Audio & Video

The Revolutionary Communist International hosts a number of regular podcasts and streamed events for training the new generation of communist fighters around the globe. Click on the images and links below to check them out! At the bottom of the page and on the following pages, we include all marxist.com’s audio and visual material.

The Spectre of Communism

spectre podcast page

A spectre is haunting all major podcast platforms… The Spectre of Communism podcast!

On this weekly podcast, leading comrades from the Revolutionary Communist International go into depth on topics ranging from revolutionary history and strategy to science, culture and questions of theory. This valuable tool is intended to arm our listeners with the ideas and arguments necessary to defend the principles of communism, to win others over to a revolutionary perspective, and to help our listeners master Marxist theory for themselves.

Against the Stream

Against the stream podcast page

In Against the Stream, our weekly current affairs podcast, members of the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International sit down to discuss the main events shaping global affairs. In an increasingly turbulent world situation, these discussions look behind the headlines of the mainstream press and the statements of politicians, to bring out the real processes and interests at play.

The World School of Communism

Every two years, the Revolutionary Communist International hosts a world school. Bringing together thousands of communists from all around the globe in person and online for a week of discussion on Marxist theory, these schools are crash courses for steeling revolutionaries in the ideas we need to bring down this system. All of these talks have been made available to stream online, making them a permanent and extremely valuable resource. Click on the links to catch up on the World School of Communism 2024, International Marxist University 2022, and International Marxist University 2020.

In Gaza, Netanyahu has restarted the genocide. Already, hundreds have been killed by bombs, while thousands more are at risk of starvation. In Ukraine, which has essentially lost the war to Russia, youths are still being kidnapped and conscripted into the army to die in trenches. This is what capitalism has to offer in the 21st century.

Who was Joseph Stalin and what is the legacy of his leadership? In this episode of the Spectre of Communism, we weigh the evidence, based on historical fact and the principles of Marxist theory, to give Stalinism a fair trial.

Trump’s dramatic return to the White House has thrown the liberals into complete panic and confusion. They have been accusing Trump of being responsible for every ill in the world, and have flung whatever insults they can at him: from semi-fascist, to fascist, to neo-fascist.

Did communism kill 100 million people? Was Hitler really a communist? Is there no difference between Lenin and Stalin? Right-wing pundits and politicians always throw blood-curdling statistics and historical ‘facts’ to prove that communism is pure evil, while capitalism is the best system that could ever exist. In this video, leading communist Fred Weston takes on three popular right-wing commentators, and separates fact from fiction.

The world capitalist system is beset on all sides by crisis. Debt is sky-high, economies are stagnating and society is more polarised than ever. To add to this mess, the tapestry of world relations – the ‘rules-based order’ – is unravelling. Tit-for-tat tariffs that seek to export the crisis threaten to turn into trade wars that will tear up world trade.

This week's row in the Oval Office between Trump and Zelensky served to dramatically underscore the fact that we are passing a seismic shift in world history. The old alliances and institutions are breaking down, and a realignment, reflecting the changed balance of forces, is taking place for all to see.

This week, after claiming victory in the German election, Friedrich Merz declared that Germany would now stand up to the USA, Russia and China and make the EU into a ‘great power’.

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.

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.

Image: Own work

Trump has been in power for just over two weeks and already he has started to upend the liberal world order. With tariffs, deportations, the halting of all foreign aid, and his plan to turn Gaza into a “Rivera of the Middle East”, ‘allies’ and rivals alike have been thrown into panic.

Storm clouds are gathering over the world economy. Already, it is faced with slowing growth, rising interest and inflation rates, and astronomical debts. Now Trump’s ‘America First’ policy and his promise of tariffs threaten to make all of that worse.

This week’s episode of Against the Stream was recorded just days after Trump was inaugurated as US president. For some, this represents the triumph of fascism, a fear that was stoked by Elon Musk’s Nazi salute at the inauguration ceremony.

With just two weeks before Trump re-enters the White House, the outgoing Democrats are doing everything they can to undermine the next president. In Ukraine in particular, where they fear a drastic change of course in the policy of US imperialism, they are funnelling in as much money as they can get away with, as well as escalating the war by allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with US bombs.

Defined by political crises all over the world, spiralling tensions between the imperialist powers, and revolutions in Bangladesh and Kenya, 2024 was an historic year in the crisis of the capitalist system. But now, with Trump days away from power, Ukraine headed unavoidably towards a humiliating and bloody defeat, and with no end in sight to the complete destabilisation of the Middle East, this new year looks to be even more explosive.