2025 marked the 500th anniversary of the peak of the German Peasants' War of 1524-26. In the course of the war, the oppressed masses in both the towns and the countryside rose up against the decaying feudal order. The defeat of the rebels in May-June 1525 would leave an indelible mark on the history of Germany, and of Europe as a whole.

Throughout history, human societies have established moral codes to live by, which have also provided a powerful ideological force for the maintenance of the existing order. Today, the hypocrisy of the capitalist moral order is being increasingly exposed and challenged by the masses. In this article, Hélène Bissonnette explains how morality develops, its hypocritical nature under class society, and the crisis of bourgeois morality today.

To mark International Working Women’s Day on 8 March, we republish Fred Weston’s Marxist analysis of the origins of women’s oppression, and its roots in the birth of class society. This article was originally published in issue 41 of In Defence of Marxism Magazine – the quarterly theoretical magazine of the Revolutionary Communist International. 

The publication of a new third volume of Ted Grant’s Collected Writings, along with the republication of the first two volumes, marks a momentous step in equipping a new generation of communists with the ideas and methods of an oft-overlooked revolutionary.

“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” (Lenin, What is to be Done?)

The period of 1980 to 1981 in Poland was marked by the most intense confrontation between the working class and the Stalinist bureaucracy in history. The working class attempted to take control over the commanding heights over the economy and purge the Stalinists, whose incompetence and betrayal of the ideals of real socialism had brought the country to ruin. It is the task of genuine Communists to retrieve the revolutionary heritage of this period from under a mountain of lies of both capitalists and Stalinists, who disregard the genuine experience of the working class in this period, and slander the revolution itself.

The theory of permanent revolution stands alongside Lenin’s theory of imperialism as one of the most important contributions to Marxism since the deaths of Marx and Engels. Accordingly, in this issue of In Defence of Marxism we are proud to publish a number of articles which explore this concept in some depth.

In Helgoland,physicist Carlo Rovelli introduces his own new interpretation of quantum mechanics, coupled with an attack on Lenin. As Ben Curry explains, Rovelli feels the need to attack Lenin, the 20th century’s greatest materialist, because Rovelli himself is clearly abandoning materialism. And while he is attempting to answer Lenin, it turns out that Lenin long ago answered Rovelli’s own philosophical errors.

The Chinese Revolution of 1949 was one of the greatest events in human history. Marxists defend that revolution, which freed China from the shackles of imperialism after a heroic, decades-long struggle. 

The Russian Revolution of 1917 shook the world and sparked a series of revolutionary events internationally. In this article, Konstantin Korn and Emanuel Tomaselli look at the way the revolutionary process unfolded in Austria towards the end of the First World War, including an overview of the general strike of January 1918, and how the Social-Democratic leaders betrayed the movement.

In recent months, left-wing figures have made headlines around the world. From Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders in the US, to Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana in Britain, outspoken self-described socialists are capturing significant attention with their claim to be able to find simple solutions to the problems the working class face.

The First World War brought about the collapse of the Second International at its beginning, and a wave of revolutions towards its end. It was in this context that Lenin successfully built the Third (Communist) International, with powerful sections in many countries, aiming to provide the necessary leadership for the victory of the world revolution.

Wellred Books’ bestselling title The Classics of Marxism: Volume One is available in a brand new edition. Here we publish the introduction by Fred Weston – leading member of the Revolutionary Communist International. Fred highlights how, far from being relics of the past, the writings inside by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky are the most modern texts you can come across if you want to understand the nature of the capitalist system and how it can be overthrown.

Over the last ten years in France, repression against young people and workers has continued to intensify: police violence, ‘preventive’ arrests of activists, the criminalisation of trade union activity, bans on demonstrations, gatherings and meetings, etc. The repression of the Yellow Vests and the solidarity movement with Palestine are two glaring examples, but this is a serious and ongoing trend.

In an article published on 2 March, Révolution Permanente announced the launch of a campaign entitled: ‘Against Macron and the Fifth Republic, we need a radical democratic response from below’.