School of Communism 2026

In order to transform the world, we must first understand it. In this speech, the RCI’s leading theoretician, Alan Woods, explains dialectics: a revolutionary school of thought, which holds that nothing is fixed or static. 

Taking his starting point from the great idealist German Philosopher Hegel, Karl Marx placed dialectics on a sound materialist basis. 

This great philosophical revolution developed into dialectical materialism – a revolutionary philosophy that explains the most general laws of motion of nature, human society and thought itself.

This remains the most powerful theoretical tool communists have at their disposal for understanding the world – the prior condition for bringing about its complete transformation.

Communism is international, or it is nothing. This was clearly understood by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, who all recognised the necessity to unite the struggles of workers, regardless of all national divisions against their common enemy: capitalism.  

Today, that message is more relevant and necessary than ever.

The capitalist system is in a deep crisis worldwide. Everywhere the workers are threatened with collapsing living standards, unemployment, wars and endless suffering. 

Millions of workers and youth are looking for a way out of the crisis. The reformists have no answer. They no longer stand for meaningful reforms, but counter-reforms and cuts.

A clean break is necessary.

In this talk, Alan Woods, lead theoretician of the RCI, explains why the time is ripe for launching a new Revolutionary Communist International and outlines the tasks that lie ahead for communists today.

In June, hundreds of revolutionaries from all over the world gathered in Italy for the founding conference of the Revolutionary Communist International, with thousands more participating online.

In addition to officially establishing our new International, the conference was a school of communism, with around 20 sessions on all aspects of our theory, history and thought. 

This podcast series provides recordings of all of the speeches from the founding conference of the RCI. 

You’ll find episodes about our philosophy, our perspective on the most pressing issues facing workers and youth today, and answers to common slanders about what communists stand for. 

Together, these talks represent the complete programme of our international. If you’re inspired by what you hear, and agree with our point of view: join us at marxist.com/join-us.htm

Links and information about getting involved are included in all the episode descriptions, and you can learn more about the RCI on our main website: marxist.com. You can also listen to our main weekly podcast series, the Spectre of Communism.  

Subscribe to International Marxist Radio: a new, weekly podcast series from the IMT. Episode 1, with Alan Woods on world politics at the dawn of 2023, is out now.

Main feed – contains latest episodes and links to all streaming platforms:

https://podcast.marxist.com/

First episode with Alan Woods:

https://www.marxist.com/podcast-imr-1-2023-for-a-revolutionary-new-year.htm

A new podcast from the International Marxist Tendency (marxist.com). Revolutionary news, theory and analysis every single week, starting Jan 2023. Spread the word with #IMR!

Our epoch is characterized by a groundswell of desire for revolution amongst the masses around the world. In many instances we have seen the masses have taken to earth-shaking action to achieve change. Yet as Leon Trotsky explained: “Without a guiding organisation, the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston-box.” The guiding organisation that can channel the steam of the masses is the revolutionary party, and it needs to be built ahead of decisive events.

The depth of the capitalist crisis through which we’re living makes revolutionary leadership more urgent than ever. It’s up to us to build it!

The great philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel led a revolution in philosophy by breaking with the mechanical bourgeois materialism, dominant in the Europe of his day, in favour of a worldview that embraced contradiction and constant change. Marx and Engels’ scientific socialism placed Hegel’s ideas on a materialist basis, culminating in the highest accomplishment of philosophy: dialectical materialism.

Today, the most-advanced discoveries and theories in science continually validate Marx and Engels’ ideas. Rather than a world consisting of fixed, discrete, static entities moving in a predictable way for all eternity, or even a gradual shift from one state to another, science increasingly uncovers a cauldron of revolutionary transformation.

From chaos and complexity theory in mathematics, to the Gouldian theory of punctuated equilibrium in evolutionary zoology, to quantum mechanics in physics, the limits of formal logic are being exposed by the march of discovery. Scientists have to reckon with a world where particles behave like waves and vice versa, where matter and energy are equivalent, and species undergo sudden and dramatic flourishes and extinctions. In other words: nature is defined by motion, change and revolution!

Recommended Reading:

• Scientific Revolution and Materialist Philosophy
• Reason in Revolt – Alan Woods
• Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen – Mark Buchanan

The American Revolution of the late 18th century was followed by an even greater, and bloodier, revolution in the 1860s. Usually presented as the American Civil War, it was in reality a revolutionary conflict between the historically progressive industrial capitalism of the North, and the plantation and slave-owning counterrevolution of the South. This clash resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and was followed by the smouldering revolution and counterrevolution of Reconstruction.

The legacy of the Civil War is still felt to this day, particularly in the former slave states. But throughout the entire country, the impact of slavery can be seen in the institutional racism that continues to plague American society. What is needed today is a third revolution that will break with the root source of oppression and exploitation – the capitalist system – and lead to the establishment of socialism in the USA.

Recommended Reading:

• Marxism and the USA, The Second American Revolution
• Writings on the US Civil War – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Engels described the emergence of the patriarchal family as humanity’s first counterrevolution. For hundreds of thousands of years, under conditions of what Engels calls primitive communism, there was no private property, marriage as we know it today did not exist, and there were no classes. But agriculture and the production of a surplus (more resources than was necessary for sheer survival) laid the material basis for a division of labour, and with it the emergence of social classes: exploiters and the exploited.

The burgeoning ruling class needed a way to pass their accumulated wealth to their offspring, down the male line, which in turn necessitated a way of determining paternity and controlling reproduction. The only way that could be done was by demoting women to the position of domination by men. This is the historical basis for marriage in its present form and the family. The family, private property, the state, and class society all have a shared origin. Today, we strive to free human relations from the shackles of coercion and oppression; and put them on a healthy basis under a socialist society.

Recommended Reading:

• Origin of the family: In Defence of Engels and Morgan
• Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State – Friedrich Engels

The defenders of capitalism like to tell us stories about free competition and the wonders of the market mechanism. But can we really talk about a ‘free’ market, when the world economy is dominated by 500 monopolies?

The development of capitalism has brought into being massive multinational corporations, most of them ‘too big to fail’, as we saw in 2008, when the state intervened to prop up many of them. These companies engage in planning on a massive scale, whilst, of course, claiming that planning is impossible.

Yet, at the same time the world market still maintains its chaotic existence, dominating everything and wreaking havoc across the world. How would socialist planning be different and what advantages do modern technology bring?

Recommended Reading:

• Capitalism is dying – and a new socialist society is trying to be born
• Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism – V.I. Lenin