Ebb was created in 2019, at a time when mild forms of social democracy found themselves unable to confront either the limits of parliamentarianism or their complicity with imperialism. Socialists in Britain had overestimated the promise of social democracy and underestimated the depths to which the British state would sink in undermining their quest for basic reforms – finding themselves under increasingly vicious attacks from the British bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie. Absent from all this was the communist left who, with fractured exceptions, conceded the organised and progressive elements of the working class to the unions and found themselves in increasingly contrarian positions that assured their descent into chauvinism.

Building on the successes and failures of class struggles, Ebb moves beyond mechanistic applications of Lenin’s thought that are beginning to re-emerge in the Global North, facilitating constructive exchanges beyond empty polemic – promoting dialogue between theoretical applications of Marxism and practical anti-imperialist and class struggles. As the brittle UK state turns to authoritarianism, with moral panics fuelling racism and transphobia, opposition persists in old and novel forms as the task remains to cohere these forces around a radical programme. As an intellectual tendency, Ebb aims to contribute to this coherence and sharpness as a progressive force. It does so as part of an emerging class consciousness animated by frustrations with a social democracy at its limits, and brought together by the unprecedented challenges for Marxists and the working class in twenty-first century Britain.

Call for Editors

We are seeking to expand our editorial board to meet the demands of a growing publisher and magazine, and better reflect the breadth of experiences on the communist left in Britain. Ebb invites applications to fill multiple positions as Editors.

Since the creation of the Editorial Board in 2021, Ebb has aspired to become a principled and progressive element on the Marxist left in Britain – helping to highlight the necessity of solidarity with the oppressed and drawing attention to the anti-imperialist commitments necessary for a genuine left-wing politics in the imperial centre. This includes the publication of Mahmoud Najib’s translation of Ghassan Kanafani’s On Zionist Literature (2022), and Voices for African Liberation (2024) – a collection of interviews with the Review of African Political Economy. Our first magazine issue was published in January 2024, and our next issue is forthcoming.