We publish an appeal from our comrades of Fightback, the Canadian section of the IMT. Fightback has gone from strength to strength over the past several years, and is now taking the important step of setting up a new office in Montreal! This will require the necessary funds: please donateto help build the forces of Marxism in Canada!

The Moritomo Gakuenscandal, which has followed the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie since 2016, keeps resurging and haunting Mr. Abe like a recurring nightmare.

UPDATE: We have just been informed of the good news that the students have been released, but the fact they were arrested to begin with is still a scandal. Yesterday, 9 April, University of Nanterre management called two units of the CRS [Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité: general reserve of the French National Police] to violently expel 100 students gathered in a General Assembly. Seven students were arrested. Six were remanded in custody, including our comrades Andreas Coste and Victor Mendez. It is clear that the arrests targeted student activists at the university. 

We publish Alan Woods’ guest introduction to a special edition of Farsi-language art magazine, Contemporary Scene, called Capitalism and Art. The edition contains a series of articles about Marxism and culture, many of which were previously published on Marxist.com.

The Catalan Committees for the Defence of the Republic (CRDs) have come under a sustained campaign of criminalisation. The state prosecutor, the mass media and the political parties of the Spanish regime have all ganged up to brand them as “violent”, demanding that “action should be taken” against them and threatening them with prosecution for “rebellion”. Why are they so afraid of the CDRs?

As the presidential elections of 20 May draw nearer, our country is entering a new, uncertain period. The deep economic depression, hyperinflation, the generalized collapse of public services, and as a consequence, the rise in the workers’ and popular struggles, frame the explosive national political context.

Statement by the Marxist Left (Esquerda Marxista), Brazilian section of the IMT

Boris Johnson has been caught lying over the Salisbury attack. And Blairite MPs are up to their usual sabotaging shenanigans.

A new Pashtun movement has erupted in Pakistan, mobilizing hundreds-of-thousands of people across the country, with tens-of-thousands attending its public meetings. The state apparatus and the entire ruling class, including all establishment political parties, are trembling at the sight of this huge movement, which originated from the most backward areas of the country – where it was least expected.

Yesterday, the Spanish regime’s strategy of repression against the Catalan independence movement suffered a serious blow, when a German court in Schleswig-Holstein decided there were no grounds to extradite Catalan President Carles Puigdemont for rebellion. Additionally, a series of decisions by the Belgian justice system further undermined the position of the Spanish regime.

Hamid Alizadeh speaks at a recent meeting of the LSE Marxist society about the political situation in the Middle East, from the Arab Spring of 2011 to the present day. Hamid provides a overview of the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary developments in the region over the past seven years. Today, the focus is on the civil war in Syria and the heroic struggle of the Kurds. But crisis is also brewing in Saudi Arabia, home to the main bastion of reaction in the region. Hamid discusses the processes unfolding in all of these countries, as well as the increasing contradictions facing American imperialism, which is no longer able to play its hegemonic role of the past.

There has been a four-week long strike by teaching assistants and sessional lecturers at York University. This strike by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 3903, which is made up primarily of graduate students as well as sessional lecturers, had the effect of inspiring a movement among undergraduate students. The strike is going through a challenging period, and now a witch-hunt by secrtarian elements, aimed against our comrades at York, threatens the entire movement.

50 years ago, on 4 April 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – the leader of the civil rights movement in America – was shot dead in cold blood. On that day, Dr. King was in Memphis, Tennessee, to lead a demonstration and rally in support of a three-month-long fight for trade union recognition by 1,300 local refuse collectors.

On 28 March, a decision was made at a Special General Members Meeting of CUPE 3903 (TAs and sessional lecturers at York University) to ban Fightback from picket lines and all spaces associated with CUPE 3903. We are shocked by this decision which was based on misinformation and innuendo. We publish here, Fightback's response to this decision.

Lucha de Clases (section of the International Marxist Tendency in the Spanish state) opposes the arrest of Carles Puigdemont in Germany and demands his immediate release. We also demand the release of five Catalan independence leaders arrested on Friday, including the last candidate for the presidency of the Generalitat, Jordi Turull; along with all Catalan political prisoners. Original statement in Spanish here.