United Communists of Europe

  Last week, we published a short programmatic piece on our website, The Road to Transgender Liberation . We shared the article with our friends and comrades, and received some helpful feedback. In this short article, we would like to discuss some of the feedback concerning trans healthcare and provide a response. Our hope is that this significantly improves the first article and helps us achieve greater programmatic unity.  x In the original article, we pointed to the importance of raising the transgender movement to a greater level by demanding unity on the basis of class. Although trans workers have their own specific needs and face a very particular type of oppression, they can find great strength by uniting with non-trans workers and fighting the bourgeoisie together. Our attitude to the existing trans movement is to defend trans organisations, but raise this class demand in order to place their struggle on a more advanced level.  One of our comrades noted that the f...

This text is a draft from the Programme of the United Communists of Europe. It represents a sincere effort of our organisation to address the issue of transgender liberation. We argue that just like other oppressed groups, the liberation of trans people is bound with the working class struggle for socialism. As we carry out our programmatic discussions, this document will develop further.  The liberation of transgender people is a key issue facing the communist movement worldwide. Despite being an oppressed minority, trans people continue to be undertheorised within Marxist theory. There have been a few books that address trans liberation within a Marxist paradigm, such as Trangender Marxism by Jules Gleeson and Elle O'Rourke, as well as a number of pamphlets, such as Transgender Liberation by the Workers World Party. In contrast to this, there are also a number of Marxist organisations that take an explicitly transphobic stance, such the Communist Party of Britain and the (expelle...

 The International Communist Study Group (ICSG) has begun holding bimonthly meetings online. We currently conducting a study on Marxist attitudes towards fascism and the anti-fascist struggle. Our September book is Fascism and Dictatorship by Nicos Poulantzas, which analyses how the Third International analysed fascism and some of the mistakes that it made. Poulantzas comes very close to Trotsky's critique of the Comintern's approach to anti-fascist organising, both during the Third Period and the later Popular Front.  In October, the International Communist Study Group will commemorate the 100th anniversary of Lenin's death by reading a book related to Lenin (either some works by Lenin or a book like Reminisciences of Lenin by Krupskaya). As Lenin's works remain a guiding light for revolutionaries around the world, we wish to  remain true to Leninism and its revolutionary communist vision. Our hope is to engage with Lenin in order to bring his teachings to life within ...

 The Central Committee of the United Communists of Europe presents here the result of an internal discussion about Trotskyism. As we show in this article, we do not call ourselves Trotskyists, but take the best elements of Trotskyism and integrate it into revolutionary Marxism. We wish to uphold Leon Trotsky as a revolutionary communist who has much to teach communists today.  Leon Trotsky was a revolutionary communist whose contributions to socialist revolution are unmeasurable. From his early days as a militant in the Petrograd Soviet during the 1905 Revolution, to his principled opposition to Stalinism in the twenties and thirties, Trotsky was present at each stage in the revolutionary movements of the early twentieth century. As a theorist in works like Results and Prospects and the Permanent Revolution , he produced some important interventions that provided clarity to a confusing situation. Although he was not free of mistakes and theoretical weaknesses at times, Trotsk...

We often get asked what our ideology is. Are the United Communists of Europe Trotskyists? Are we Marxist-Leninists? Are we Maoists? We always answer that we are revolutionary Marxists. This is confusing to people because it does not correspond to one of the common labels that are usually used to identify political organisations. To explain why we prefer the label revolutionary Marxism, we must briefly discuss the tradition out of which we come.  The origin of the United Communists of Europe lies in the Communist Organisation of Scotland (COS), which was founded in February of 2018. It began as a small collective in Glasgow of five communists who wanted to create a new communist party in Scotland. At the time of our founding, we called ourselves Marxist-Leninist (ML), as most of us came out of traditional ML organisations.  A comrade who lived in America had been around the Freedom Road Socialist Organisation (FRSO), which was founded in 1985 as a merger of a few Maoist organis...

  This is an article from the Communist Organisation of Scotland, which is the Scottish section of the United Communists of Europe. It was written in 2020, right before the outbreak of the covid pandemic. Alot has changed since the article was written and the situation in Scotland has somewhat changed. We are currently working on an updated statement that reflects the post-pandemic conditions of Scotland. We publish this statement to give readers a sense of how we would approach an issue like independence.   In our view, Scotland faces national oppression and has the right of self-determination, up to and including independence. As Scotland is still part of the antiquated United Kingdom, it must recognise the monarchy and the House of Lords, and does not have power over its own policies. There are significantly fewer Scottish MP's in the House of Commons, and the interests of Scotland are often side-lined in favour of England. Historically, the Highlands and the Islands h...