What is fascism, how do we fight it, and is it a threat today? In this episode of the Spectre of Communism podcast, we discuss the history of fascism’s rise to power in the 1930s, to learn the lessons for our movement.

For the last century, the USA has been the undisputed master of the capitalist world. Now, all that is changing. Today, America is in decline and facing a new contender: China.

The Second World War is one of the most mythologised events in history. In the West, we are led to believe that Winston Churchill and Roosevelt single-handedly led the Allies in a struggle for democracy against the fascist totalitarianism of Nazi Germany. But what’s the real story of WWII, the one they don’t teach you at school?

Karl Marx was a German philosopher, economist and journalist, and above all a revolutionary. He continues to haunt the nightmares of the rich and powerful, just as he inspires workers, the poor and youth to struggle for a future without exploitation and oppression.

Last week, Trump’s tariffs delivered a shattering blow to the world economy, sending stock markets around the world into precipitous collapse. This week, he U-turned and paused the tariffs, with the exception of those on China, which now stand at 125 percent. What does this chaos mean for the world economy?

The Chinese Revolution is condemned as a bloody tragedy by bourgeois historians. But if it was all simply a disaster, then how do we explain China going from a backward colonial holding to the second world power today? In this episode, we deal with the truth about the Chinese Revolution of 1949.

Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff announcements have set the cat amongst the pigeons in the world market. In France, the hypocritical establishment is celebrating the sentencing of right-wing demagogue Marine Le Pen in court on flimsy charges. Meanwhile in the Middle East, the leader of the PKK has called on its Kurdish guerilla fighters to lay down their arms.

Is communism against ‘human nature’? Would workers in charge inevitably be ‘corrupted by power’? Do communists ‘oppose free speech’? Watch a leading communist answer some more typical right-wing talking points!

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’.