The following statement by trade union activists in Italy explains how neither the governments’ response, nor the passivity of the Italian mass organisations, have been equal to the task of fighting this public health emergency. The workers will not die on the altar of profit!

Join us TONIGHT (18 March) at 6pm GMT as we conduct a live interview with Claudio Bellotti, editor of the Italian Marxist newspaper Rivoluzione. We will be discussing the impact of the coronavirus outbreak in Italy, as well as the ongoing strike wave in many parts of the country. You can watch a previous video of Claudio talking about the emergency here. Watch the video, posted below, right here on marxist.com!

Claudio Bellotti - editor of Rivoluzione - discusses the impact of the coronavirus outbreak in Italy, which has the second-most cases after China. Around 24,000 people have been confirmed to have the disease. This emergency has exposed the underlying rot in Italian capitalism. A public health crisis has been brewing for decades, due to massive cuts to the Italian health system over the course of 30 years. Meanwhile, the erratic reaction of the government reflects the weakness and divisions in the ruling class.

The coronavirus crisis is more severe in Italy than anywhere else in Europe. This shows the chronic failures of the government – whose response so far has been totally inadequate, and which is attempting to shunt the economic burden of the emergency onto working people.

The following article, originally published on 26 February by Sinistra classe rivoluzione, criticises the Italian government’s response to the coronavirus epidemic. Rather than inform the public and protect public health, the government has instead created needless panic, enacted inefficient measures, and suppressed the rights to strike and public assembly.

Antonio Gramsci died in 1937, after spending nearly ten years in prison under Mussolini’s fascist regime. All these years later, his ideas and legacy are still being debated and reinterpreted. Who was Gramsci? All manner of weird and wonderful answers have been given to this question, with plenty of distortions, if not outright historical falsifications, from petit-bourgeois academics and intellectuals, to revisionists in the labour movement.

The "sardines" took to the squares of Emilia in big numbers, and in the wake of their success, became a national movement in a matter of days. The first mobilisation was triggered in the capital of Bologna on 14 November, due to the presence of Salvini, who is doing a rally tour of the region with an eye on the 26 January elections.

These have been difficult days for the city of Venice and its inhabitants, given the havoc wreaked on the Serenissima by extraordinarily forceful floods, starting on 12 November.

Alan Woods’ tour of Italy has concluded with two hugely successful meetings in Naples and Rome (preceded by appearances in Milan and Bologna). The tour (entitled “Revolution for the future: from the History of Bolshevism to the revolutions of tomorrow”) was organised by Sinistra Classe Revolution: the Italian section of the International Marxist Tendency.

Alan Woods is on tour in Italy for a series of public meetings titled “Revolution for the future: from the History of Bolshevism to the revolutions of tomorrow”, organised by Sinistra Classe Rivoluzione: the Italian section of the IMT. Here is a report of the first two meetings, in Milan and Bologna. Today, Alan is in Naples; and on Saturday, 9 November, he will be in Rome.

The Italian government crisis during the summer holidays has been settled with the birth of a new government, composed of the 5-Stars Movement (M5S) and the Democratic Party (PD). This represents a complete upending of the situation, sparked by the decision of former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, to break from the former coalition.

The Saudi ship Bahri Yanbu, which was docked at the port of Genoa to load military equipment to be used in the Yemen conflict, has left Italy without its intended cargo. This represents a great victory for the Genoese dockers, who refused to load the ship, which will now head to Alexandria, Egypt. At the Genoa port, a banner is still waving: "Stop arms trafficking, war on war."

8 March (International Working Women's Day) will be a day of struggle and mobilisation in Italy and beyond. Thousands will hit the streets to fight against continuous attacks to women's rights by alternating Italian governments. The economic crisis has worsened economic and social conditions, especially of working women; and social welfare cuts have pushed back the emancipation conquered over decades of struggle.

Comrades and supporters from around the world are continuing to put pressure on the Pakistani state to release the Marxist student activist, Rawal Asad, who is still being held on the scandalous charge of sedition and has been denied bail. Meanwhile, protests are ongoing in Pakistan, where comrades, students and workers are demanding that Rawal be immediately released.

A Marxist student comrade of the Progressive Youth Alliance, Rawal Asad, remains in jail on the charge of sedition, having had his bail hearing rejected. In addition to continued protest in Pakistan against this injustice, messages and photographs have been pouring in all week from all over the world demanding our comrade's release.

The worldwide solidarity campaign for the release of Rawal Asad, a comrade from the Progressive Youth Alliance who was arrested in Multan and scandalously charged with sedition by the Pakistani state, has forged on apace. Photographs, videos and messages of solidarity have been flooding in from all around the globe.

Just over 25 years after its foundation, the European Union looks like it could be falling apart under the weight of its own contradictions. Everywhere you look, the major parties are coming under increased pressure due to the heightening of the class struggle as a result of 10 years of crisis. This has meant that, in one country after another, the ruling class can no longer rule in the old way.

The conflict between the Italian government and the “Troika” (the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund) is making news headlines around the world. To understand fully the meaning of this clash and its consequences, we need to go back to the political earthquake of the 4 March elections.

A crunch point is approaching in the ongoing saga surrounding the highly-indebted Italian economy. This could spark a revival of the dormant euro crisis.

Italy’s public debt stands at a staggering €2.3tn, or 132 percent of GDP: the third largest in the world after Japan and Greece. Furthermore, Italy’s banks hold the largest share of Europe's non-performing loans, totalling €224bn. Unlike Greece, which is a relatively small player in Europe, Italy has the third-largest economy in the Eurozone, contributing more than 15 percent of its overall GDP. Italy has now become a huge risk to the financial stability of the whole of the European Union.