster Nationalism Is The New Fascism by Richard Seymour in Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung* *Living in ‘Late Fascism’: an interview with Alberto Toscano in The Majority Report* *The Authoritarian Disposition: Capitalism, Liberalism, Fascism by Todd Gordon and Jeffery R Webber in Spectre Journal* *Post-Fascism: Fascism as Trans-Historical Concept by Enzo Traverso in Crisis and Critique* *Neoliberal capitalism implodes: global catastrophe and the far right today by Alex Callinicos in International Socialism Journal*

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