We are The Octobrist!
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We close the first quarter of the 21st century with a crisis. Environmental degradation, economic insecurity and political instability have become the material realities of our age, an age thus-far marked by successive waves of crises and the consequent rounds of capitalist re-entrenchment that follow. With the world gearing up for another Trump presidency, as well as the continuing trend towards right-wing authoritarianism around the world, it becomes more and more important that we amplify progressive voices from across the Left, especially in face of the slew of misinformation we are overwhelmed with on a daily basis. As such, we are launching The Octobrist: a socialist newsletter focussing on issues important to the Canadian working class as well as its place in the greater context of neoliberal capitalism around the world.
We publish weekly articles about current affairs, political analyses, cultural criticism, and more. We are not explicitly a Marxist publication but we do prefer materialist analyses that focus on people’s lived experiences over abstract principles. We invite you to subscribe if you are interested in our perspective on the labour movement in Canada and the world.
What We’re About:
Our primary goal is to bring attention to issues that most directly impact the lives of ordinary Canadians, and, to a lesser extent, working people around the world. Whether that be the consequences of the Liberal-NDP split or our continued appropriation of mineral wealth in West Africa, we always want to center our analyses on the material experiences of those subject to the blind whims of capital.
The fractured nature of the contemporary labour movement in face of the rising threat of neoliberal entrenchment on one end and a fascist resurgence on the other means that it's now more important than ever to unite the diverse voices of the Left into a mass movement capable of defending the interests of the working class. We hope to be a part of this movement but we acknowledge that we cannot achieve anything of significance alone. The task of organizing against the forces of capital and reaction has already been taken up by various leftist, anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist groups around the world and every day their cause is adopted by people who have reached their limits with the cold and cruel compulsions of capitalism, and we must show ourselves willing and able to join the fray and adopt these causes as our own.
It is therefore essential that we socialists base our understanding of the class struggle on well researched and factual information. Blatant apologia for oppressive regimes or vulgar oversimplifications of the mechanisms of oppression under capitalism are useless if we hope to advance the goals of the labour movement. Likewise, overwrought and excessively nuanced analyses serve only to obfuscate these mechanisms behind a thick veil of obscurantist jargon. That is not to say that complex academic analyses are looked down upon, quite the opposite, but rather that our own analyses should be accessible to the average working person whenever possible. The truth is often complex and nuanced and we have a responsibility to depict it in all its facets.
Who are we for?
We want to reach out to ordinary Canadians: workers, parents, students, those who have to decide whether to eat or to pay rent, those who are forced to sell themselves to the whims of the free market to survive. We want to help answer your questions about how and why our living standards have plummeted in past decades and what we can do to reverse that course. Our weekly articles are not meant to be exhaustive academic overviews of every aspect of the capitalist mode of production but instead a source of general information about the immediate goings on of the Canadian labour movement presented in a brief and concise format that can be easily digested in the midst of our busy lives. We don't have all the answers, no one does, but we can at least be sure that we're doing our part to continue the conversation.
If you are interested in contributing to the discussion then we invite you to take a look at our submission guidelines in our “about” page.
—M.