April issue of Socialist Voice is now available

Available online here.

Contents:

Building the people’s resistance
James Connolly Festival, 2015
Eugene McCartan
The first James Connolly Festival, sponsored by Socialist Voice, will run from the 4th to the 10th of May in Dublin. It will be a week filled with music, theatre, talks, films, poetry readings, and performances by singer-songwriters, with lunchtime theatre and film shows in the New Theatre. (For full details see the festival programme at http://www.jamesconnollyfestival.com.)

Workers in struggle
After the magnificent one-day strike on the 2nd April by the workers employed by Dunne’s Stores, the management have embarked on a vindictive campaign to punish selected workers for going out on strike to protect and advance their rights.
The workers’ trade union, Mandate, has received reports from members all over the country who have experienced dismissal or cuts in hours, changes in job roles, or changes in shift patterns. Election promises, and business as usual

Tommy McKearney
As Britain’s political parties began their general election campaigns with a series of televised debates, two interesting messages emerged from one of the widely watched, albeit less than inspiring, media events.
ITV’s seven-person debate demonstrated that, for the first time since the 1920s, British politics are no longer bipolar. Secondly, it is now very evident that not only is Northern Ireland not “as British as Finchley” but that it is not considered integral to Britain’s political discourse at all.

Creeping privatisation
Kieran Crilly
The Government of Fine Gael and the Labour Party is privatising 10 per cent of Dublin Bus and 10 per cent of Bus Éireann. This is only the beginning, as the private sector will not be satisfied until these services are 100 per cent private.

The expendables
Nicola Lawlor
In the January edition of Monthly Review the editors printed and commented on part of a letter they received from a reader, Elly Leary. Referring to Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, she comments:Release Khalida Jarrar!
There are now eighteen members of the elected Palestinian Legislative Council imprisoned by Israel, nine under administrative detention without trial or charge. Members of the council have been repeatedly and systematically targeted by Israeli occupation forces. Austerity: The challenges of organising

Paper presented by a representative of the CPI to a meeting with republican activists in Dublin, Saturday 14 March 2015
Comrades and friends,
It is quite clear that we find ourselves at a real pivotal point in the history of this small nation. Just as in previous times, whole generations of men and women find themselves in a struggle for a place in our society, a place where one should not live in fear of ever-increasing poverty, hunger, homelessness, unemployment, precarious work, violence,

Demonstrate in solidarity with Venezuela
Sunday 19 April 2015 at the US embassy, Dublin
In 1985 President Ronald Reagan declared Nicaragua “a threat to the United States” and proceeded to finance and arm the “contras” in order to overthrow the democratically elected Sandinista government.

Declaration of solidarity with the Venezuelan people April 2015

The communist, workers’ and revolutionary parties worldwide express our strong support and firm solidarity to the Venezuelan people, to the Communist Party of Venezuela and the Government of President Nicolás Maduro, victims of a new interventionist escalation of US imperialism which violates the right to self-determination of the peoples.

Germany over all!
Tomás Mac Síomóin
The neo-liberal forces that rule the EU need the SYRIZA government in Greece to fail. They will do whatever it takes to prevent the ending of their austerity policies in any part of the EU.

Anne Casey
1956–2015
The Communist Party of Ireland extends its deepest sympathy on the death of Anne Casey to her husband, Colin, to her daughter, Aoife, and to her sisters and brothers.

Israeli aggression comes to Dublin
Dónall Ó Briain
Residents of several areas around Dublin will have seen posters recently advertising classes in “the world’s most effective self-defence system.”

The unsavoury roots of surveillance

Dónall Ó Briain
The revelations about the extent to which Western governments spy on their own citizens (as well as those of other countries) might lead us to believe that this kind of illegality by “intelligence” agencies is a new phenomenon. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Socialism betrayed
Interview with Thomas Kenny, joint author of Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union (2004).
The younger generation needs to hear this truth. The socialist system proved itself capable of providing sustained, rapid economic growth over six decades, notable technical and scientific innovations.