Featured

With the shambolic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan earlier this month, thousands of Afghans are now looking to flee the country. Faced with an unprecedented humanitarian crisis of their own making, politicians in the US and Europe are crying crocodile tears over the hardships faced by refugees, while nonetheless abandoning them to their suffering.

Left-winger Sharon Graham has won the race to become general secretary of one of Britain’s biggest unions, Unite, which has almost 1.3 million members. She did so by appealing to rank-and-file members with a promise to defend jobs and conditions. This early tremor is a sign of the earthquakes that will shake the trade unions from top to bottom.

Otelo Nuno Romão Saraiva de Carvalho died last month. As a young army major, Otelo planned and coordinated the military coup of 25 April 1974 against the Estado Novo dictatorship in Portugal, despite the fact that the army had previously been one of its main pillars of support. What Otelo could not foresee was that the masses would surge onto the stage of history through the breach that the 25 April coup created at the very core of the bourgeois state. This date therefore also marked the beginning of the Portuguese Revolution.

Four years after the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a journalist and blogger who led the investigation of the Panama Papers leak in Malta, a new inquiry has concluded that the state should “shoulder responsibility for her death”. The 437-page report does not directly blame the Maltese state for the orchestration of her murder, but it deems that an atmosphere of impunity was generated by the highest echelons of the

...

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan has turned into utter humiliation for US imperialism. It has not only exposed a relative military and economic decline, it has also exposed a growing mood of war-weariness at home. Workers in the US have become sick and tired of the ruling class’ endless military adventures, whilst the basic needs of US citizens at home are going unmet. This article was written one week ago, before the Taliban had taken Kabul. Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest developments.

Taliban forces are seizing swathes of territory in a countrywide offensive, as US troops withdraw from Afghanistan. It has been predicted that the puppet regime in Kabul, installed by US imperialism and its allies, could fall within a month.

The immense destruction caused by the wildfires in Varybobi, Evia and dozens of other areas of Greece is not solely due to the winds, high temperatures and climate change, as the ND government and the bourgeois media claim. The real cause of this catastrophe is the reactionary policies and the criminal indifference of the Greek ruling class.

Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated in early July. Many of the details surrounding his assassination are still shrouded in mystery. While 27 suspects have been arrested and a total of 44 have been detained—including four police officers and 18 former Colombian soldiers—there remain many questions, including who organized the assassination and why.

Malaysia’s intensifying social and political crisis has reached a new height. Weeks of chaotic infighting within the ruling coalition, which have involved the monarch, led to the de facto collapse of Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s majority in parliament. While the ruling class is splitting at the top, the youth are protesting on the streets, doctors are striking, and across the board, the masses are expressing discontent against the regime.

For years, a toxic culture of rampant sexism has permeated Activision Blizzard, the video game development company behind titles including World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. This was blown open publicly on 20 July when California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a lawsuit against the company, alleging widespread sexism in the workplace, and calling the company “a breeding ground for harassment and discrimination.” The suit also alleges that women were paid less than men for the same roles, often forced into lower-rank positions, and were promoted less frequently than their male peers.

The 11 July Bulgarian parliamentary elections dislodged the right-wing GERB (“Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria”) party from power. Deep divisions in the ruling class now threaten to transform a crisis of the regime into one of the whole political system.

This document was approved by delegates at the 2021 World Congress of the International Marxist Tendency (full report here). It provides our general analysis of the main processes taking place in world politics, at a time marked by unprecedented crisis and turmoil. With dynamite in the foundations of the world economy and the COVID-19 pandemic still casting a shadow over the global situation, all roads lead to intensified class struggle.

Between 24 and 27 July, more than 2,800 Marxists from over 50 countries around the world gathered online for the World Congress of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT). This congress had originally been scheduled to take place in 2020, but was cut across by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A decade after the 2010/11 revolution threw out the hated dictator Ben Ali, a wave of anti-government protest has rocked Tunisia. The government has been ousted in a palace coup, but there can be no faith in any bourgeois faction. The masses can trust only in their own strength. A new revolutionary upsurge by workers and youth is necessary to win a real future. 

Since 15 July, protests over a severe water shortage in Khuzestan province in Iran have developed into a powerful localised movement, which has now spread to all major cities of the province: Shush, Susangard, Izeh, Dezful, Kut Abdullah, Weiss, Mahshahr, Hamidiyeh, Chamran and several areas of Ahvaz. The regime has declared martial law but this has only had the effect of provoking protests in a further 16 provinces.

Socialist Appeal, the Marxist voice of Labour and youth, has been expelled from the British Labour Party, with the right wing saying they are ‘alien’ and ‘toxic’ to the party’s ‘aims and values’. But Marxism has a long history in the British labour movement, and the Labour Party. This article answers the lies, smears, and slanders.