The Revolutionary Communist International salutes the inspiring bravery of the students of Bangladesh. Their movement, which began in protest against a rotten quota system, has escalated to demand the downfall of the murderous Hasina regime. Our comrades, in over 40 countries around the world, stand in full solidarity with you. The just cause of Bangladesh’s students is the cause of the working class and youth of the whole world! The world must know what is really happening in Bangladesh.

The Inqalabi Communist Party in Pakistan extends complete solidarity to the students’ movement in Bangladesh and support for all their demands. We condemn the brutality and repression by Sheikh Hasina’s government which has killed at least 200 people and injured thousands more. Curfews have been imposed. Orders to shoot at sight have been issued while the army is deployed on the streets of Dhaka.

Revolutions are crises of the whole of society, in which none of its classes can go on living in the old way. Something must give and a crisis erupts. But revolutions are far from simple. They have ebbs and flows, and new crises within them. Six months into the Russian Revolution of 1917, and a new crisis was impending. How to cut through the Gordian Knot? This was the question to which Lenin turned his attention in The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It.

With days to go before the presidential elections in Venezuela, the atmosphere is tense but relatively calm. These are far from normal elections. They are fraught with doubts and risks. Uncertainty is only increasing as the hours go by. The prevailing calm awaits the coming of a storm.

The war in the Congo has intensified. With millions already at the point of starvation and forced from their homes, this horrifying conflagration now threatens to escalate and drag the whole region into war, with nightmarish implications for the entire continent.

The crisis of the French regime has the feel of a TV series. Yesterday’s episode was not lacking in a certain dramatic intensity.

In yet another dramatic twist in the tragicomic soap opera of American politics, Joe Biden has ended his reelection campaign. Coming just 108 days before the election, this is the latest a one-term president has ever made such a decision. The closest historical analogy was in 1968 when Lyndon Johnson declined to seek a second term under pressure from anti-Vietnam War protests. Genocide Joe’s stay at the White House has been marked by inflation and war, and he will end his tenure with an unfavorability rating of around 56%.

Weeks after the second round of the legislative elections saw the left take the highest number of seats in the Assembly, internal negotiations within the New Popular Front (NFP) are logjammed. A division between the NFP’s left and right wing is preventing agreement on a candidate for Prime Minister. Meanwhile, Macron and the far-right are courting more conservative elements of the bloc to shut out La France Insoumise (LFI), block the NFP’s programme, and seek an absolute majority. Only militant struggle outside of parliament can break this impasse!

In the past four days, Bangladesh has completely changed. Since Thursday, the Sheikh Hasina government has drawn a veil of darkness over the entire country. Under the cover of a telecommunications blackout, it has committed the worst massacre Bangladesh has seen since the 1980s, if not since the 1971 war of independence. With it, the last drop of legitimacy has expired from the Awami League (AL) and Sheikh Hasina’s government.

In August 1917 the Russian Revolution stood at a crossroads. The Bolshevik Party had been driven underground. Lenin was in hiding, his life under threat. But it was at this perilous and uncertain moment that he delved into theory, producing arguably his most famous work.

Massive anger has erupted across Bangladesh, after the Awami League government of Sheikh Hasina sent police and paramilitary forces to murder students protestors. 39 were killed in the slaughter, conducted beneath an internet blackout. What started as a student protest movement after the government reintroduced a hated quota system for sought-after public sector jobs that would favour ruling supporters of the ruling Awami League, has now turned into a bitter struggle against a murderous regime.

Last weekend, the newly-elected national leadership of the Revolutionary Communist Party – the British section of the Revolutionary Communist International – met to take stock of the recent election, including the campaign around Fiona Lali, and to discuss the tasks ahead. We publish here our agreed perspectives.

Last week, a David-vs-Goliath struggle broke out at Samsung, the biggest Chaebol (conglomerate) in Korea, where workers launched the first indefinite strike in the company’s history.

The attempted assassination of Donald Trump has accelerated the polarisation of American society, as the Republican presidential candidate dodged death by the narrowest of margins. But it wasn’t just Trump who dodged a bullet. The entire country went right up to the edge of a precipice, before taking half a step back. As the title of a Financial Times article put it: “America is staring into the abyss”.

We publish here the editorial of issue 46 of In Defence of Marxism magazine, which looks at the relationship of culture, and art in particular, to the struggle for socialist revolution and human emancipation. In this editorial, Alan Woods dismantles the lazy caricature of Marxism as unconcerned with the rich cultural and artistic history of humanity. Issue 46 of In Defence of Marxism magazine is available now! Get your copy here.