London Marxism Reading Group

"The age of mass protest ushered in by the Arab Spring is hardly over, but that record of failures, setbacks, and cataclysms has been dispiriting even to many of the agitators and demonstrators who shaped the movements in question and whom Bevins has spent the last 10 years or so following and interviewing in search of answers. 'The point was not just to notice that the mass protest decade hasn’t really worked out,' he muses toward the end of the book. 'The idea was to understand why.' Fortunately, he comes away from his globe-trotting search with critical lessons for activists both here and abroad. Setting the world afire, it turns out, is easier than one might expect. Tending to the flames is harder."

New Republic, The Mass Disappointment of a Decade of Mass Protest

Hello readers and welcome back! This time, we're continuing last year's theme of analysing the class struggle histories, successes and failures of the century's first twenty-five years with a deep dive into the 2010s-early 2020s' global protest movement, courtesy of Vincent Bevins' (known for The Jakarta Method) seminal historical analysis of the period, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution. Thanks to one of our readers for the recommendation!

Not to put too fine a point on it: even before "world leaders" like Putin, Trump, and Netanyahu brought industrial-scale murder and militarised mayhem back to the front of westerners' minds, we were already - as predicted by many - living through one of the most politically turbulent periods in history, with more people out on the street in more countries than at any time before. In this text, Bevins takes a global sweep of protest movements from Brazil to the so-called Middle East to Hong Kong and beyond.

Think back for a moment: at the start of the "Arab Spring" and the Occupy movements, spooked-up deep state maniac Paul Mason once wrote a blog article entitled "Why it's kicking off everywhere"; as even a stopped watch is right twice a day, we can look back and agree that it really did kick off, everywhere.

So why, at the start of 2026, does it seem that the peoples of the world, in living memory never more dissatisfied with their ruling class, have never in living memory been more cowed, broken, scattered and disempowered?

We'll discuss whether Bevins' thoughtful analysis, which does not shy away from offering assessment and recommendation, provides some of the material for an answer to this question. We'll also discuss to what extent the seeds sown by protest movements in the past, including the very recent past, may be about to bear fruit in the present, and what role new forces and generations might play.

We'll read the introduction and chapters 19 and 20.

Do pick up the book if you can! The author has a purchasing guide here: https://vincentbevins.com/book2/

If not, here's an online copy:

https://dn721908.ca.archive.org/0/items/if-we-burn-the-mass-protest-decade-and-the-missing-vincent-bevins-2023-public-af/If%20We%20Burn_%20The%20Mass%20Protest%20Decade%20and%20the%20Missing%20--%20Vincent%20Bevins%20--%202023%20--%20Public%20Affairs%20--%209781541788978%20--%20b99d524e13d6a73d192760ac0207b4e0%20--%20Anna%E2%80%99s%20Archive.pdf

Take care and see you on the barricades!