School of Communism 2026

War is inevitable under capitalism. In fact, it is the direct consequence of imperialism. The struggle between competing nations for markets, fields of investment, and spheres of influence always results in clashes where workers fight and die to protect the profits of their ruling classes. In Lenin’s day, the capitalist rulers of Europe sent millions to slaughter one another in the trenches of WWI, with the treacherous support of the leaders of the mass workers’ organisations. 

As Jorge Martin from our international leadership explains in this talk, Lenin did not bend an inch to nationalist pressures to set aside class differences and fight to ‘defend the fatherland’, nor did he preach impotent pacifism. Instead, he insisted on workers struggling independently for their interests, against the machinations of their warmongering ruling classes. 

Ultimately, the only way to end capitalist war is by fighting a revolutionary class war against the system responsible for armed conflict.

Identity politics professes to unite oppressed people against their oppressors. But in reality, it merely distracts from the root cause of society’s ills, including racism, sexism, homophobia and every other form of bigotry.

Capitalism could not survive without dividing the working class along the lines of race, gender and sexuality to prevent a common struggle against the real foe: the rich bosses and the exploitative system they represent.

As Ylva Vinberg, a leading Swedish communist, explains in this episode, we need united class struggle to strike at the heart of all the rotten and reactionary ideas that poison human relations.

The October Revolution of 1917 was the first time in history that workers and peasants had taken on the bosses, landlords and capitalists and not only won, but held onto power.

For this, communists today recognise the Russian Revolution as the greatest event in human history. It is for the same reason that today’s capitalists and their cronies seek to pour slander and scorn on the real history of the revolution. 

As Alessio Marconi, a leading comrade in Italy explains, it is our duty today to defend the legacy of the Russian Revolution, which is a beacon to all class fighters. It remains proof in practice that the ruling class can be defeated, and that a new form of society is possible.

Many people have a dismissive attitude towards philosophy: no doubt informed by the pretentious rubbish taught in university classrooms. But the fact is those without a worked-out way of viewing the world will unthinkingly regurgitate the ideas of the ruling elite. 

As Hamid Alizadeh, a leading member of the RCI, explains in this talk: communists seek to change the world. 

For that, we need a revolutionary philosophy, to identify the reasons for the rotten state of society, combat reactionary ideas that seek to drag humanity backwards, and envision how the world might be rebuilt anew.

After the overthrow of Tsar Nicholas ‘the Bloody’ Romanov in 1917, the new revolutionary regime in Russia (led by the Bolshevik Party) began the monumental task of socialist reconstruction. 

They were met almost immediately by the White counter-revolution, leading to a terrible Civil War in which the Bolsheviks led a life-or-death struggle to save the revolution. 

Despite enormous difficulties, immense strides forward were taken for the peasantry, women, and oppressed nationalities; while control of production began to be transferred to workers in the factories. Attempts were made to spread the revolution worldwide, with the founding of the Communist International.
In this talk, Rob Sewell, co-author of a new biography, In Defence of Lenin, talks about the accomplishments of the Bolsheviks during the early, heroic years after the revolution. Purchase your copy from Wellred-Books.com today!

Lenin and Trotsky are the two outstanding figures of the Russian Revolution. Despite differences of opinion over the course of their lives, after the October Revolution the two men were so widely identified as the leaders of the Bolshevik Party that it became colloquially known as “the Party of Lenin-Trotsky.”

However, after Lenin’s death, the Stalinist counter-revolution dredged up any disagreements between the two, stripped of context. They also invented all manner of lies and slander in their war on so-called Trotskyism. This culminated in Trotsky’s exile and eventual assassination in 1940 by a Stalinist agent.

As Jack Halinski-Fitzpatrick from the RCI’s international leadership explains, Trotsky defended the authentic ideas and traditions of October, which is precisely why the Stalinists were compelled to discredit him. In reality, Trotsky fought a courageous battle to preserve Lenin’s legacy and ideas.

In the October Revolution of 1917, the Russian workers and peasants took power with the Bolsheviks at their head, but Lenin understood that socialism could not be built in Russia alone. 

That’s why he and the Bolsheviks founded the Third, Communist International – or Comintern – as a single party of world revolution, bringing together and assisting the development of communist parties in every country.

In this talk, Fred Weston from the leading body of the RCI explains how the Comintern was built, what it accomplished, and the reasons for its eventual degeneration – leaving behind an absence of revolutionary leadership that we strive to fill with our new International.

The Bolsheviks did not simply spring into being fully formed. The party was built painstakingly over the course of many years, chiefly by Lenin, to serve as an instrument for the revolutionary workers and peasants when the time was right. 

As Antonio Balmer, one of our leading comrades from the USA explains, the history of Bolshevism was one of unrelenting ideological struggle against different political tendencies in Russia: from the terrorist methods of the Narodniks, to the reformist opportunism of Bernstein and the Economists.

The Party had to clarify itself internally as well, with Lenin patiently winning his comrades to the correct course, eventually building a revolutionary party worthy of the tasks of history. 

The degeneration of the Soviet Union into a dictatorial parody of socialism, at the hands of Stalin’s counterrevolutionary clique of bureaucrats, is one of the great tragedies of world history.

Today, our critics use this example to argue that communism always results in a small clique at the top controlling everything.

But as Jerome Mellatus, leading French communist, explains: the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy was a product of the backwardness of Russia and the failure of the world revolution. Lenin spent the last years of his life fighting this degeneration in vain. 

To avoid repeating history, we must build communism on healthy foundations.

We are often told that the fall of the Soviet Union was incontrovertible evidence of the failure of communism. 

This concerted campaign of slanders and lies, which falsely ties communism to the bureaucratic crimes of Stalinism, is spread by the ruling class and their cronies in order to undermine the struggle to overthrow capitalism today. 

In this talk, Niklas Albin Svensson from our international leadership explains how and why the USSR collapsed. He demonstrates that it was not communism, but a bureaucratic deformation which failed.