 I must say I've never been so confident, never been more proud and never been more excited as I am today, given the success of our international everywhere and the reports given by the comrades without standing of the progress that we've made over the last months. I mean, nothing succeeds like success, I would say. And we are on the road to success, there's no two ways about that. When you have the comrades from Canada announcing the biggest force in Canada, comrades in the United States, comrades in Switzerland for God's sake, the land of the cuckoo clock and Toblerone, but now the proletarian revolution and communism. For comrades, we are meeting at a crucial time for the working class. We are on a cusp of great events that are going to take place in Britain and internationally, which are going to put all organisations to the test, including our own. It reminds me of the words of Trotsky who said, those who are looking for a quiet life of choosing the wrong time in which to be born, and what was correct then is correct today. The world is everywhere you look. It's a blaze. There's a crisis in all corners, at all levels, political crisis, social crisis, economic, military, you name it. We see the unfolding catastrophe in Gaza and the Middle East, the latest horror in a series of horrors produced by capitalism on a world stage. We see that the cause of Palestine has literally touched the hearts of millions. The cause of Palestine has become a catalyst, I would say, for the pent-up anger and frustration and bitterness that has accumulated over years and even decades. The fact that hundreds of thousands of millions of people have turned out on the streets to protest against the crimes of imperialism and the actions of their own government. It's a harbinger of what is to come. It's a glimpse of the mass movements that confront us in the years that lie ahead, and the ruling class is worried and concerned about this development, and therefore is prepared or attempting to clamp down on these demonstrations. But every time they do so, it leads to bigger and more determined demonstrations, which shows the pent-up anger that is there, the determination that is being agended by these movements. Of course, we are meeting now, but a few weeks ago there was another gathering that took place, different from what we have today, a gathering in Saudi Arabia of Davos, a meeting of the super-rich, of the bankers, of the industrialists, of the strategists of capital. Who wanted to assess the world situation and the enormous instability that exists, and they were very alarmed by what was going on, particularly in the Middle East, because they realized if this spills over into a regional conflict, it'll have massive international repercussions. And they're not incorrect. Recall that in 1973, when there was a conflict in the Middle East, it resulted in the quadrupling of oil prices and resulted in the simultaneous slump throughout the world. It terrified that this could happen again with all the consequences with it. As one official said, the Gaza war is a terrible humanitarian crisis that needs addressing. He went on, but in the final analysis, it's just another shock. And he went on to conclude, we've had wave upon wave of shocks which is crashing over the world economy. And that's the whole point, that capitalism is experiencing one shock after another in rapid succession. This is an epoch of enormous instability for capitalism at all levels punctuated by wars, economic crisis, slump, devastation. As has been explained yesterday by Alan and quoted elsewhere, quoting Lenin, that capitalism is horror without end, and the world we exist in is proof of that. War and conflict are a product of capitalism and imperialism. It's part of the DNA of capitalism. It cannot be any other way. And those who call for peace, very sincere people, don't understand and need to be told that capitalism itself is the producer of these conflicts. Unless we overthrow capitalism, then they will always exist. In fact, we've had conflicts every day since World War II in one area of the globe or another. There has not been peace as they say it. And that is the nature of capitalism. And that we explain the only way out is the overthrow of this system through the socialist revolution. Of course, there are those who say, well, you know, this is a daunting task, and we can agree it's a hard task. It means enormous sacrifice in overthrowing a system that's been in existence for 300 years, but it's certainly not impossible. And we are certainly against those who say that socialist revolution is utopian or impossible. On the contrary, it's inevitable whether we are here or not. These skeptics, which I believe are also found largely on the left, we have no confidence in the working class. They do not see that the working class internationally is stronger now than at any time in its history. In other words, the grave diggers of capitalism are stronger now than ever before. Obviously, they're not conscious of it yet, but it's events, events, events which changes their consciousness and forces them on the road to revolution itself. Clearly, we are able to understand this because of the ideas that we have. The ideas of Marxism, which gives us a scientific explanation of the movement of capitalism, the movement of classes, how revolution develops, how consciousness develops, the role of leadership. This allows us to see what is really happening in front of us, whereas those, the skeptics, they look around and they clutch their heads. They don't understand what's going on. They fail to understand and appreciate what is happening, our symptoms of the death agony of capitalism itself. And that revolution is not caused by revolutionaries. Revolution is produced by the capitalist system itself, the contradictions of capitalism. It creates the objective basis for revolution, by the contradictions forcing the working class onto the road of fundamental change. And whether we are here or not, revolutions will take place. The point is, for us as revolutionaries, is to ensure that they are successful revolutions. That is the point, that the working class doesn't squander the enormous energy it has in trying to change society. Capitalism, as we can see, is any complete blind alley. It is no way out. It is like a gigantic pressure cooker, with a fire raging underneath and the pressure building up. And there's no safety valves. Eventually now, this will explode. And that's the type of pressures developing within capitalism. Capitalism, it won't be one explosion, but a whole series of revolutionary explosions throughout the world itself. Whereas we understand that the historical justification for capitalism, because it was progressive in its day, has now ended. It has created the productive forces on the world scale of technique, of industry, of science. It has created the world market, but has conjured up those forces it cannot control, it cannot use, it's reached its limits. Only the reorganisation of society on communist lines can this potential be brought into fruition. And the capitalism, it's impossible, it's had its day. Of course, the capitalist will try to get out of these contradictions, they always do, they always try. But every time they do, they create bigger contradictions down the road. In other words, they come into the end of the road, if you like, in attempting to patch up the capitalist system. And we understand the only way out for the working class is the socialist revolution. And that is why we have organised this event this weekend, this school of communism. And we should take to heart the words, the great words of the philosopher Spinoza. Ours is not to weep, to cry or to laugh. Ours is to learn and to understand. And that's what we have to do. We have to learn about the mechanics of revolution. We have to understand the fundamental ideas of Marxism in order for us to understand the world and our role in it. Of course we do not treat Marxism as a dogma, neither did Marx or Engels or Lenin. They saw it as a guide to action. It is our guide to analysing the past revolutions. Those have been defeated to learn the lessons of those defeats so that we do not make the same mistakes in the future. Of course the fundamental lesson, as we know, is that it is a crisis of leadership. If it wasn't for the reformists and the Stalinists who have led the movement down a blind alley, the workers would have been in power a long time ago, but capitalism will not fall of its own volition. It has to be overthrown. And that's why we require a leadership, a party that's prepared to go to the end. But what does the future hold for us? That is the key question. And we have to understand that in each context. For us the greatest event in the whole of history was the Russian Revolution of 1917. Why? Because for the first time ever the working class came to power and held it. It showed you could have a society run without capitalists and landlords and bankers. It showed in practice what could be done. Of course the perspective of the Bolshevik party was that they weren't going to establish socialism or communism in the backward conditions of Russia. That was impossible. And therefore their perspective was that it would be the beginning of the world revolution. It was just the start, the starting point and without world revolution the revolution would not succeed in Russia. That's why they built the communist international in 1919 to prepare the ground for the world revolution. But unfortunately as we know revolutions took place, yes. But they were defeated and betrayed either by the social democrats or the inexperience of the communist movement. And as a consequence you had the isolation of the Russian revolution and the terrible backward conditions of imperialist intervention and so on. That led to its degeneration and you had the rise of Stalinism which in turn became an obstacle to world revolution. Another barrier. Of course in the west you had the crisis of capitalism, the Wall Street crash for instance. And the great depression that followed, the mass unemployment, the degradation. You had the rise of fascism in Germany, in Italy, in Spain. Of course even within this period you had revolutionary movements. The Spanish Revolution but it gave 1936 showed what was possible. But it also led to a defeat because the leadership was in the hands of the Stalinists who betrayed the revolution. And it was these defeats in the 1930s which led to the Second World War and the death of 50 million workers. But the war itself gave rise to a revolutionary wave in 1944, 1945. Particularly in France and Italy where the workers could have taken power but once again the leadership betrayed the movement, the social democrats and the Stalinists. And that was the political prerequisite for the recovery of capitalism at that time. They were responsible. An American imperialism, one of the victors of the Second World War, was able to come in and impose its solution on the rest of the capitalist world. Imposing the dollar, imposing the IMF, reducing the tariff barriers, allowing capitalism to breathe a bit. And it gave capitalism, yes, a new lease of life which resulted in an upswing in the 1950s and 60s. And capitalism for the last time in its history under the pressure of the working class was able to give certain reforms. Big reforms really, the health service in Britain, council housing, you name it. You know these were so genuine reforms, won by the working class. But it also gave rise to the idea of reformism, particularly the right wing variety. You said yes. See, capitalism has changed. We've solved all the problems. We can control capitalism. Everybody's going to become middle class. There's going to be a classless society. And the problem, but let's be clear, it looked on the surface as this was actually being accomplished. And we were told obviously Marxism was out of date, Revolution was out of date. And we said no, on the contrary, that over a period of time capitalism, the contradictions will re-emerge. And therefore there will be a further period of economic crisis. And of course that's exactly what happened in 1974. You had the first simultaneous crisis of capitalism. The ruling class was forced to abandon Keynesianism, the great god, and introduced the policies they had in the 1930s. Monetarism, you know, balanced budgets. And they attacked the working class because capitalism then could not afford the reforms it granted previously. It opened up the period from reforms to counter reforms and attacks on the working class. You had the boom and slump cycle emerging again. Mass unemployment began to emerge. That's the real characteristics of capitalism. The only thing is that they had a certain, again, lease of life. In the 1990s, the fall of the Soviet Union, the opening up of China to capitalism. This idea of so-called globalization, basically an intensification of world trade. They were able then to have a bit of a breathing space. But within the breathing space, because of the rottenness of capitalism, they reverted to speculation. Colossal's amount of speculation was in that particular period. In America, the subprime mortgages were born. They invented all kinds of financial wizardry. Derivatives making money from money without production. As if you could do that, in other words, fictitious capital was created. Which led eventually triggered a new slump in 2008-2009. The biggest crisis of capitalism in its history. And the grueling class was terrified that that would lead to another depression. As in the 1930s, they were sliding towards it. And the only way they could get out of it was spend trillions of dollars to bail out the banks and capitalism that are lower interest rates as never before. In other words, they had to do things they'd never dreamed of before to save the system. And as a consequence, you had a period of this, because this had consequences. 10, 15 years of austerity developed in all the major capitalist countries. Attacks on the working class, lowering living standards. And that led to a political instability, a social instability everywhere as this consequence came about. And we can see that in relation even to Britain's sleepy old Britain. How that changed from the most stable country in Western Europe to becoming one of perhaps the most unstable countries. What do we have in the last seven years? The rise of Scottish independence. The collapse of the Labour Party in Scotland. Brexit. A self-harm for British capitalism. The rise of Corbyn. Unknown the Labour Party. The ruling class losing control over the Labour Party. My God, temporarily at least. And then the rise of Boris Johnson and all the rest of it. The ruling class losing control over the Tory Party. Just like in America. Same process happening in these different countries. In Greece, in Spain, of Podemos, Syriza. In United States, Bernie Sanders. And also Trumpers, that's all part of this enormous churning up in crisis within society. Never happened before. This is the reason underlying this is the crisis of capitalism itself. In other words, Trotsky said. The ruling class are tobogganing towards disaster with their eyes closed. And then we had the slump in 2020, 2021 combined with the pandemic. Another catastrophe. And then once again they had to bail capitalism out. Trillions of dollars being poured into the capitalist system to hold it up. It was on, you know, basically support. State support is holding it together. That's all. Life support in that sense. Of course they didn't have the money. It's all built on debt. So you've got mountains and mountains and mountains of debt created everywhere. The world level of debt, 350% of world GDP is debt. And this is according to the IMF is unsustainable. But on the other hand it said they can't do nothing about it because taking it away will have big political and social consequences. So they stuck in this vice at the present moment. And of course the problem is if or when there's another downturn they've run out the road. And it's not me saying it. It's the ruling class who's saying it. I've got your quote from the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. Who said, we've finished. This is what he said, his name is Pierre Olivier Grandiers. And he says, I don't think they can do it again. That is bail out capitalism. We don't have an insurance policy anymore. There's no protection. And lastly, we are at the edge. Well the edge of what? The edge of an almighty catastrophe facing capitalism. If there's another crisis and they can't bail it out then all bets are off as far as they can say. That's the ruling class talking. Not the Marxist. It gives you an idea what the future holds. Enormous instability politically, socially you name it. And the danger of hanging over capitalism of a further crisis and a depression. What is this going to mean for consciousness? Amongst the working class. Amongst the middle classes. Amongst the youth. If they're radicalised today what the hell are they going to be like under those conditions? In other words, we're heading for an unprecedented period of turmoil where layers of workers and youth are going to draw revolutionary and radical ideas. Precisely, this is the perspective that's opening up before us. Of course you can say it's not a straight line and it's true. There will be defeats. There will be victories yet, but there will be many defeats. Given the fact that the Labour and Trade Union is in the middle class. Many defeats given the fact that the Labour and Trade Union leaders are reformists. That would be inevitable, but in that process there are the shocks. In that process are the events which change people's outlook, change people's views on what is happening and how quick is happening. Look at what happened in Britain a few weeks ago where Stammer, our great reactionary leader of the Labour Party, Sir Stammer, comes forward and says, yes, we must blockade, justifies the blockading of Gaza. Cut off the water, cut off the power, created enormous opposition, particularly in the Muslim areas overnight. It was one survey conducted of 30,000 Muslims within that period. Bear in mind in 2019 the Muslim vote for Labour was 71%. If there's a general election tomorrow, it will go down 5%. That's an enormous change in a matter of days, man. And that's because of the events themselves and that's going to affect us generally, the youth and others. Of course it also augurs what Stammer Government is going to be like. I tell you all hell will be popping under Stammer Government because they'll try and carry out the policies of the Tories at the present moment. So we, and many people can see through the lies of the press, of the MPs, of parliamentary democracy, even now they can see through it. Much more they will see through it as we move down into this deeper crisis. Therefore we have all these elements coming together, producing a pre-revolutionary crisis in society. We have elements there now. In other words, this is the storm we're entering. This is the period that we're entering. I think as Ali explained yesterday, he caught into a trotsky inherent in reformism is betrayal. That's the lesson. Well we can see it from the right wing, right reformists and Stammer. They're out and out agents of the ruling class. You can see it quite clearly as though it's not to ifs or buts about that. But the lefts, they are in the same boat in so far as they maintain there's no other alternative but capitalism in reality. They think they can reform capitalism, make it better, make it nicer, make it sweeter for the working class. They have these illusions. So when the working class tries to move and change the society, which we are what they be trying to do, hold it back, it can't be done. Let's be realistic, let's not be utopian comrades. That'll be their view. And all they come forward is what's taxed the rich. So the last week, you know, oh we should tax the rich and take the money and put it back in the economy and make the economy grow. So they want to tax the rich to give it to the capitalist economy. So the capitalist economy, that's the logic of their argument because they don't get me wrong. Instead of that we should expropriate the rich. That's the whole point about it but these people are tinkering. Tinkering round the edges all the time, looking for a way out. As if capitalism can be tamed into a nice sweet thing. But as I think it was Tony who said in the 1930s, you know, well you can peel an onion leaf by leaf but you can't skin a live tiger claw by claw and capitalism is not an onion. Capitalism is more like a man eating tiger. And therefore we have to draw the necessary conclusions from this analysis itself. But of course they fear this. They fear it. Of course what we have to do is to draw out the lessons. I mean I was thinking what would Corbyn have done if he had come to power in 2019? He would have tinkered round the edges but all hell would have broken loose because the ruling class would have sabotaged it. Look what they did with Liz Truss and she was a Tory. Good God. Look within a few days they brought the government down on the basis of hiking up interest rates. A run on the pound, that clearly would have happened in the Corbyn and what were you going to do? Marbleise the working class to crush capitalism? I don't think so. It would be a question of capitulation because they don't know anything else. Compromise, try and get round it and so on. We have to open our eyes as to what the realities are in relation to reformism and what is required that is in a revolutionary party. But I'll say also, given the experience of the last period socialism as a term has been more devalued because of this. Years and years of people, if you like welfare capitalism that's what it's been identified as. Well even Starmer calls himself a socialist brothers and sisters. So if you think that it gives you an idea how demeaning this word has become. Obviously we understood, given the Fraser Institute poll where young people are looking beyond that, beyond the idea of milk and water socialism, welfare capitalism, they want a fundamental change in society. That's why they've looked towards communism in order to do it. That's the nitty gritty of what you're talking about and they believe are absolutely correct and we should draw the next conclusions as well. We should not be behind, we should be in advance of what people are thinking and young people in particular if we're going to succeed. We have to go back and think in the same way that Marx and Engels when they came into political activity they didn't call themselves socialists because the socialists at that time were utopians were muddled people and they accepted the idea of they decided to call themselves communists. That's why we don't have the socialist manifesto. We have the communist manifesto. That is the founding document of our organisation in the same way at Lenin in 1917 when he came back from exile, drew the conclusion that because of the betrayal of the social democrats in 1914 we should cast off the dirty soil of the social democracy and put the clean linen on, the clean linen of communism in order to differentiate themselves from the betrayal of the past and I believe that we also should do the same. We should draw the lessons. In other words, on what we are proposing and what we are going to do is that we think that Socialist Appeal as a title has had its day. And from January of next year it will be called the Communist. I can see you are keen about that one. Let's go a step further than that. In Britain at the present time there is an organisation called the Communist Party of Britain. It is the left overs of the old Communist Party. It's very small, but it's far from being concerned. It's not the size that matters. It's the fact that they're not communists that matters. They are reformists. They are left reformists at best. Their programme is little different from the Labour lefts and the trade union lefts. They have devalued the whole basis of what communism is. And therefore we think that we should step up and we should fly the flag of communism in Britain. That's the whole point and as a result we believe now, given the objective situation opening up in Britain given the potential as I outlined it earlier on we need to, if you like, boldly stand out much, much more than ever before. And we believe that we should organise a Congress next year, a founding Congress of a new political party called the Revolutionary Communist Party. We are the target of achieving 1,000 members of the organisation by the end of this year. And after the success, I would say of the Are You a Communist campaign in particular and the audacity of the comrades themselves and the potential that exists out there. Well, earlier on this week I was given a figure beginning of this week. And the early figure, so I'll give you the latest one in a minute, the earlier figure was 1,087. On Friday I was told that it was 1,093 and today it is 1,101. All I would say comrades this is the beginning and the reason is that we're going to step up because we have to step up. If we've got 1,100 members now then next May we should have 1,500. That's the target and by the end of the year 2,000 members. That's what we have to do. Given the situation, we'll see if it goes but there's no reason why we can't put on the agenda the idea of 5,000 members within the next couple of years. And as you know comrades it's a step in stone to 10,000 members. Let's not get swelled heads over it but by Christ it's there for the taking if we're prepared to step up. That's the whole idea behind it. And these initiatives, they're not there as cosmetics. These are the means by which we achieve these particular objectives. If there's what 29% of young people in Britain who look into communism, that's 4.5 million people surely we can tap into that. And therefore this is obviously not going to be the straight line clearly up and away but look events change very quickly. The movement changes very quickly under these circumstances. Look at what happened with the Bolshevik Party. In February 1917 they had 8,000 members. By October they had 400,000 members. They had conquered the Soviets and conquered the majority of the working class. That was under exceptional circumstances because of the war conditions which brought down all the illusions if you like and they were able to build upon it. So our development is clearly going to be more protracted. That's clear. But there are occasions where revolution itself produces a great impetus for the growth of the organisation. Take the example in Spain of the Pum in 1936. The Pum were the party of Marxist unification. It was a semi-revolutionary organisation. It wasn't fully Marxist, semi-revolutionary. Yet it had 2,000 members in July 1936. Within a matter of weeks it grew to 40,000 and 50,000 members under the heat of the revolution. That shows you the dynamic potential that exists at that time and will in my opinion develop in the future. We should look and think big. Not get swelled ahead but think of the reality. Think of how we can measure up to the possibilities that exist. Of course our point of reference is the development of the British Revolution and the world revolution. We must be in sync with that particular development. That's why we stand on the shoulders of the Bolshevik party. We stand on the shoulders of the greatest revolutionary party in history. We must lead the working class, the power. What we need comrades is for us individually to look at ourselves and to pledge ourselves to the common communist revolution in Britain and internationally. It's there for the taking if we are prepared to do the work which is necessary. And therefore we need to prepare ourselves politically, theoretically. We have to train and educate our comrades. Theory is the basis of our tendency, that's clearly. But we will not take the line of least resistance. If there are obstacles put in our way and they will be, we will overcome them. When the class struggle moves we will intervene. And when the hour for decisive action comes we will take it. In other words we will be honour the revolutionary spirit on which we are building this particular tendency. What we want is audacity, revolutionary audacity in order to build such an organisation which is there possible providing we shape up ourselves. We need to toughen up. Yes, it's going to be hard. We have to understand itself sacrifice that is needed. But we also understand the potential. I'd like to quote Leon Trotsky's advice to the young communist party in 1925. Where he said, the contradictions undermining British society, which is 12 months before the general strike by the way, remember. The contradictions undermining British society will inevitably intensify as they will for us. We do not intend to predict the exact tempo of this process. But it will be measured in terms of years or in terms of five years at most, certainly not in decades. This general prospect requires us to ask above all the question, will a communist party be built in Britain in time with the strength and the links with the masses to be able to draw at the right moment all the necessary conclusions from the sharpening crisis. In this question, he says, in this, sorry, it is in this question that the fate of Britain remains today. And that is the case as far as we are concerned. Communist, we are at the crossroads. The crossroads of history. We have to step up and understand the tasks on our shoulders. The fate of the revolution rests with us. And if we do our job properly, we can create a mass communist party in Britain and internationally to repair the way for the coming to power of the working class and the establishment of a communist Britain and a communist world. That's our victory. That's where our aim is.