Oxfam’s latest study into contemporary inequality – produced while the ruling class and their minions were rubbing shoulders in Davos – revealed that in 2024, each of the world's 2,640 billionaires increased their wealth by $2 million daily. Meanwhile, since 1990, there has been no improvement in the number of those living on less than $6.85 a day, which still represents 3,600,000,000 people.

Friedrich Merz, leader of the right-wing Christian Democrats (CDU), will be Germany’s next Chancellor. On election night, he declared that a government should be in place by Easter, claiming that his mission is to unite Europe and that everything depends on leadership from Germany. Merz wants to be the ‘European Chancellor’ who will stand up to the USA, Russia and China and, as Der Spiegel has demanded, make the EU into a ‘great power’.

Farage’s Reform UK recently overtook Labour and the Tories in the polls. Some on the left claim that Reform’s rising popularity is down to British workers becoming racist and far-right. But what is really behind the rise of right-wing populism?

With its message of human progress and defiance in the face of oppression, Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound has inspired revolutionaries for thousands of years. In this article, Jesse Murray-Dean explores the main themes of the play, the historical context in which it was written, and the influence it has had right up to our own time.

The fifteenth edition of the Marxist Winter School took place in the midst of a storm. A record snowstorm rocked Montreal on the weekend of February 14 to 16 delaying the arrival of many of the 600 or so participants. But this storm was nothing compared to the chaos currently gripping global capitalism. It was to help us navigate through these tumultuous events that we held this School under the theme of “The Pillars of Communism”.

This week, Trump went over the heads of Zelensky and the European leaders to embark on peace talks with Russia. At a stroke, the western order that has prevailed for over half a century has fractured.

A single phone call last week signalled the death of the so-called western alliance and the collapse of the system of world relations that has held sway since the Second World War. That phone call was, of course, between Trump and Putin.

In the 17th century, Swedish military might enabled its dominance over the Baltics, before they became a part of the Russian empire after Russia defeated Sweden at Poltava 1709. Today, Sweden has regained its dominance in the region – not through military power, but economic power.

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has been in power for over half a year now. This will go down in history as the most rapidly discredited government in Britain (excluding Liz Truss’ brief tenure).

Lenin once said that there are decades where weeks happen, and weeks where decades happen. We are living through the latter. A new era has begun, one characterised by capitalist crisis, imperialist war, immense turbulence in world relations and revolutionary upheavals.

Over the last decade, China has become western capitalism’s primary competitor on the world market. Chinese imperialism has spread its influence into many regions previously dominated by the US, setting the stage for intensifying rivalry. We publish below an analysis of China’s economic and political development since 2016, written by Fred Weston as the preface to the new Chinese translation of China: From Permanent Revolution to Counter-Revolution released by Wellred Books.

Elon Musk’s Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has fed the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – the federal body responsible for foreign aid provision – through a woodchipper. The Democrats and the liberal establishment are up in arms. But while we communists recognise Donald Trump’s cynical motives for dismantling USAID, what his funding freeze has exposed is the real nature of this ‘humanitarian’ CIA front for pushing US imperialism’s ‘soft power’.

At 23:30 GMT (18:30 EST), the Revolutionary Communist Party – the Canadian section of the Revolutionary Communist International – will host a public book launch for two recent Wellred publications: Lenin's Selected Writings: On Imperialist War and Colossus: The Rise and Decline of US Imperialism. The event will be streamed live on YouTube and will feature a presentation by Jorge Martín, member of the International Secretariat of the RCI and author of the introduction to Lenin's Selected Writings: On Imperialist War.

Since our previous article, events in Serbia have accelerated rapidly. The government hoped that the holidays and extended school winter break would lead to fatigue in the movement, but the students, who are occupying their universities, did not allow the movement to dissipate. A large protest was held in front of the offices of the Serbian secret services on 11 January as a response to threats. They continued their strategy of 15 minute road blockades demanding justice for the 15 people murdered by the fall of the concrete canopy of the reconstructed railway station in Novi Sad.

Thanks to the support of the Socialist Party (PS) and the National Rally (RN), François Bayrou – leader of the liberal Democratic Movement – has succeeded where previous Prime Minister Michel Barnier's government failed: they have approved a budget.