Blood and Gold: the Spanish Conquest of the Americas When the Spanish arrived in the Americas 500 years ago, they encountered diverse cultures across the continent, including powerful civilisations such as the Mexica and the Incas. This article, first published in issue 40 of In Defence of Marxism magazine (click here to subscribe), takes a look at the material foundations of these rich cultures, their internal contradictions, as well as the conditions of contemporary Spain itself at the time of the conquest. Only by understanding these conditions can we in turn understand the devastation that the conquest wrought, and the wider role of these events in the ascent of capitalism.
The world in 2023: crisis, war and revolution The following document was passed at the 2023 World Congress of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT). Here, we offer our perspective and analysis of the main trends that are shaping world politics and the class struggle in this dramatic period of capitalism’s death agony.
The Assassination of Leon Trotsky We republish here an account by Sieva 'Esteban' Volkov, Leon Trotsky's grandson, who was present at Coyoacán, Mexico when Trotsky was struck down by a GPU agent on 20 August 1940, passing away the following day. Volkov himself sadly passed away earlier this year, severing one of the last living links to the outstanding revolutionary who, along with Lenin, led the Russian working class to victory in the October Revolution of 1917. Read our editor-in-chief Alan Woods' tribute to Volkov here.
