Mass protests and strikes exploded across Indonesia on 6-8 October following the passing of the controversial Omnibus Law: a major series of counter-reforms also known as the “Big Bang” Law. Tens of thousands of workers went on strike, and in dozens of cities, school students took to the streets and engaged in running battles with the police.

In the supposedly “democratic” Taiwan, we have always been told that private property is sacred. In reality, it is only the rich and the corporations that enjoy guaranteed right to private property, while the property of the poor is readily taken away when the ruling class wills it.

The conflict that has erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan is the bloody legacy of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the restoration of capitalism. This is a barbaric war with reaction on all sides. All the powers intervening in the conflict claim to be victims, but the only real victims are the working people, on both sides, who are paying with their blood for the cynical and reactionary games of their leaders. Only internationalism and class struggle can direct the workers against their true enemies: their own ruling capitalist class. This statement by our Russian comrades

The workers and poor of Bangladesh are crushed between the COVID-19 pandemic and a severe economic crisis, while the government throws money at big business and wades in a swamp of corruption. For millions of people, winning a better society is a matter of life or death.

A woman belonging to the lower-caste Dalits died in a Delhi hospital on Tuesday 29 September after being raped and tortured by four men in the Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Public outrage is sweeping the nation. This gruesome and inhuman attack has once again highlighted the barbarity poor and lower-caste women face on a daily basis in India, which is rooted in the rotten capitalist system.

Pakistan is being rocked by freak weather events and environmental crises. This article discusses the impact of these disasters, their causes, the failure of the state and the capitalist system to deal with them, and the way forward.

Note: We are republishing this article, written by Ji Han (吉汉) and published 28 May 2019 by Initium Media (Hong Kong) because we believe it provides some interesting insights into what happened in China in 1989. Of particular interest is what it describes taking place within the Chinese working class at the time. However, we do not agree with the pessimism about today’s situation expressed towards the end. 

This article provides an overview of the political situation in India, in which the reactionary BJP-led government of Narendra Modi has turned the COVID-19 crisis into an unprecedented disaster. The ruling class is tearing up labour protections and stoking sectarian violence, while rewarding its big business cronies. Hundreds of millions face destitution, violence and oppression. A revolutionary backlash is inevitable.

In the past week, university students all over China have been openly struggling against their school administrations for effectively confining them on campus in the name of complying with the government’s coronavirus safety instructions. These protests have been spreading like wildfire, from the capital Beijing to Fujian in the south, to Inner Mongolia in the north and beyond, engulfing thousands of campuses.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the contradictions of capitalist society for everyone to see. It has brought to surface the glaring class divide in India. While the wealthy minority enjoy conditions of comfort and privilege, the poor are struggling for their survival.

Over the weekend, the protest movement that has been shaking the Thai regime for months struck its most powerful blow so far.

Environmental crises are causing death, destruction and deprivation on a colossal scale in India. The capitalist system is directly to blame for this catastrophe, which dwarfs even the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since late August, protests in Inner Mongolia, a province under the state of the People’s Republic of China, have been reported in multiple cities, including Tongliao, Hulunbuir, Provincial Capital Hohhot, and many prefectures and smaller towns. These protests erupted in response to a new language education policy that the Provisional Government has announced over the summer, which would lower the proportion of instructions in the Mongolian and Korean languages in favour of Mandarin Chinese to a level that many ethnic Mongols view as unacceptable.

Almost daily protests have been raging in Thailand for over a month. They are growing in size and audacity. Dozens of school children demanding democracy have become tens of thousands of protestors challenging the foundations of Thai society. If the government doesn’t respond by September, they say, things will escalate. The Thai establishment is like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

The reactionary Modi government has forced through a new policy that will exclude the poor from education and privatise the sector. This must be resisted: we demand free education for all!