This edition of our journal is designed to introduce the politics of Communist Students to the new audience attending freshers’ fares around the country. It features themes that are integral to our work as a Marxist group: the decline of capitalism, genuine internationalism and the crisis of the left.

Faced with the mess capitalism has made of our world, many have become conscious that the rule of profit and anarchy of the market are no solutions. The guff that ‘You can’t buck the market’ and ‘There is no alternative’ looks increasingly hollow. But if there is an alternative to war, ecological crisis and the economic meltdown – what is it and how can we build it?

Communist Students does exactly what is says on the tin: we are Marxists because we believe that Marxism works, that it presents practical and workable solutions to the problems of the contemporary world in a way that no other form of politics can. One of the problems in getting this message more widely disseminated is … the Marxists themselves, unfortunately. Most of the revolutionary left present a sorry picture: hopelessly divided into bitterly opposed, programmatically adrift sects. CS is in business to overcome this disunity – but bring the left together on genuinely principled working class politics.

We hope you find things you agree with in this journal. We also hope you find plenty you don’t. We want a dialogue with those students who are thinking critically, have developed their own opinions about the world and how to change it. Sometimes that exchange may be sharp, but this shouldn’t stop us working together, learning from each other and becoming comrades.

The editors