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With the rise of the feminist movement and the struggle against women’s oppression, sections of both the left and the very same feminist movement have revived the idea of “wages for housewives”. They classify housework carried out by women as “unpaid” work, claiming that capitalists save themselves costs by relying on this unpaid labour. Where does Marxism stand on this issue?

Struggle for Women's Emancipation Featured

Marxism defends the unity of peoples across all gender and sexual lines in the fight against the oppressive capitalist system. But Queer Theory holds that our gender and sexual identities are a fiction produced by discourses and oppressive power in society: a learned performance. What does this idea mean for the liberation struggle? Is Queer Theory compatible with Marxism? In this talk, recorded at this year's International Marxist University, Yola Kipcak from Der Funke (Austrian section of the IMT) tackles these issues and explains the position of Marxists towards Queer Theory and the struggle against oppression.

Featured LGBT Theory

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  • Fundamentals of Marxism

    Fundamentals of Marxism

    Marxism provides the tools for comprehending society, nature and the class struggle. If you want to develop your revolutionary understanding, start here!
  • Dialectical Materialism

    Dialectical Materialism

    Dialectical materialism is the philosophy or methodology of Marxism. We must seek to understand the laws of society and nature in order to change them.
  • Historical Materialism

    Historical Materialism

    Historical materialism is the theory of how and why society develops as it does. Each social system has inherent laws that drive it forward, and eventually spell its undoing.
  • Marxist Economics

    Marxist Economics

    Marxist economics is the study of the laws of motion of capitalist production and society, allowing us to understand why capitalism perpetually goes into crisis.
  • Marxism & the State

    Marxism & the State

    The state is an instrument of class rule. We must understand the state’s role by analysing it scientifically, from its first emergence out of class society, to the present day.
  • Bolshevism

    Bolshevism

    The Russian Revolution of 1917 is the greatest event in world history. For the first time working people took power into their own hands and began the gigantic task of the socialist reconstruction of society.
  • Stalinism

    Stalinism

    The Russian Revolution was betrayed and degenerated under a counter-revolutionary bureaucracy, led by Stalin. Understanding why this happened is critical for Marxists.
  • The National Question

    The National Question

    Marxists are internationalists, who fight for world revolution. We also stand for the liberation of oppressed nationalities as part of this struggle.
  • Anarchism

    Anarchism

    Marxists share anarchists’ objective of overthrowing the bourgeois state. But the anarchist understanding of power and the state is abstract, rather than scientific - and therefore limited.
  • Imperialism & War

    Imperialism & War

    Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, and war is the extreme expression of capitalism's contradictions and rapacious hunt for profit.
  • Identity & Oppression

    Identity & Oppression

    Marxists are irreconcilably opposed to oppression and fight determinedly for the liberation of marginalised groups, which can only be achieved through class struggle.
  • Fascism

    Fascism

    The madness of fascism in the 1930s expressed the historic crisis and dead-end of capitalism, and could have been averted through revolution. But is fascism a major threat today? And how can it be combatted?
  • Religion

    Religion

    Marxism rejects superstition, but religion cannot be overcome by recourse to argument alone; we must instead attack its social foundation: the class system itself.
  • Environment

    Environment

    The capitalists and their political representatives are completely incapable of saving the planet from environmental disaster. System change, not climate change!
  • Art

    Art

    Art under capitalism is shackled to the profit motive, and the majority of people are denied the opportunity to experience and develop culture to its fullest. Only socialism can liberate the arts.
  • Science & Technology

    Science & Technology

    Capitalism is supposed to drive innovation, technological sophistication and scientific advancement. But in fact, it has become a brake on progress.
  • Workers' control

    Workers' control

    Under capitalism, a minority runs production for their narrow interests. We advocate workers seizing control of their workplaces, and running them for the common good.
  • In Defence of Genuine Marxism

    In Defence of Genuine Marxism

    There have been countless attacks, falsifications and distortions levelled against Marxism over the years. It is our duty as Marxists to set the record straight.
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Revolution — the locomotive of history

  • Ancient history

    Ancient history

    The history of the ancient world is ripe with lessons about the development of class society and the heroic struggle of the early oppressed classes against their masters.
  • English Revolution

    English Revolution

    The Civil War in England was a revolutionary clash by the rising bourgeois class of English merchants and bankers, led by Oliver Cromwell, against the rotten feudal regime of Charles I.
  • French Revolution

    French Revolution

    In the Great French Revolution of 1789, the revolutionary bourgeoisie and popular masses overthrew the decrepit Ancien Regime, creating an earthquake that shook the world.
  • Paris Commune

    Paris Commune

    For a tragically brief period in 1871, the workers of Paris began the tremendous task of replacing the capitalist state with the dictatorship of the proletariat.
  • First International

    First International

    The first international proletarian organisation, with the participation of Marx and Engels, paved the way for the development of organised working-class struggle worldwide.
  • Second International

    Second International

    The Second International was a formidable bastion of working-class internationalism until it descended into national chauvinism and opportunism. Its history is rich with lessons.
  • World War I

    World War I

    To understand the causes of the great slaughter, it is necessary to lay bare the real mainspring of war in the modern epoch: the contradiction between the interests of different capitalist states.
  • German Revolution

    German Revolution

    After the Russian Revolution, the German proletariat entered the scene of history and brought an end to WW1 - but their revolution was sadly defeated.
  • Third International

    Third International

    The Third (Communist) International was a vital school of revolutionary ideas and strategy, which degenerated with the rise of Stalinism.
  • Fourth International

    Fourth International

    The history of the Fourth International was a struggle (led by Leon Trotsky) to keep the genuine traditions of Bolshevism alive, against colossal odds.
  • Spanish Revolution

    Spanish Revolution

    The Spanish masses strived towards socialist revolution in the 1930s, but were strangled by the class collaboration of their leadership, paving the road to fascist victory.
  • World War II

    World War II

    Although WW2 is often portrayed in the history books as a clash between ‘democracy’ and Hitler’s Germany, the war was mostly a titanic struggle between fascism and the USSR in which the latter triumphed.
  • Chinese Revolution

    Chinese Revolution

    The Chinese Revolution saw the heroic masses throwing off the yoke of imperialism, although the revolution degenerated along Stalinist lines, culminating in capitalist restoration.
  • Cuban Revolution

    Cuban Revolution

    On 1 January 1959, the brutal Cuban dictator Batista fell to the guerrillas of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Within three years, capitalism had been abolished on the island.
  • Colonial Revolution

    Colonial Revolution

    In the colonial and ex-colonial countries, the post-war period saw unprecedented upheaval, characterised by famine, social unrest, wars, revolution and counter-revolution.
  • Revolutionary 1968

    Revolutionary 1968

    The year 1968 saw one revolutionary eruption after another worldwide, including the greatest general strike in the post-war period in France, which almost toppled Charles de Gaulle.
  • Ireland & Republicanism

    Ireland & Republicanism

    The national struggle and the class struggle in Ireland have always been closely connected. Today, the struggle for a united Ireland is bound up with the struggle for a workers’ republic.
  • British Labour Movement

    British Labour Movement

    Despite its conservative reputation, Britain’s history is full of class struggle: from Chartism to the foundation of the Labour Party, to the general strike of 1926, to the Miners’ Strike of the 1980s.
  • Class Struggle in the USA

    Class Struggle in the USA

    The history of the class struggle in the United States illustrates that the ideas of Marxism, socialism and communism aren't at all alien to "the land of opportunity."
  • Black Struggle

    Black Struggle

    Racism is hardwired into the capitalist system, serving as a convenient weapon of divide and rule to keep the exploited masses from uniting against their shared oppressors.
  • Deformed Workers' States

    Deformed Workers' States

    A revolutionary wave swept Europe after the Red Army’s victory over fascism in WW2, but the new regimes established were deformed workers’ states modelled on Stalinist Russia.
  • Arab Revolution

    Arab Revolution

    In 2011, a tremendous revolutionary tsunami swept the Arab world, bringing down multiple dictatorships. Sadly, a lack of revolutionary leadership opened the door for counter-revolution.
  • Venezuelan Revolution

    Venezuelan Revolution

    The Bolivarian Revolution led by Hugo Chavez defied imperialism and carried out huge reforms for the workers and poor, but its failure to break with capitalism led to compromise and crisis.
  • Perspectives

    Perspectives

    The purpose of Marxist perspectives is to provide a guide to action based on scientific analysis of the main processes in society. These documents ask: where is world politics going?
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