Canada: more than 1,150 at groundbreaking Montreal Marxist School! The 2021 Montreal Marxist Winter School was truly an unprecedented event. More than 1,150 people registered to participate in the school, which had ten presentations over three days, making this by far the largest Canadian Marxist meeting in recent memory. With big class battles on the horizon, the forces of Marxism are growing in preparation.
Britain: biggest-ever Marxist Student Federation conference – join the revolution! The MSF recently held its largest ever national conference, with hundreds of young people from schools and universities across the country taking part. There has never been a better time to get involved and join the revolution!
Myanmar: a movement of revolutionary proportions The coup in Myanmar has unleashed a movement of revolutionary proportions. The determination of the masses to stop the military from taking over can be seen in the widespread and growing strike and protest movement that has been unleashed. The military junta clearly underestimated the level of opposition they would face.
Communist rapper jailed by the Spanish state: freedom for political prisoners! The scandalous arrest of a left-wing rapper for telling hard truths about the rotten Spanish state has led to furious protests against this assault on freedom of expression.
Britain: Starmer and the right wing rattled – fight for a recall conference! Following a fortnight of blunders, Keir Starmer and the Labour right wing are on the defensive. Bold calls for a recall conference are clearly making a mark. The left must press forward and take the fight to the right.
Britain: Tory ‘war on woke’ – a divisive distraction from establishment crimes The Tories are attempting to whip up hysteria around questions of identity and culture, in an effort to distract from their own failings and divide the working class. The left must fight a class war, not a culture war.
USA: the civil war in the Republican Party Yesterday, the Senate acquitted Donald Trump of inciting the Capitol riot on 6 Jan. Although seven Republicans joined the Democrats to vote 'guilty', this was short of the two-thirds majority required to find Trump guilty. Despite a furious speech attacking the ex-president, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also voted to acquit. As explained in this article (published last month by our US comrades), the GOP is divided from top to bottom between MAGA true believers, opportunists looking to ride Trump's coattails, and career politicians intimidated by his reactionary voter base. The future of a cornerstone of the bourgeois political system hangs in the balance.
Ukraine: Zelenskiy shuts down opposition media On 2 February, the Ukrainian president issued sanctions on three of the most popular television news channels in the country. Media outlets getting shut down is nothing new in Ukraine, ever since the Euromaidan brought a right-wing government to power in 2014. However, the recent events represent the most concerted move to shut down opposition media in Ukraine’s history.
What is happening in Myanmar and why? The military coup that was carried out in Myanmar by Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the army, on 31 January has unleashed a movement that the military were clearly not expecting. Their coup took many by surprise. No one in Myanmar was expecting it, and it also does not seem to fit with the needs of the moment. So why did it take place? In this article, we attempt to outline some of the factors that led to this sudden and sharp change in the situation.
Italy: a new chapter in the crisis of the system The inaction of the Giuseppe Conte government in the face of the deepest economic, political and social crisis in Italy since the Second World War had become unbearable for big business. That explains why the figure of Mario Draghi has come to the rescue. It is clear, however, that this bourgeois technocrat has no solutions for the problems facing the Italian workers.
Ecuadorian elections deliver a first blow to the capitalist oligarchy – what next? The Ecuadorian election on 7 February produced a clear victory for the left-wing candidate Andrés Arauz, but not enough to prevent a second round. There is a very close tie for the second position between the capitalist oligarchy’s preferred candidate Guillermo Lasso and the “indigenous” candidate Yaku Perez.
Haiti: the fight against dictatorship and the revolutionary struggle for democracy The despotic President of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, is refusing to step down, while the impotent bourgeois opposition appears incapable of forcing him out. The Haitian masses must break with the rotten bourgeois regime altogether, and establish a revolutionary constituent assembly.
Britain: MSF Conference 2021 – Revolutionary Youth for Revolutionary Times The Marxist Student Federation in Britain invites you to the online MSF Conference 2021 this Saturday! The past six months have seen enormous students struggles emerge, with the biggest University rent strike movement in forty years foremost amongst them. We have also seen the government's attempt to write anti-capitalism out of schools, which the MSF answered with its Tell the Truth campaign. All this and more will be discussed. Buy your ticket now!
Ireland under Brexit: crushed between the millstones of imperialism Brexit is only a month old. But already, Ireland has been caught in the crossfire as the UK and EU clash. The menace of Protestant sectarianism is rising once again. Only united class struggle can offer a way forward.
Venezuela: Maduro accuses left and Communist Party of being agents of imperialism In the last few weeks, there has been an escalation in the verbal attacks from the Venezuelan government against the revolutionary left. These attacks, by president Maduro and National Assembly speaker Jorge Rodríguez, have been directed particularly at the APR: the Popular Revolutionary Alternative, a political platform that gathers several parties and organisations to the left of Maduro’s government. Very serious allegations have been made, including the charge that the left opposition to the government is acting in cahoots with US imperialism.