Number 306

Thursday September 30 1999

Taaffe does a U-turn - The Socialist Party's last-minute about-turn on 'supporting' the SWP's lobby of the Labour conference reflects internal crisis

Party notes - The website of the Socialist Democracy Group calls the Weekly Worker a 'shit sheet'. Mark Fischer assesses the SDG and finds little to celebrate

Letters - British-Irish, Steve Hedley, SLP, LRCI

Students show the way - Marcus Larsen reports on events in Indonesia and the social-imperialism of Australia's Democratic Socialist Party

Blair's new drugs offensive - The government's assault on civil liberties continues, writes Jim Gilbert

Bourgeois democracy or socialism - Do oppressor communities have the right to create their own states? Jose Villa accuses Jack Conrad of sacrificing the rights of the majority

Inversion of Marxism - Michael Malkin attacks Jose Villa's 'bone-headed and philistine' Trotskyism

Communism is no utopia - Istvan Meszaros, the noted Marxist thinker, spoke at Communist University '99. We reproduce his speech

Spies like us - Legality and illegality are different moments in the class struggle, writes Mark Fischer