In the first of three extracts from his new book, Radical Chains, Chris Nineham asks why the establishment is so desperate to suppress the very idea of class.

This summer’s strikes in Britain and the announcement by the RMT’s Mick Lynch that ‘the working class is back’ will have sent a collective shudder through the ranks of the establishment.

Tony McKenna’s new book is an important defence of Marxism, against thinkers who have confused and obscured its revolutionary core, argues Chris Nineham