The whole of human history consists precisely in the struggle of humankind to raise itself above the animal level. This long struggle began seven million years ago, when our remote humanoid ancestors first stood upright and were able to free their hands for manual labour. Ever since then, successive phases of social development have arisen on the basis of changes in the development of the productive force of labour – that is to say, of our power over nature.

The recent execution of Al-Nimr, a Shia cleric leader who was arrested on 8 July 2012 during protests, along with 46 other men, mostly Sunnis, highlights the crisis facing the regime. Increased repression indicate a fear of the rulers at the top of an impending movement from below.

Today we begin the serialisation of a new work by Alan Woods, which provides a comprehensive explanation of the Marxist method of analysing history. This first article establishes the scientific basis of historical materialism. The ultimate cause of all social change is to be found, not in the human brain, but in changes in the mode of production.

Thursday 7th of January 2016, will be remembered in Morocco as ‘Black Thursday’.

By May 27 the balance of forces had massively shifted in favour of the working class. Power was within their grasp. De Gaulle was utterly demoralised, but he had one key card he could play, the leadership of the Communist Party and the trade unions.

May 1968 was the greatest revolutionary general strike in history. Then, as now, the bourgeois and their apologists were congratulating themselves that revolutions and class struggle were things of the past. It took most of the Left completely by surprise, because, they had all written off the European working class as a revolutionary force.