 So let's get straight into it. I think if we are talking about direct action and civil disobedience, an obvious group to start with is just stop oil. They've made a lot of headlines over the last year or so and they're a relatively well known group. But as I will explain, I don't think we should confuse how well known they are with their real influence or potential strength on their homepage. Big letters. The first thing you see is a quote that says, what we do over the next three to four years, I believe is going to determine the future of humanity. And that statement in itself is not necessarily wrong. I think there's a lot of truth in that, not only because of the importance of climate change and solving that issue, but because of the huge class battles that are on the cards in every country in the world and in many countries are already unfolding. And so a lot of what I say in this talk might seem very critical. I might even get a bit agitated. But the reason for that is because as they say, this is about the future of humanity potentially. And it's important that we're extremely serious about the way we go about this work, that we learn from the experiences of the past and the theories that are available. And I'm sure a lot of these groups have a lot of very serious activists willing to sacrifice and dedicated to these very important courses. So we should try to use this opportunity to clarify, win over those serious activists. And if we can't clarify our own understanding and go about our struggles with the aim of success. Because we are going to live through what we already are living through these big struggles. The capitalist system is in a deep global crisis. And its decline has devastating consequences, not only in terms of social and economic conditions, but the climate as well. And then you throw into the equation, the war in Ukraine, you know, war is back in Europe. And now we've got this massacre unfolding in Gaza. This has a huge effect on consciousness. People are becoming politicized. There is an all time low in the confidence of all of the institutions involved in capitalist society. And this leads to a rise in political activity, which we're only at the beginning of I think, a rise in political activity of all kinds, including direct action and civil disobedience. And I could talk about a whole number of groups, not just just a boil. I'm going to start by focusing on these single issue direct action groups like just a boil on the question of war on the question of climate change, Palestine action on the question of war, London Renters Union on the question of the housing crisis, which of course, you know, and just another product of the crisis of the capitalist system as a whole. But they all focus on this specific issue of their own obviously making them fundamentally reformist groups. And Lenin lived through a similar stormy period with similar phenomena developing in the Russian revolutionary movement, particularly a group called the Narodniks, who were a group based in the peasantry. And they emphasize the propaganda of the deed. In other words, direct action. And this is the same theoretical mistake, it results in the same flawed tactics in our opinion. And Lenin dedicated a lot of his time to theoretical clarification around these issues. And we're going to revisit those those theories because they're extremely relevant today. This is what he meant when he said, without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity. I think that perfectly resonates with the polemic we're making against these kinds of direct action groups. So what kind of things do they do? Well, again, on their website, it says the plan three weeks of action, we will slow march in London on an unprecedented scale. People are coming together from all over the UK, standing shoulder to shoulder against this criminal government. And they say we'll be marching peacefully to demand no new oil, gas or coal. As the disruptions grow, what will the government do, concede to our demands, or crack down and arrest us all? Now, here we can see the first theoretical mistake when when putting demands forward, you have to ask the question, who are these demands aimed at? And we can only assume these demands are aimed at the government. But the problem with that is in a capitalist society, the capitalist state represents the interests of the capitalist class on all the biggest questions. It defends their interests. And so instead of making moral appeals to a capitalist government, which actually sows illusions in their ability to carry out change like this, Lenin insisted, and we should insist too, on a much more serious analysis of how does society actually work? What are the different interests at play, the different social forces, rather than making moral arguments, which make demands based on the interest of a particular class. And it is not in the interest of the capitalist class to just stop oil. And even if that state wanted to, it is not in a position to just stop oil. The state has very little control over the way energy reaches our grid. These things are in private hands. To give you an example, there are various government subsidies that are supposed to encourage renewable investment. But at the last round of bids for these contracts, there were zero applicants for offshore winds, because it's not profitable at the moment that investors are not interested in doing it, and there's nothing the government can do to make them. Anyway, on this question of class interests, rather than moral appeals, Lenin made a very clear point against the Neurodenics. And I'll quote again, the Neurodenic thinks it's sufficient in criticizing capitalism to condemn it from the angle of his ideals, from the angle of modern science and moral ideas. The Marxist, however, thinks it necessary to trace in detail the classes that are formed in capitalist society. We consider valid only criticisms made from the viewpoint of a definite class. Again, perfectly dismantles the approach by these groups. And fundamentally, it's a theoretical mistake. They're making moral appeals. They always try to present the scientific evidence as if that's the thing holding back change being being being carried out when clearly, it's not like Rishi Sunak or the CEO of Shell is going to be Oh, you mean this is bad for the environment? Oh, I didn't realize that like there's not been enough scientific evidence. That's clearly not the point. It's a question of class interests and social forces. And this theoretical mistake leads to huge mistakes in practice. Now, maybe maybe I'm doing them a disservice, maybe they don't have illusions in the government. And they're trying to expose the government, expose the fact that the government is unable and unwilling to do anything about it. And they're trying to sort of spark a mass movement around this question. Well, trying to expose the limitations of different classes, different leaderships, that is a valid strategy. But the tactics of direct action will not effectively do that, because they can't connect with broader layers and draw them into the struggle. Groups like this can never connect with the mass movement. And that is because their tactics do not flow from the experience of the working class. The tactics do not flow from the traditions of the working class. They are petty bourgeois methods, which emphasize the role of publicity stunts of small groups, isolated acts of small groups, rather than mass action and the mass organizations of the working class. And I mean, look at the look at the Palestine demonstrations. Half a million people marched a couple of weeks ago that dwarfs anything that any direct action group has ever been able to muster up. And earlier on, in the year, or maybe it was last year, while just the oil we're throwing cans of soup over a painting, the organized working class were taking a real fight to the Tories, really challenging the government in a serious way, with again, half a million workers out on strike in a single day. And over the course of the dispute, which was the largest strike movement since 1979, I think, a few million days of labor lost to the capitalist class, a very powerful movement. And these groups cannot connect. Lenin described this approach as adventurism, where he said he described adventurism as trends expressing only the traditional instability of views held by the intelligentsia, which substitute noisy declarations for the struggle of definite classes. At least we make an infernal noise, such as the slogan of many revolutionary-minded individuals who've been caught up in events and who have neither theoretical principles nor social roots. Again, what a perfect description of the types of groups that we're polemicizing against here. And again, the mistake is a theoretical one. A movement cannot connect with a wider class if it doesn't base itself on the concrete experience of that class, or the objective interests of that class. To be able to do that obviously requires a theoretical understanding of class, of class society, and the logic of the class struggle. Now, of course, big reforms can be won. And we are in favor of fighting for big reforms. However, I would say, and groups like Justop Oil, they cite big reforms that have been won in the past and say this was done via direct action, and that's what we base ourselves on. The main one they point to is the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And they say that was an important victory, which of course it was, and that it was achieved by nonviolent direct action. And they cite the Birmingham campaign in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, the year before, as what was responsible for that. Now, let's have a closer look at the real context of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, around desegregation, of course, as well as other civil rights. Now, to begin with, 10% of the population of America at the time was black and was in default support of these kinds of ideas. So of course, this campaign did directly resonate with a wide layer of society. In 1963, a quarter of a million people marched on the Capitol in Washington. And the point is the whole political situation was one that was charged with radicalization, with the ideas around black liberation and desegregation, as well as other civil rights struggles, big demonstrations, big struggles. It was a national picture is the point, a ferment all around. And in 1963, Birmingham, Alabama, just became one of a few key focal points where the struggle reached almost insurrectionary, well it had insurrectionary characteristics. Thousands of black young people were demonstrating regularly. This was growing and becoming more and more militant. And there was even sort of like counter, just reactionary terror carried out against the black community and the black activists by white terror groups. The police were also known, undercover police were known to have set off a bomb at a black activist's house. Birmingham was known as bombing them in 1963. Thousands of black people rioted as the thing escalated. Numerous buildings and vehicles were burned. And several people, including a police officer, were stabbed. And in May 1963, 3000 federal troops were deployed to Birmingham. Now that context and that movement has nothing in common with the slow marches of a few handful of just a boil protesters who are using methods completely detached from the experience and the life of the masses and who are pretty much just disrupting society as a whole indiscriminately or vandalizing an art piece of art or disrupting a sporting event. Whereas in the Birmingham campaign, the actions were clearly directed against the repressive forces they were struggling against, against the local government, against the police force, against the white terror gangs. And on the question of nonviolent direct action, well, it was it was not nonviolent. It started off obviously as a peaceful struggle for a better life for black people. But through their everyday experience of violence, and in particular the violence they experienced through their struggle for a better life, there were various violent clashes, which escalated the situation and actually pushed the movement forward. And Martin Luther King, who came to Birmingham to call for nonviolence in May 1963, was actually criticized shortly after by a lot of the activists for trying to de-escalate the movement before enough sweeping reforms were granted, i.e., some people thought they could have achieved more if they carried on in a more militant fashion. Another last point I have to mention is the presence of the trade unions, the mass organizations of the working class. In the 1950s, the trade unions had been making themselves felt in America. They were quite high membership and the steel workers union had been on strike in 1959, only a few years before this. Half a million steel workers were on strike. And that strike lasted for a year, which had a huge impact on American capitalism. And the steel sector, American steel industry, never fully recovered from that actually. That was the beginning of the decline of the American steel industry. And it was something they couldn't tolerate, couldn't afford. And that is a huge factor that they were behind the desegregation movement, particularly in solidarity with the Birmingham campaign, raising bail money for those people. And I could list many, many other unions, the maritime union, the list goes on. That is a huge factor that cannot be ignored. And the point I'm making is clearly groups like Justop Oil have not made a serious attempt to understand the movements that they claim to base themselves on. And the fact that they focus on isolated acts of nonviolent direct action without talking at all about the generalized struggle of the working class and the mass organizations, I think clearly shows the petty bourgeois outlook of these groups that they put the kind of change down to that. Another thing as well as their slow marches and this sort of thing is the more publicity stunts, the vandalism. Last week, or it might have been the week before, they smashed the glass on a painting in the National Gallery. And it was actually the same painting that the suffragettes had vandalized in 1914. And they said, you know, these methods worked for the suffragettes, they won women the vote in Britain, we're doing the same thing. Well, again, a much more rigorous approach has to be taken to such serious questions. And I'm going to put it very bluntly, it was not the suffragettes that won working class women the vote in this country. Working class women got the vote in 1928 in this country, the suffragettes stopped their direct actions in 1914. When World War One broke out, actually, the great slaughter of the working class, they decided that was defending the British capitalism and that was more important than the struggle for women's rights. Anyway, that's another question. 14 years passed in between their stopping their direct action and working women getting the vote in this country. And a lot happened in those 14 years. For a start, the Russian Revolution in 1917, which gave full democratic rights to all women and all men, setting an extremely important precedent, a shining example for the struggle for women's liberation, which is obviously you cannot overstate the significance of that event, as well as revolution sweeping through Europe in between the world wars, with a general strike in Britain itself in 1926, where the whole economy was brought to a standstill, the power of the working class on full display, and even, you know, fears of revolution in Britain. And in the preceding period, you know, especially during World War One, working, yeah, women have been brought into the workplace in a big, big way, making them a more independent political section of the working class as a whole. That is the real context in which working class women got the vote. And again, putting it down to a small group of middle class activists 14 years earlier, I think shows the petty bourgeois outlook of these groups today. Now, another group like this, it's well, slightly different, but another direct action group coming to prominence at the moment is Palestine Action. And of course, they will be received very differently and with much more sympathy, I think, by most people than Justop Oil, because there was so much concern over this issue of Palestine, not that there isn't about climate change, also a very important issue. But with Palestine Action, they're at least more targeted with the approach they take, they're aiming specifically at the arms factories responsible for sending weapons over and this sort of thing. So it's less disruptive to society as a whole, it's much more clear who they're aimed at. And so I would say they're less unpopular in general. But I have to say it is the same theoretical mistake being made, the same tactical approach that results from that, and it will not achieve their aims. I was looking at their website and I tried, I really did try to find somewhere an explanation of how their action might actually affect the situation in a significant way. And I couldn't find anything. All there is is disruptions you can go and cause at different arms factories, smashing it up, blocking it wherever, and just a whole list of court cases you can go to for their activists who are getting tried. So you can go and show support there. And then also on the website you just have very moral appeals, just very overly detailed explanations of what's happening in Gaza, why it's bad, the specific weapons being supplied, as if that is what we need to know. People who know it's bad, they need to know what is to be done really, as Lenin said, what can we do to actually solve this and there's no answers whatsoever. Now look, they might shut production down for a day, or even a week, or in fact they have managed to shut down one factory permanently and the headquarters in London. However, it's not like this company is going to say, oh this is getting really annoying, let's just give up on this multi-billion dollar industry, of course that's not going to happen. And from the point of view of Israel, of course like this huge geopolitical forces at play here, and a small group of activists shutting down a factory in London is not going to stop their policy on the war. They will find the munitions from somewhere. This is not a serious approach to stopping the war, even though I think the individuals involved are clearly very, very serious. There was a slightly more interesting example where they reported that 150 trade unionists had picketed a factory, an arms factory, in response to a call for solidarity from Palestinian trade unions. But if we look a bit closer actually, this was not in fact trade union action, it was just a group of 150 activists who also happened to be members of trade unions. It was not organised by the workers themselves in the arms factory, stopping production for themselves, which would have been much more significant and I'll explain why, thank you. Yeah, if it was the workers themselves, self-organising a strike to stop arms production and distribution for a specific political reason, well that's much more significant because, well A, they'd have been able to stop production for a much more long-term period through that struggle. But also more importantly they would learn important lessons about their own role in the economy and their own potential power as a result of it. Because what is so significant about a strike? It's not, I think these direct action groups completely miss the point, they think the disruption itself is the progressive thing. That is not what's progressive about a strike. What's progressive about a strike is that we, as the working class, decide for ourselves for a particular political reason or a particular economic reason to stop production and in doing so we become conscious of ourselves as a class, our role in production, the power that that gives us, the idea that we can bring the fact that we create value in the economy, that we're the ones who make this thing run and we can bring it to a standstill and in discovering that it's only a short step to realising you can start it up again in your own interests and on our own terms as a class. That's what's significant about a strike. And that's why Marxist put so much emphasis on the working class. It's not a romanticisation of the class for the sake of it. It's because it's the conclusion of an investigation of how society itself works and that the working class is the most powerful social force in the world when it is organised and it becomes conscious of itself as a class. And then finally it also has a similar effect for onlookers, not just the people on strike themselves. It brings the class question to the fore. You can not automatically, a lot of people see the strikes and it's still disruptive and they just see it as an inconvenience, but over a period of time you see the workers themselves choosing to struggle. Who are they struggling against? The employer. And then the state comes in slandering the strikers, even deploying police, defending the capitalist property. Important lessons are learned for onlookers as well about the role of the state and the class nature of society and the profitability of war and all this sort of thing. So look, we're not fetishists about strike action either. We don't think it's the only legitimate method of struggle. Other methods are valid too. Mass demonstrations, for example, if the mass demonstration of a few hundred thousand people had gone and picketed and blockaded the factory, we would of course view that very differently. That would be much more significant because, although I think it would still be quite a short-term solution, but it'd be a much more powerful educational thing. And that's what the point of demonstrations is. They rarely force big change in and of themselves, but demonstrations are an important test of strength. They're like a dress rehearsal. They give a sense of the breadth of support around a particular issue. And they give a sense of the mood and how determined the people on that demonstration are about that particular course. They help build confidence and they help build momentum. Now, by contrast, these small direct actions, even of a hundred and fifty people picketing a workplace, they have the opposite effect. If this is a test of strength, well they make themselves look very weak and very isolated, don't they? So it has the complete opposite effect. And then finally this type of single-issue direct action stuff, deliberately getting arrested in particular. It squanders the determined energy of a whole layer of young radical people. They can get burned out and get bogged down in legal battles. They can even do time in prison. And eventually this will burn out a whole layer and demoralize a whole layer of potential revolutionaries. And that's why we're making these arguments and clarity to try and win these potential revolutionaries over. And of course, we understand that getting arrested is sometimes necessary. As revolutionaries, we will come under repression at some point. But being arrested and repressed is not in and of itself revolutionary or effective. That's the point we have to make. It should be quite obvious really. But yes, big reforms can be won. And we are in favour of fighting for big reforms. The Civil Rights Act was an important step in the struggle against racism. But we have to look at the real methods by which that was achieved, the real context in which it was achieved. And yes, even some wars can be brought to a close without full revolution. But war and racism as a whole can never be ended under capitalism. They are inherent features of the capitalist system. War is extremely profitable for some capitalists. And for others, it is a way of struggling over profitable markets and resources. In the whole history of America, since independence, American capitalism, there's been 19 years where they haven't been at war in a history of around 300 years. And in those 19 years, a couple of them are the last two years, where they've been directly financing the war in Gaza and the war in Ukraine. It's an absolute joke. These are inherent features of capitalism. And if you want to end war, you have to struggle against capitalism and your own imperialist power. And racism, of course, is an essential tool of division for the capitalist class in a social system where it is based on the exploitation of the vast majority by a tiny minority. Of course, they need all the tools of division that they can to divide the working class. And racism is one of those. And the best way to struggle against these are revolutionary methods and methods of broad class struggle. The Russian Revolution in 1917, when that took place, Russia was engaged in a war, an imperialist war, World War I. And you can bet that Russia had plenty of racial and ethnic tensions and divisions in a big, big way. But it was through the working class struggle, and the peasantry, but particularly the working class leading that struggle, that the question of class unity was brought to the fore. And these problems were overcome. And in seizing power, the working class withdrew Russia from the war. And the German Revolution, a few months later in 1918, was what brought World War I to a close altogether. They are the real methods you struggle against these inherent features of capitalism is through struggling against capitalism. And in terms of climate change, as I've said, that is completely the idea that you can, you can end climate change within the capitalist system is completely utopian. The government itself cannot just stop oil. And on any any question of how production takes place, you cannot plan what you don't control, and you cannot control what you don't own. It's a saying we always say, and I think with climate change, it's more clear than anything I can think of, that we need a plan of production and distribution. And if you want a democratic plan of production and distribution, you need democracy in the workplace, where the working class can introduce democracy at the very source, you know, the very centers of production and distribution. In other words, like in order for the working class to do that, they need to take political power. And we need to be armed with a socialist program. In other words, you need a revolution if you're serious about tackling any of these problems. For good. And we will have those opportunities. That's the point of this talk to clarify ideas for these immense opportunities, which, as just a point of said, the future of humanity may be hinging on. And the last time there was a generalized struggle like this, well, one of the last times, and it resonates with the examples they quote, let's think about the civil rights movement. It was an international phenomenon in the 60s, which built up. And then there was a world economic crisis in the early 1970s, which led to huge struggles of the working class, and even revolutionary struggles on the international level. I want to particularly focus on France 1968 in May, and the hot autumn in Italy in 1969. In both cases, what came before them was a large student type movements with civil rights style demands and that sort of thing, which was then followed by the entry of the working class into the struggle in a big, big way. In France, there was about 3,000 people, 3,000 3 million workers organized in the trade unions. And yet 10 million workers came out in the general strike, which shows you the sheer organic revolutionary nature of that struggle. And in the example of France, such was the strength and breadth of the strike, that the whole system came to a standstill, the whole state was paralyzed. General de Gaulle, who was the French Premier at the time, had to flee Paris, and it's reported that in a conversation with an American ambassador, he said, the game is up. In a matter of days, the communists will be in power. Now, the fact that the communists did not take power, the communists, the Communist Party did not take power is entirely down to the Communist Party itself, the influence they had in the trade unions, the strength of the of the work glass movement at the time. And this is the importance of theory. They didn't have the necessary theory, the ideas, the tactics, nor did they have the intention of actually taking power. They were a thoroughly reformist party by this point. But again, it makes it clear what Lenin means. Without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement when these opportunities present themselves. What was missing in this situation was clearly not more direct action. The working class showed direct action in a way that none of these groups ever can. What was missing was a clear revolutionary program and an organization to carry it through a revolutionary leadership. So the point we're getting at here is to encourage the working class and the radical youth to join groups with no clear class identity, no relation to their role in production, and no clear political program. Well, that is to call for the delay in class consciousness and a delay in the struggle for socialism, which is the only real solution to these problems at hand. And so clearly what is needed, the most important task is to prepare for these big events that are going to come again, that are already coming, actually, and to build the necessary revolutionary leadership on the right theory to be able to adopt the right tactics. And we do see that same theoretical mistake in the nominally revolutionary movement too, in so-called communist and socialist organizations. I would say that same theoretical mistake expresses itself within the socialist and communist movement, with an emphasis on just organizing, just building the left in general, and even with programs of mutual aid and this sort of thing. Again, before I start criticizing some groups for doing this, there's nothing wrong with doing those things in general. The question is, if we're serious about overthrowing capitalism, as I have hopefully made clear why I think that's important, is that what a revolutionary party should be focusing on. I think that is not. There are plenty of people out there, to their credit, who are engaged in mutual aid programs, helping with food banks, charity, donations, all kinds of things. And these are good things. They're a wonderful sign of class solidarity, of human compassion, and the potential of a human society. However, is it what a revolutionary party should be doing? There are very few people dedicated to the theoretical, political, and organizational development of a revolutionary party, and that should be the focus of revolutionaries. I want to start by talking about the Black Panthers, who were a revolutionary party on paper. They were for the abolition of capitalism and the abolition of racism. And this mistake is the, I think we can call it substitutionism. The revolutionary party is not supposed to substitute itself for the mass action of the working class. Now, the Black Panthers are most well known for their mutual aid programs, their free breakfast program, as well as their open carry policy of forming sort of armed militia self-defense groups to patrol police patrols in order to make sure they weren't carrying out police brutality against the Black community. Again, not things we're against at all, both good things. However, again, it's an example of substituting the party for the mass action of the class itself. The working class is perfectly capable, as I've explained, of these mutual aid things. They're also capable of forming mass democratic organizations and even arming themselves for self-defense. Our class is capable of that. But the point is that only happens in certain conditions. And the Black Panther party was substituting itself for that mass phenomenon. The Black Panther party had 2000 members at its peak in all of America. That's clearly not mass action of the class as a whole. So very inspiring ideas and actions, but more symbolic influence, I think, than real revolutionary potential. And this same theoretical mistake is present today in communist groups, like the Young Communist League, for example, the YCL, which shows similar tendencies. On their campaigns website, here are some examples of their priorities from quite high up the list. Disrupting the arms fair in London by infiltrating it and setting off smoke grenades, COVID aid and campaigning to protect conditions during the pandemic, supporting food banks and campaigning against food poverty and homelessness. That's just three. There are others. I'll come to them in a minute. But these ones in particular, I think clearly flow from the same theoretical mistake of substituting a small party for the self-organization of the class. And it's a thread running through everything. The opening line of their campaign page reads, we work together and individually in order to build a broad democratic mass movement that will transform Britain. But the problem is a revolutionary party itself cannot build a mass broad democratic movement. It's primarily events themselves that lead to these explosive movements to huge leaps in consciousness and new organizations taking form. And these mass struggles tend to channel themselves through the mass organizations of the working class. The revolutionary party should intervene in those events as and when they unfold and try to tie together all the different struggles of the oppressed and of the working class and to always present a revolutionary solution in order to advance the class consciousness of who, of the most advanced layers of the working class. And the tendency to try to build socialist consciousness amongst layers of the class who are not yet looking for revolutionary solutions. Well, that leads the party to dilute the revolutionary content of its campaigns and programs, seeking shortcuts to the masses who are not yet necessarily even looking for revolutionary answers yet. And therefore offering sort of short-term bread and butter questions, telling the workers what they already know, you know, that they're oppressed, that they're exploited, that things are a bit unfair, you know. And Lenin polemicized about this tendency too, which he called economism, pointing out that ironically it leads to a tendency to hold back consciousness rather than to lead it forward. He said, designated as economism, the characteristic features of this trend express themselves in the following, with respect to principles and a vulgarization of Marxism and helplessness in the face of criticism. With respect to politics in the striving to restrict political agitation and struggle and reduce them to petty activities. Again, I think that describes perfectly the phenomenon we can see with a group like the Young Communist League. Now in their defense, some of the points in the YCL's campaigns do talk about the workers movement and putting forward pro-worker ideas in the trade unions. But the content of those ideas then has to be examined. And it's always the case that a theoretical mistake of this kind leads to tactical mistakes of that kind, which feeds back into a further degeneration of the political content of the party, which Lenin explained as well. He said, in the prevailing circumstances of today, this profound theoretical error leads to a great tactical error, which has brought incalculable damage. It is a fact that the spontaneous awakening of the masses of the workers has been taking place with astonishing rapidity during the past few years. I would say that is clearly true today over the last few years. This advancement of consciousness in a very fast way. And he continues, but the conscious leaders lag behind this growth. And that is also clearly true today. There was a complete vacuum of leadership. And it's also true of the Communist Party's political program to which the YCL are affiliated. Now in the YCL's list of campaigns, other than the creation of Communist societies, which I assume are the organizing groups of their other campaigns, nothing in their list of campaigns ever mentioned socialism, communism, revolution, nationalization, or workers control. None of them are even mentioned once in their list of campaigns, nor are strikes or picket lines. And most interestingly, neither are the words theory or education mentioned anywhere. I think that is very telling. And it flows from the political degeneration of the Communist Party and these tactics and trying to reach layers who are not necessarily drawing revolutionary conclusions. Building socialist consciousness amongst the most oppressed is not the same as the most advanced layer of the working class. And that's what this mutual aid idea, I think, is basing itself on. And the Communist Party is what we stand for, document. It says points three, four and six, protect and invest in productive industry through regional development, public investment, and the direction of capital while expanding economic relations with people's China. So private capital investment clearly plays a big role in their revolutionary socialist program. Point four, impose a levy on financial speculation. Control the export of capital and end all tax havens. A levy on financial speculation. Why is there any financial speculation in their revolutionary socialist program? The stockbrokers, the shareholders, the profiteering hedge fund managers, they're all keeping their assets, are they? This is not sufficient. They are lagging behind. Although I'm not sure what conditions this is not lagging behind in, if you're trying to be a Communist Party. And point six, redistribute wealth from the rich and big business to working people through a wealth tax, higher corporation tax and cuts in VAT and higher pensions. This is a weak left reformist program. And these ideas are completely at odds with the theoretical clarifications made by Lenin at the beginning of the 20th century. Or the orientation of Lenin or Marxism at any point, really. They're lagging far behind the consciousness and radicalization of millions of people in this country, as you will hear time and time again this weekend. 29% of all young people in Britain think communism is the most favorable economic system. And yet not once in the Communist Party is what we stand for a document. Does it call for nationalization or expropriation? They are lagging so far behind millions of people in this country. This is not the road to socialism. And it doesn't correspond to the real perspectives in front of us. The real perspectives are huge explosions of anger, which you can see on the streets of Britain today. We've seen the beginnings of a return of the strike movement in Britain, laying down important traditions, rediscovering important traditions that this is the only the beginning. There's going to be huge developments of the strike movement in Britain, because the capitalist system can offer no solutions to the problems over which these workers are striking on. Huge class battles will develop. The strike movement will inevitably slip beyond the control of the trade union leaders. We might even see strike committees being formed that link up between different workplaces on a national level. We saw examples of this in Britain in the general strike in 1926, where the Communist Party, by the way, played a pernicious role in selling out the movement along with the trade union Congress. So, yeah, huge class battles, new fighting organizations of the working class being formed, standoffs with the state, attacks on workers' rights, maybe even attacks on more basic democratic rights as a whole. In those conditions, talking about a levy on financial speculation and reducing VAT will offer very little to that movement. In fact, it will clearly hold the movement back in a revolutionary crisis. The real program needed in those perspectives, the necessary ideas will be to take political power, to replace the current state with all the bankers and industrialists and CEOs and hedge fund managers lined up behind it, and replace it with a worker's state based on the fighting organizations of the working class, to nationalize all the biggest monopolies, to nationalize the land, the construction companies, the supermarkets and of course the banks, immediate expropriation with no compensation as part of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and to begin constructing a society. Thanks, Sean. They are the necessary ideas and it is only on the basis of those ideas that we can build the necessary party. Only by being open and bold about it can we build the necessary type of revolutionary organization and we will do it amongst the most advanced layers of workers and youth who are already looking for these kinds of ideas. And we know that that's what will be the missing ingredient and so we have to do this with urgency. We've given the example of May 1968 with the only missing ingredient was a revolutionary communist party, the general strike in Britain in 1926. Again, the only missing ingredient, a revolutionary communist, not a communist party, a revolutionary communist party was the missing ingredient. Last year in Sri Lanka there was an insurrectionary revolutionary movement where the government, the president who'd been elected only two years before on a significant majority, had to flee the country and the insurrection occupied his residence and nothing has been resolved in Sri Lanka precisely because there was not a revolutionary party. What about the Arab Spring in 2011 where revolutions swept through North Africa into the Middle East toppling dictator after dictator. Imagine how different the Middle East would look today if there had been the presence of a revolutionary communist party in these countries that had been built in advance. In every revolutionary struggle, the missing ingredient in those conditions is a revolutionary communist party. It is huge events that shake up consciousness and it's through experience and struggle that class consciousness is built into the working class. But only a revolutionary communist party can guide the working class to power and that party needs the method of Marxism as sharp as possible to guide the working class consciously through the transition to a communist society. So if we are serious about ending all of these social issues, racism, war, the horrors of war, climate change, you know, the future of humanity as Just Stop Oil put it, if we're serious about that we have to be serious about overthrowing capitalism which is the root cause of all of these problems today. And it's the working class as a whole, not ourselves that have the technical expertise to effectively plan production, to administer social and economic life through democratic collective ownership. The role of the revolutionary party is to be the most fluent in the laws of history, the most fluent in the laws of political economy and in the logic of the class struggle and revolution, which do have scientific lawfulness and we have to study that and take it very, very seriously. The theoretical content of the party is key. That's the point of all of this. That's what Lenin meant when he said, yes, theory without practice is sterile. So we do need action. But practice without theory is blind. And so that is why we return to these theories answered by Lenin. And that's what this weekend is all about this event. It is about sharpening our tools, revisiting these theories, studying them, sharpening our main weapon and the main ingredient of the revolutionary party, which is revolutionary theory. And these theories were displayed in practice through the experience of Bolshevism. And that is what we are building in this organization today. So please, if you haven't already, join us, if you have, go out and build and study the theories of Marxism, because there's no greater cause on Earth. Thank you.