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The name of Frantz Fanon is intimately associated with the anti-colonial struggle of the postwar period, and his major work, The Wretched of the Earth, is regularly cited as a handbook for anti-imperialist struggle around the world. In this article, Jorge Martín separates the real Fanon from his postcolonial interpreters, and explains both the strengths and the flaws of his ideas.

Once again, this week has been defined by sharp turns in world politics. In Syria, the Assad regime collapsed after a sudden offensive by Islamist groups, taking the whole world by surprise. In the US, the assassination of a US healthcare CEO was met with an enormous outpouring of sympathy for the killer, in a clear expression of the simmering class rage beneath the surface. In Ukraine, it is becoming increasingly clear that Zelensky – darling of the West – is becoming hated by the population.

The collapse of the concrete canopy at the train station in Novi Sad on 1 November, in which 15 people were killed, was the straw that broke the camel’s back for many in Serbia. Among the victims, a large number of them young people and children, two are still in critical condition.

We publish below the short, 262-word, hand-written manifesto which was allegedly in Luigi Mangione’s possession at the time of his arrest. We publish it in full here on account of the fact that the capitalist press has refused to do so, although they sparingly quote from it.

Protests have rocked the Georgian capital of Tbilisi for eight days straight, with angry crowds surrounding the parliament building, bearing Jersualem Cross and EU flags and hurling fireworks at police lines. The opposition at the head of the movement denies the legitimacy of the ‘pro-Russian’ Georgian Dream regime. Meanwhile, western politicians lavish praise on the protestors and threaten sanctions, seeing an opportunity to drag Georgia firmly under their sphere of influence – all (naturally) in the name of upholding ‘democracy’.

Wednesday morning, Americans woke up to the news that UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, Brian Thompson, had been shot to death in a targeted attack outside a Manhattan hotel. The country’s capitalists and their representatives shed collective tears for the death of one of their own. One of the first to react was Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, Kamala Harris’s running-mate in the last election, who described Thompson’s death as “a terrible loss for the business and health care community.”

We are living through an epoch of war and revolution. In Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and countless other countries, wars and civil wars are raging, all with the backing and complicity of various imperialist powers. In these turbulent times, the ideas and methods of Lenin – who fought a relentless struggle against warmongering chauvinism during the First World War – provide the clarity that is so desperately needed in the world today.

This is a transcript of the introduction to a discussion on ‘Perspectives for France’ held at the Founding Congress of the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR) on 30 November and 1 December 2024.

The Syrian regime has collapsed. Bashar al-Assad has fled the country. His army has disarmed, and his government has capitulated. The prisons have been overrun, and thousands have been released. Meanwhile, thousands of Syrians have taken to the streets in celebration. 

In yet another sudden and sharp event, highly characteristic of the period of history we are living through, a surprise offensive by Syrian Islamist militants is fast unravelling Syria. Israel’s western-backed wars against Gaza and Lebanon have upended the fragile equilibrium in the Middle East and pulled a thread that has begun unwinding the fabric of the region.