The Revolutionary Communist International protests the arrest of the leaders of the Awaami Action Committee Gilgit Baltistan (AAC-GB) and of the Inqalabi Communist Party by police in Pakistan. We send our solidarity to the arrested comrades, who are facing repression for opposing the plunder of the land and resources of the region by the capitalists and imperialists. We call upon the labour movement internationally and all of our readers to protest this blatant act of repression.

In 1965, India and Pakistan went to war over Kashmir. The 17-day conflict resulted in thousands of deaths and a victory for the Indian ruling class. But it failed to resolve any of the underlying problems and, in particular, the question of the occupied and partitioned state of Kashmir. In the decades since, these frictions have driven India and Pakistan to war again and again.

The drums of war are beating again across South Asia. Amid the bloodthirsty hysteria, we must remember this truth: no imperialist war has ever benefited working people.

Another war has begun between arch-rivals India and Pakistan, in which both have claimed victory so far. In the early hours of 7 May, the Indian Air Force carried out nine attacks inside Pakistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir. In retaliation, Pakistan claims to have downed five Indian jets, which India has so far denied.

The struggle of the Baloch people in Pakistan has reached unprecedented levels, while state repression and the brutality by the Pakistani ruling class have exceeded all limits. It is hell-bent on crushing the aspirations of these oppressed people.

We are very proud to announce the publication of the first ever Urdu translations of Leon Trotsky’s The Permanent Revolutionand Results and Prospects! These invaluable texts for revolutionaries everywhere have been painstakingly translated by the comrades of the Inqalabi Communist Party – the Pakistani section of the Revolutionary Communist International – for publication as a single book.

The Revolutionary Communist Party has been founded. This party will smash all obstacles to become a leading force in the masses’ struggle against the rotten Pakistani regime and imperialism.

On 14 October, thousands of students at the Punjab Group of Colleges (PGC) protested in Lahore. The students came out in protest after an incident in which a female student was raped by a security guard at Campus 10 of Punjab College Lahore, according to the protesters. Thousands of students from dozens of campuses of PGC Lahore were joined by students from several other colleges and universities in cities across Punjab and beyond.

Between 9 and 12 August, the Revolutionary Communist Party in Pakistan organised their first country-wide three-day ‘Communist School’ in Rawalakot, ‘Azad’ (‘free’) Kashmir, with 350 students, workers, farmers and youth attending.

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.

Whilst hundreds of delegates from 37 countries were participating in the fifth day of the founding congress of the Revolutionary Communist International (RCI), we received the shocking news that a government crackdown was underway in Pakistan-held Kashmir against the leaders of the movement that had scored victory against the regime in the fight against electricity and flour price hikes. The delegates, outraged by this news, passed the following motion in condemnation of the government and solidarity with the movement and its persecuted leaders in a unanimous vote.

On 13 May, more than 500,000 people gathered in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled, so-called ‘Azad’ (‘Free’) Kashmir, to demand cheaper electricity and wheat flour. The ruling class of ‘Azad’ Kashmir and Pakistan, despite having brutally attacked the protestors previously, have now partially accepted the masses’ demands. This is a huge victory for the masses in this part of Kashmir, where people have been protesting for more than a year for these demands. This victory has sent shockwaves through the halls of power.

Like workers all over the world, the working class of Pakistan also celebrated May Day 2024 in a period of unprecedented crisis of global capitalism. Already weak and backward, capitalism in Pakistan is in a deepening crisis. The ruling class and the state are becoming ever-more vicious and are conducting an economic massacre of the Pakistani working masses at the behest of global imperialist lending institutions like the IMF.

“The darkness will pass, the red dawn is coming!” This fiery chant in Urdu rang out repeatedly from the hundreds of voices of Pakistani communists who assembled in Lahore on 2-3 March to participate in the congress of Lal Salaam. It was a weekend that combined joyous revolutionary optimism with intense fervour and solemn preparation for a new stage in the class war.

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.