One-hundred-and-seven years ago, on 7 November 1917, the Russian working class conquered power. 

Closely following our special episode with Alan Woods covering Trump’s victory in the US election, Against the Stream went live again this week for another discussion. This time, Hamid Alizadeh and Fred Weston from the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International met to talk about the devastating floods in Spain and the resulting rage of the masses against the ruling class, the abrupt collapse of the German government, and more on the implications of Trump’s victory.

The shock result of the US presidential election provides yet another example of the kind of sudden and sharp changes that are implicit in the situation. Up to the very last minute, the media pundits were straining every nerve and muscle to prove that the polls were heading for a Harris victory, albeit with a narrow margin. 

With so much crisis and chaos in the world today, more and more people are turning to the internet for answers about what communism really is. But there’s a lot of propaganda and misinformation out there, so this week we’ve brought on leading RCI member Fred Weston for the Communism Autocomplete Interview: answering the most common questions people are typing into Google about what communists believe, what we want, and how we’re fighting for it!

Six days after the flash floods which have left 214 people dead mainly in Valencia, an official visit by the head of state, the Spanish King, his wife, Queen Leticia, Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez and Valencia regional president Mazón was organised to several of the worst affected areas. As they arrived in Paiporta, outside Valencia, they were met by angry local residents who pelted them with mud and chased them away. These unprecedented scenes were an open expression of the class rage that had been building up for days.

This week, Against the Stream podcast went live for a very special episode. Now that the results of the US election have come in, Hamid Alizadeh and Alan Woods from the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International (RCI) sat down to discuss the implications of Trump's victory and what it means to communists. Alan is the editor of marxist.com, the author of numerous books on Marxist theory and the lead theoretician of the RCI.

Americans are used to hearing that every election is “the most important in our lifetime.” This year, both candidates have taken it a step further, arguing that it’s the most important election in the history of the United States. “For or against Trump?!” This is the alleged existential question posed by both major parties. But what exactly is Trumpism in the first place? Confusion abounds on this question, and yet, it is impossible to understand where US society is headed without a correct diagnosis of this disease.

This week, Jorge and Hamid sat down to discuss three flashpoints in the world crisis of capitalism: the floods that are devastating Spain, the spiralling conflict in the Middle East, and the impending US election.

British Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced her much-anticipated Budget today, promising to “restore economic stability” and “fix the foundations” of British capitalism. But with shocks raining down on the global economy, such hopes will soon turn to dust.

Having failed to destroy Hamas or return the hostages, it is becoming increasingly clear that Israel’s strategy has changed. The whole population remaining in northern Gaza, some 400,000 men, women and children, are being subjected to a policy of ethnic cleansing.

The idea of building socialism in one country alone was alien to Marx, Engels and Lenin. But after the latter’s death, Stalin and his supporters raised the possibility of constructing socialism in the USSR amidst a sea of capitalism. The Young Communist League – the youth wing of the Communist Party of Britain – recently advanced the theory of socialism in one country, as opposed to Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution. Where does the RCI stand on the matter? Was the USSR socialist? Is China today socialist? Is it possible to build socialism in a single country?

German industry has been in crisis since 2018. Since then, the policies pursued during the pandemic, the energy crisis brought about by western governments’ support for the Ukraine war, and global trade wars have turned this crisis into a rapid decline of German capitalism.

With both candidates neck-and-neck in the run-up to election day, you can sense the anxiety of the ruling class, who mostly oppose the maverick Trump. But why has his anti-establishment message struck a chord with a section of American society?

100 years ago, British intelligence, the Tory Party, and the bosses’ press colluded to bring down the first Labour government. The ‘Zinoviev letter’ affair reveals the murky machinations of the capitalist state, which will go to any length to defend its interests.

After Lenin had been incapacitated by a stroke in March 1923, Trotsky took up the struggle to rejuvenate the Bolshevik Party. Niklas Albin Svensson explains how the conflict between the future Left Opposition against the ‘Troika’ of Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev first came out into the open, and draws out the valuable lessons it contains for communists today.