If asked to name two famous economists, it is likely that the top answers given by the general public would be Adam Smith and Karl Marx (possibly followed by John Maynard Keynes and Friedrich Hayek).

As the war on Iran enters its third week, US imperialism finds itself mired in a deepening crisis. What Trump envisioned as a swift decapitation strike is rapidly proving to be the gravest blunder of his presidency – and perhaps one of the most catastrophic miscalculations in the history of American foreign policy.

On 23 February, 40,000 workers at IOCL (Indian Oil Corporation Limited) at the Panipat refinery expansion project in Haryana went on a strike, which spread across the entire premises. The sudden, radical action was met with a vicious police crackdown and an internet blackout.

Comrade Ehsan Ali, chairman of the Awami Action Committee of Gilgit Baltistan and central leader of RCP in Pakistan, was arrested on the night of 10 March from his home in Gilgit, when police raided his home. After that, the homes of several other leaders of the AAC have been raided and four more have been arrested so far, including: Nusrat Hussain, Mehboob Wali, Nafees Advocate and Mehar Ali. They have been charged with organising a meeting of the leadership of the AAC over an iftar dinner, to discuss the working of the AAC and plan the next protests against the loot and plunder of the resources of Gilgit-Baltistan. Comrade Asghar Shah and Waheed Hassan of the RCP are also indicted in

It’s been two weeks since the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG) laid siege to over 20 Mexican states after the killing of their leader, ‘El Mencho’, by state forces. And while things may appear to be back to ‘normal’, all the conditions remain for even greater violence.

Six months ago, Nepal was in the midst of a revolutionary uprising, led primarily by the youth. The hated government, which murdered 77 protesters, was ousted, and the parliament set on fire. The potential was there for Nepali workers and youth to take power into their own hands, but the absence of a genuinely revolutionary leadership meant that the movement was directionless. Power passed into the hands of an interim government, and the people were told to sit tight until elections in March.

Ecuador is in crisis, with a higher murder rate than Haiti, a stagnant economy, and rampant poverty. What is the government’s response? Expelling the Cuban embassy and inviting American troops with open arms!

“The rich want war – young people want a future!” was the central slogan of over 50,000 school students, who went on strike during school hours in over 140 German cities on 5 March against the German government's reintroduction of compulsory military service. In Berlin, there were just under 10,000, in Hamburg 5,000, and in Munich over 800. This follows a similar movement on 5 December last year, in which over 55,000 took to the streets.

A series of countries across Latin America are cancelling the medical aid programmes they receive from Cuba, after pressure from the US to strangle the island continues. While the United States sets the Middle East ablaze, they denounce the ‘atrocities’ committed by one of Cuba’s main exports: healthcare.

Wellred Books is excited to announce the publication of a new and improved edition of Alan Woods’ The Venezuelan Revolution: A Marxist Perspective. Why should you read this book? Important though they are, this book is about more than the events in Venezuela in the early 2000s. Rather, it is an exemplar of how to apply the Marxist method to new phenomena, phenomena that defy simple categorisation. Reading this book is an education in itself in the Marxist method.

On 4 March, US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum visited Venezuela. The reason for the visit? Burgum, in addition to being Secretary of the Interior, heads the brand-new National Energy Dominance Council, a council created by Trump with the aim of ensuring “that the United States is the dominantcountry in energy matters.”

To mark International Working Women’s Day on 8 March, we republish Fred Weston’s Marxist analysis of the origins of women’s oppression, and its roots in the birth of class society. This article was originally published in issue 41 of In Defence of Marxism Magazine – the quarterly theoretical magazine of the Revolutionary Communist International. 

Spain has garnered much attention amid the imperialist war waged by the US and Israel against Iran. Pedro Sánchez and the Spanish government have emphatically opposed the criminal military campaign. Sánchez is presented by international public opinion as the most courageous and daring western leader in openly opposing Trump and Netanyahu’s war. What does this mean and what position should we communists defend?

Drunk with success in Venezuela, Trump thought that the same methods could be used to force Iran to submit. Either a threatening naval force encircling the country would lead to capitulation, or a short sharp decapitation strike would produce regime change through the emergence of a new leadership willing to comply with imperialists’ demands (a ‘Delcy in Teheran’ as some put it).

Since the death of neo-fascist activist Quentin Deranque in Lyon on 14 February, following a clash between fascist and antifascist groups at a La France Insoumise (LFI) meeting, the right and far right have been trying to exploit the situation to cause maximum damage to LFI. All the bourgeois media are following the government and reactionary politicians in accusing LFI of supporting ‘political violence’. To make the picture complete and more frightening, they add the ritual – and no less absurd – accusation of ‘antisemitism’.