After the dramatic turn in events, with Russian President Vladimir Putin recognising the breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine followed by the sending in of Russian military forces, we are publishing a statement by the Marxist Tendency (Russia), elaborated together with Marxists in Ukraine and the Donbas, in opposition to this inter-imperialist conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a speech to the Russian nation yesterday, claimed that "Ukraine was created by Lenin." The truth is that the October Revolution had the great merit of liberating the nationalities that had been oppressed by Tsarist Russia, which Lenin called a "prison of the nations", and denied all rights to ethnic minorities. We present this letter from Lenin, written in 1919, which develops in a few pages the position of Marxism on the question of nationalities. Let Lenin speak!

We are proud to provide the following reading guide for Lenin's classic philosophical text, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Published in 1909, during the period of black reaction following the defeat of the 1905 Russian Revolution, the book mounts an uncompromising defence of philosophical materialism.

The workers of Turkey are beginning to make the ruling class tremble. A strike wave is rapidly spreading across the country. Beginning among some of the most precariously employed workers, it has spread from factory to factory. From 6 January to 14 February, there have been 65 strikes across Turkey, with new strikes erupting every day. As the strike wave has progressed, it has threatened to draw in the heavy battalions of the working class, and has already brought in workers from Erdoğan’s own heartland.

Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, recently invoked the Emergencies Act, giving the federal government substantial repressive powers. Whilst nominally invoked in response to the chaos caused by the so-called “Freedom Convoy”, such powers will certainly be used against the working class in the future. The workers’ movement must therefore oppose these measures. Only the working class can stop the far right!

As a sign of the growing popularity of revolutionary ideas, the Montreal Marxist Winter School has been growing steadily over the years, to become the largest Marxist event in Quebec and Canada. The 12th edition of the Marxist School will be held on Zoom this weekend, February 19, 20 and 21, 2022.

The recent letter in praise of NATO by British Labour Party leader, ‘Sir’ Keir Starmer, is designed to impress the establishment whilst chastising the left. Instead of offering apologies for western imperialism, the labour movement must fight for socialist internationalism.

The first round of the French presidential elections will take place on 10 April. We know who most of the candidates will be, but it is impossible to predict which of them will reach the second round.

In 2020, central banks responded to the outbreak of the crisis by pouring some $10 trillion of printed money into the economy. In what measured and responsible way did the markets react to such an unheard of cash injection? By engaging in an orgy of speculation without precedent in capitalism’s history!

With inflation soaring, the bankers and bosses are trying to shift their costs onto the working class. But it is the capitalists who should pay for this crisis. The trade unions must launch a united fightback. There is no time to lose.

Since 28 January, uproar has swept across China after footage emerged that showed a woman chained up by the neck in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, having been forced to bear eight children. The video was originally made with the intention of capturing heartwarming acts of charity to the rural poor.

The pandemic has sharpened and deepened what was an already existing crisis of capitalism. We are now facing the deepest social, economic and political crisis in decades. Despite a certain recovery, the measures the capitalists were forced to take in the last period (i.e. massive amounts of state spending) are now being felt in rising inflation, resulting in a growing cost of living crisis that is provoking resentment and instability all over the world.

The whole of Poland is paying attention to the strike of workers at the Solaris bus factory in Bolechowo, near Poznań. Additionally, in Białystok, workers at the Bison Company have begun a rolling strike; while workers at Pudliszki (a food-processing brand owned by the multinational Kraft Heinz) also issued a strike warning. Deteriorating living conditions are paving the way for the resurgence of the organised working-class movement in the country.

This document was written in December 2014 in the aftermath of the Euromaidan movement in Ukraine, the uprisings in Donetsk and Luhansk, and the Russian annexation of Crimea. At that time, the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) had been involved in launching the Solidarity with Antifascist Resistance in Ukraine (SARU) campaign. Meanwhile, several so-called Marxist organisations had capitulated to reactionary Ukrainian nationalism. As such, it was important to go back and provide some background to the historical development of the national question in Ukraine.

The banning of the hijab by the BJP government in Karnataka state, southern India, is a continuation of the vile policy of the ruling class of India to divide the people on the basis of religion. This is a legacy of British imperialism’s method of ‘divide and rule’, which spread religious hatred across the whole region, and which the Modi regime has taken to a new extreme. During Congress’, it too used the same tactic to ensure the continuation of the rule of capital in this country. Modi’s regime only represents the brutal face of the ruling class, which has been exposed in this epoch in which it faces a deep crisis. The veil of democracy, the rule of law and freedom of expression is