In July 2021 the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) relaunched its theoretical magazine, In Defence of Marxism. The revamped publication has been an extraordinary success, with thousands of copies being sold each issue, in more and more countries across the globe.
The English version of the magazine has sold almost 3,000 copies per issue, while the Spanish America Socialista – En Defensa del Marxismo (which incorporates In Defence of Marxism articles) is selling over 700 copies per issue across 15 countries in Latin America, as well as in Canada and the US.
Thanks to the tireless work of IMT activists around the world, the magazine is also fully translated in Swedish, German and Russian. All of the articles are translated into a digital Chinese edition, and there is now a brand new related publication in Finnish, whilst each issue key articles are translated and published online in several other languages, including Arabic, Polish and Italian.
Since the magazine was launched almost one year ago, we have received dozens of enthusiastic reports and pictures from comrades reading, discussing and selling the magazine across the globe, including in Britain, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, USA, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Honduras, Argentina, Colombia, Pakistan and India. This marks the first time that the literature of the IMT has been regularly distributed in some countries, including Peru, Ecuador, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica.
In Cuba, posts shared on social media featuring comrades with the journal were inundated with requests for copies of the magazine. In Honduras, copies of the first two issues quickly sold out and sympathisers of the IMT eagerly took up annual subscriptions.
Above all, the success of a magazine containing advanced Marxist theory demonstrates one thing: there is an enormous thirst for clear ideas amongst the advanced layers of workers and youth. The ruling class is soaked in pessimism about the future of their system. This pessimism and confusion seeps into society. It is given a theoretical expression in the university lecture theatres, and it finds an echo in the pusillanimous, reformist labour leaderships.
As Lenin used to remark, he who has the youth has the future. The Marxists are the party of the revolutionary youth, and are conducting a campaign to win the youth to revolutionary ideas. But the schools and universities are environments hostile to these ideas. They are riddled with petty-bourgeois, alien class ideas; above all the philosophy of postmodernism, which plays a pernicious and reactionary role in the student and labour movement.
This is why, as Engels explained 150 years ago, it is not enough for the working class to wage an economic and political struggle alone. It is just as necessary to wage a theoretical struggle: for clear, revolutionary ideas. As Alan Woods stated in the opening editorial of the new In Defence of Marxism:
“The honour of fighting against the stream, of combating these mystical and irrational ideas, falls to the revolutionary vanguard of the working class.”
The In Defence of Marxism magazine is designed with this struggle in mind: as a tool and a weapon for revolutionary class fighters all over the world, offering serious Marxist analysis on theoretical questions and burning issues of the labour movement. Only the ideas of genuine Marxism can act as a guide to action in the struggle to overthrow capitalism on a world scale, and offer a way forward to the millions of young people and workers today who see no way out under the present system.
And we have received numerous reports, from the US, Britain, Denmark and elsewhere, of comrades organising hugely success and wide interest in discussions on various articles in student meetings across colleges and universities.
We include a gallery of some of the photos that we’ve received accompanying these reports. Subscribe to In Defence of Marxism today and help build the forces of Marxism where you are!
Gallery
Cuba:
Argentina:
Selling in Peru:
Reading in Colombia:
Honduras discussion:
Ayer tuvimos un conversatorio analizando lo q sucede en la política nacional, en estos momentos de confusión el marxismo está siendo un faro iluminando entre tanta oscuridad. pic.twitter.com/WsxOak1i1J
— Fabricio Varela 🇭🇳 (@borjasfabricio0) January 23, 2022