Anti-Capitalist Resistance is an organisation of revolutionaries working in different campaigns and together building a collective force as a revolutionary organisation that can challenge and, acting with other left forces, overthrow capitalism. A very broad statement of where we stand is here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/about-us/
Here are some useful resources about the politics that underpins our work.
Exploitation and oppression
Central to our understanding of socialism today as our planet burns is ‘ecosocialism’ and we say what we mean by that here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/ecosocialist-revolution-a-manifesto/
Our ecosocialist politics means that we challenge the drive for profit that is destroying our planet, and put the blame on capitalism as a grotesquely unequal society, not on the human species, and we explain why we do not see ‘overpopulation’ is at the root of the problem here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/on-reproductive-justice-the-dangers-of-malthusianism-neo-malthusianism-and-social-policy/
Ecosocialism today means that we take seriously critiques of the ever-expanding ‘growth’ of capitalism, and instead look to strategies of ‘degrowth’ that find a different way for us to work with nature rather than against it. We discuss degrowth here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/kohei-saitos-new-book-asks-was-marx-a-degrowth-communist-review/
Ecosocialism is sensitive to different forms of oppression that run alongside and reinforce exploitation under capitalism, exploitation that leads in times of crisis to austerity and to scarcity of resources, which we discuss here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/capital-is-scarcity/
Intersecting struggles
Our ecosocialism is informed by an analysis of class exploitation, and we explain the importance of class to our politics here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/reclaiming-the-language-of-class/
Class analysis and collective working-class action is crucial, but it must also include a feminist analysis, for there is no possibility of socialism without women’s liberation, and socialist feminism is discussed here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/the-need-for-anti-war-socialist-feminism/
Analysis and action against exploitation and oppression in a revolutionary organisation, and for each member of that organisation, must have an inclusive intersectional approach to LGBTQIA+ struggles in which ‘trans’ is crucial, something we discuss here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/global-anti-trans-movement/
Capitalism and other forms of oppressive power rely on us operating as good citizens, and with the kinds of bodies that are able to be exploited, and so this political-economic system ‘disables’ many people, something we discuss here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/disability-and-inclusion-some-theory-and-praxis/
Among the various forms of oppression we face are the material and ideological attempts to make it seem as the root of our problems lie inside ourselves rather than in the nature of capitalism as such, and we discuss one such ideological and material practice, psychiatry, here https://anticapitalistresistance.org/marx-spinoza-and-the-political-implications-of-contemporary-psychiatry/
Solidarity and resistance
We are locked in place by a brutal capitalist economic system that makes us believe that we cannot change the world, and which operates through different forms of ‘ideology’ which we discuss here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/false-consciousness-and-ideology/
Just as capitalism locks us in place as if we are only helpless individuals, so it is also impossible to build socialism in one community or even in one isolated nation, and so we are internationalists, something we discuss here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/what-internationalism-do-we-need-today/
Our internationalism means that we refuse to side with other oppressive regimes against our own government, or imagine that the enemy of our enemy (the British State, NATO, the West) is our friend, and we discuss the problem ‘campism’ which divides the world into bad and good parts here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/against-multipolar-imperialism/
We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, and make a clear distinction between antisemitism, which we oppose wherever we find it, including when it appears in the left, and critique of Israel; Zionism, the ideology of the state of Israel, is a deadly nationalist threat to Palestinians and to Jews. We discuss Zionism here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/the-collapse-of-zionism/
We stand for the autonomous self-organisation of the oppressed and in solidarity with nations fighting for self-determination, for example that of Ukraine resisting the Russian invasion and the threat of fascism, whether inside Ukraine or inside Russia itself, something we discuss here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/from-managed-democracy-to-fascism/
Different regimes that claim to be ‘socialist’ often use that term in order to win allies among the left, and to cover over class and other kinds of oppression in their own states, and example of which now is China, a capitalist country and part of imperialism which we discuss here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/opposing-us-militarisation-in-the-asia-pacific-should-not-mean-remaining-silent-on-chinas-emerging-imperialism/
Allies and debates
We are revolutionary Marxists, and so we read and learn from the work of Karl Marx and from critical debates that understand Marx as a child of his time. We discuss Marx here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/a-guide-to-reading-karl-marx-for-the-first-time/
Marx was a ‘communist’, and that means the development of our collective capacities for self-organisation and the building of a society that is for all of us, something we discuss here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/open-communism-part-2/
Our understanding of Marxism is in a tradition of revolutionary organising that examines revolutions that have succeeded, while attending to shortcomings of leaders of those revolutions, and, as one key example, we discuss Vladimir Lenin here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/socialism-and-revolutionary-democracy-lenins-legacy-for-our-time-of-catastrophe/
We believe that Russia, and China neither, was able to build ‘socialism in one country’ and we make a distinction between the more open inclusive communism of Marx and Lenin and ‘Stalinism’ which we discuss here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/stalinist-realism-part-1/
We understand that some of our comrades in different campaigns will, because of the oppressive history of regimes that claim to be ‘Marxist’, also turn to a kind of politics that is sceptical about revolutionary organisations, and discuss the connection between our politics and anarchism here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/anarchists-and-marxists/
A Marxist and Leninist who had some innovative ideas that we take seriously is Leon Trotsky, and so we also read his work, and the work of later ‘Trotskyists’ to find what is useful for our politics now, something we discuss here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/ernest-mandel-was-one-of-the-20th-centurys-greatest-marxist-thinkers/
One of very useful contributions of Trotsky to our political strategy was finding a way between the very slow useless attempts to ‘reform’ this rotten system and ‘ultraleft’ demands for immediate revolution now, and we discuss transition here: https://anticapitalistresistance.org/the-transitional-programme/
Our Statements
Since 2021 ACR has published several statements about political events, these were either adopted by our Organising Group, the ACR Council, at an all-members meeting or at our annual conference. These are supplementary to our Ecosocialist manifesto we published in June 2024 which is our main programmatic document.
Anti fascism and anti racism
This is our statement we issued during the far-right riots in August of 2024
Trans Liberation
We agreed this statement on the fight for trans liberation at our annual conference in 2024
We also agreed this statement when the Sunak government began to revise the curriculum to exclude teaching of ‘trans ideology’.
Downfall of the Truss government
This is the statement we published about the collapse of the Liz Truss government and the importance of building a movement against austerity.
Cost of living crisis
ACR published this document in August 2022 about the inflation and cost of living crisis gripping the UK and how we needed to organise a mass movement to fight for higher wages as well as price controls and rent caps.
Ukraine
We have published several statements on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and why we support Ukrainian self defence, these are two of the main ones https://anticapitalistresistance.org/stand-in-solidarity-with-the-people-of-ukraine/ and
A statement on the refugee crisis caused by the war, in the context of global refugee movements
https://anticapitalistresistance.org/refugees-need-solidarity-not-a-hostile-environment/
Scottish self determination
A statement from 2022 on the general principle of supporting Scottish self determination including up to them leaving the British state.