Today marks 50 years since the coup that overthrew the government of Salvador Allende in Chile. To remember the revolutionary struggles of this period and to emphasise the invaluable lessons contained therein, International Marxist Radio is back for a special episode.

More and more workers and youth all over the world are being drawn to the ideas and banner of communism, much to the anger and anxiety of the bosses, bankers and bourgeois politicians. The final episode of the International Marxist Radio podcast explains "Why We Are Communists". You can watch a video of the discussion on our YouTube channel and listen to the audio version on your preferred podcast streaming platform.

The Roman Republic was a society characterised by great social and political upheaval. This is a period of well-documented and important class struggle, which has many parallels with the situation today. If we are to avoid making the mistakes of history, a close study of the past is absolutely crucial for all Marxists.

The Spanish Revolution and Civil War (which began this week in 1936) represent a profoundly heroic period of struggle by the Spanish working class and peasantry. The masses gave their all in the fight against Franco, only to be failed by their leadership. Both the anarchists and the Stalinists, consciously or otherwise, were unable to lead the workers and peasants to victory, ushering in a period of fascist reaction that would last for decades.

David Graeber and David Wengrow’s anthropological opus, The Dawn of Everything, claims to offer an entirely new, radical view of the development of human society (implicitly: one that knocks down Marx and Engels’ historical materialism). This is no small task, but is the book as earth-shattering as the immodest title suggests?

Last week, a French policeman shot an unarmed French-Algerian teenager (Nahel M.) in the chest after a traffic stop. Before pulling the trigger, Nahel was told “I will lodge a bullet in your head”. A video of the brutal slaying was uploaded to social media, resulting in a massive outpouring of rage that swept the country.

Last weekend, Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the infamous Russian mercenary company Wagner, led an apparent mutiny. After withdrawing his troops from the front line of the Ukraine War, Prigozhin took control of the military bases at Rostov-on-Don and began what he called a “march for justice” (albeit a heavily armed one), heading towards Moscow. Within a day, it was all over, but what are we to make of these dramatic events?

175 years ago, a wave of revolutions swept across the European continent, in which the working class played a key role in challenging the might of the feudal order. From France to Germany to Italy, the masses led a struggle for democratic and economic demands, winning significant concessions from the decrepit ruling classes of Europe. Marx and Engels were not just passive witnesses to these events, but active participants.

The relative decline of US imperialism is leaving a void that is starting to be filled by other powers. In recent years, this has led to a rise of rival imperialist nations such as China and Russia, which are increasingly trying to challenge the domination of the US. What are the implications of this for the class struggle? What are the tasks of communists in a so-called multipolar world?

The recent period in the USA has been highly eventful. From the Trump presidency, to the Sanders movement, to BLM and the George Floyd protests, to the storming of Capitol Hill, the ‘Land of the Free’ is more polarised than it has been for decades. Poverty, racism and inequality are rampant; and seemingly not a month passes without another terrible mass shooting. The American Dream has turned into an American Nightmare for millions. What we need is a Third – Socialist – American Revolution!

Is human population growth to blame for poverty and climate change? Plenty of pundits and politicians on the right andleft alike seem to think so. Knowingly or not, they repeat the reactionary ideas of the Reverend Thomas Malthus, whose economic and social theories Marx and Engels demolished nearly 200 years ago. Yet today, the spectre of Malthusianism still endures.

This week’s episode of International Marxist Radio concludes our two-part series looking at the class struggle in Sub-Saharan Africa. This week, Ben Morken, a leading comrade of the International Marxist Tendency based in South Africa, discusses the broader context that has led to the current state of affairs across the continent.

This week’s episode of International Marxist Radio is the first of a special two-part series looking at the class struggle in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ben Morken, a leading comrade of the International Marxist Tendency based in South Africa, discusses the current political situation in a number of African countries, which constitute a bubbling cauldron of class struggle.

This week’s episode of International Marxist Radio welcomes Daniel Morley, a leading comrade of Socialist Appeal, the British section of the International Marxist Tendency, to discuss so-called identity politics, and why Marxists oppose its influence on the class struggle.

In this week’s episode of International Marxist Radio, Josh Holroyd, a leading comrade of the International Marxist Tendency and editor of In Defence of Marxismmagazine (issue 41 available now), discusses the early life, works and revolutionary career of Karl Marx, whose 205th birthday we mark on Friday!