‘Basti’ from the Revolutionary Socialist Organisation in Switzerland gave a talk on ‘Marxism, Crisis and Youth at the Manchester Communist Students branch meeting on May 12th which was attended by comrades from University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University and Manchester College.

His speech gave an analysis of the crisis of capitalism and how marxists should react to it. His main focus was the ideological deficit of capitalism in its ability to explain the origins of the economic crisis. He argued that, whilst capitalists hope to deflect criticism by blaming individual ‘greedy bankers’, it is the role of marxists to consistently expose the roots of the crisis as being capitalism in itself. No amount of ‘good’ or ‘prudent’ banking can solve the inherent flaws in capitalism, the only solution is its destruction. He also importantly pointed out that if economic crisis is not met with uprising from the working class it can have long term positive effects for elements of capitalism through the monopolisation of surviving business.

There was some debate as to what our role as marxists should be. Comrade Basti argued that, though the depth and the future of the economic crisis are important questions, we should not focus our efforts on attempting to predict the outcome of the crisis as we have insufficient knowledge of the economical climate and the information we deal with is not neutral. Instead, he said, our main goal is the ideological battle about the source of the crisis and our main tool of propoganda should be the marxist analysis of this. Another comrade, however, argued that predictions about the future and scope of the crisis remain key when working within the left movement.

The meeting concluded with a brief discussion on the necessity of unity as marxists, with coherent marxist ideas, when taking our politics to the working class.

by Cat Rylance