The oppression of women and the origins of the family as we know it remain key issues facing anyone who wishes to fight for a better world today. Huge numbers of women still suffer sexual abuse and harassment. In some parts of the world they live in slave-like conditions. Millions of girls and women alive today have been forced to undergo female genital mutilation, one of the most barbaric methods used to control women’s sexuality, while millions of young women are trafficked for sexual exploitation. Violence against women is still an everyday occurrence, with femicide a continuing phenomenon.

It is hard to find a more slandered figure in human history than Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Dictatorial, murderous, cynical, immoral. You name it, Lenin has been accused of it. This is done by just about every political current, from the conservative right wing to the liberals, the reformists, and the anarchists. Unfortunately, decades of Stalinist dictatorship in the U.S.S.R. contributed to this caricature.

The last four years have been the most turbulent in the history of Swiss capitalism. It is only a matter of time before major social movements emerge. There are already thousands of mostly young people who are waiting to take up the fight against capitalism. Communists must draw the necessary conclusions from this: it is time to found the Revolutionary Communist Party!

What is the role of China today? While some on the left have celebrated China’s ambitions as a counterweight to the United States, Jorge Martín explains that capitalism has long been restored in China, and today it has all the features of a rising imperialist power. ‘Multipolarity’ will not benefit the workers of the world, who must trust solely in their own strength to throw off the chains of imperialism and capitalism internationally.

Whilst the Israeli state continues its genocide of Palestinians, western powers have suspended funding to UNRWA – a vital source of food, shelter, and medicine in Gaza. The imperialists’ hypocrisy knows no bounds. They have blood on their hands.

A textbook argument against communism is that, although it may sound nice, it is fundamentally “against human nature”. Many communists will be sick and tired of hearing this accusation, but what actually is ‘human nature’? How should communists respond to this claim?

Written in 1916, in the middle of the First World War, Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism is an essential work for understanding the phenomena of war and imperialism today.

The new paper from the Marxists in Britain is out now! The Communist is a revolutionary weapon, wielded by a red army of comrades that is on the march. Join us today, and help build The Communist and the Revolutionary Communist Party!

Following the article on James Joyce’s Ulysses, published in issue 39 of In Defence of Marxism magazine, Hamid Alizadeh of the IDOM editorial board writes on Joyce’s Dubliners: a masterful critique of the paralysis, hypocrisy and alienation of Irish bourgeois society in the 20th century, which epitomised the ferment brewing in Ireland in the years prior to the Easter Rising of 1916.

UPDATE (26/01/24): In an order delivered today, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decided by a large majority that it is “at least plausible” that Israel is committing genocidal acts in Gaza. The decision is a blow to Israel’s indignant propaganda that it is fighting to defend ‘democracy’ against Hamas. It also represents an embarrassment for Israel’s allies in the West, which have backed its invasion to the hilt. But it must be recognised that the measures ordered are little more than a slap on the wrist for Israel, and a reminder that it should keep its genocidal intentions out of the public eye.

With general elections planned on 8 February, the crisis and splits of Pakistan’s ruling class and state are intensifying, while attacks on workers, under the dictates of the IMF, are continuing and unemployment and inflation are rising at an unprecedented level. No political party participating in the coming general elections has solutions to any of the problems in this country, and all of the political parties represent merely different factions of the ruling class. 

1.5 million people marched in Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Rosario, Santiago del Estero, Mendoza, Neuquen, and all the big cities of Argentina to reject the new president Javier Milei’s Necessity and Urgency Decree (DNU) and Omnibus Bill, which represent an all-out ultraliberal assault on workers’ rights and conditions. This is the second massive mobilisation against Milei’s government, which has been in power for fewer than 50 days, and the first general strike called in five years by Argentina’s largest trade union confederations. It provided an outlet for the enormous rage that has built up against this government, and demonstrated yet again the working class’ willingness to fight.

There is much talk in the media about diplomatic pressure being put on the Israeli government by their allies in Washington to avert an escalation of the war in Gaza into a regional conflict. And yet, the whole situation has been moving precisely in the direction of a much wider conflagration, involving several fronts: from the West Bank; to the northern border with Lebanon; to the Houthis in Yemen; and bombings in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan, also involving Iran. The latest US/UK bombing of the Houthis highlights this risk.

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Germany this week to demonstrate against the reactionary Alternative for Germany (AfD). This was provoked by a recent revelation by the liberal media outlet CORRECTIV, that AfD politicians, right-wing extremists and leading businessmen had met in secret in a hotel near Potsdam to discuss the mass deportation of migrants from Germany.

With capitalism in its deepest-ever crisis, it is more important than ever for communists to defend the immortal achievements of one of the greatest revolutionaries the world has ever seen. For this reason, 2024’s first episode of Spectre of Communism looks at the real life and ideas of Lenin.