Between 24-26 June, 80 comrades from across Britain took part in the Marxist Student Federation’s first ever residential Marxist summer school. The inspiring school, set in the idyllic hills of the Peak District, was themed on the life and ideas of Lenin. Now, all four talks from the school are available online.

Just over a month ago, on 9 July, the insurrectionary masses of Sri Lanka stormed the Colombo residence of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. This was the culmination of island-wide protests that had been ongoing since March. They had already brought down three government cabinets, the governor of the Central Bank, and Gota’s own brothers: the Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, and the powerful then-Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa who was forced to resign on 9 May.

On 2 August 2022, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, in an act of clear and reactionary provocation towards China. Far from furthering the cause of democracy as Pelosi claimed, her trip has the potential to destabilise the entire Indo-Pacific region. In this podcast episode produced by the Canadian section of the IMT, Fightback, Daniel Morley, writer for In Defence of Marxism, discusses the U.S. and Chinese saber rattling over Taiwan.

The Russian Revolution ushered in a flowering of creative expression in all the arts, but particularly cinema, which was advanced to new heights by the likes of Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein, who regarded film as a weapon of class struggle. Despite being cut short by the Stalinist degeneration of the regime, the legacy of October in the field of filmmaking continues to be felt to this day.

Over 100,000 people died last year from drug overdoses in the US. It was the second year in a row that the death toll exceeded that figure, according to statistics from the CDC. These overdoses are disproportionately concentrated in poor regions, particularly Appalachia, which has been ravaged by an opioid addiction crisis for the past two and a half decades.

Defenders of the free market look towards libertarians such as Hayek and Mises – and their assertion of an ‘economic calculation problem’ – in order to attack socialism. But in truth, Marxists answered these reactionary arguments long ago.

A wave of wildcat strikes has swept across Britain – in the construction industry and at Amazon warehouses – as workers’ anger reaches boiling point. This is a harbinger of the huge class battles on the horizon. The unions must prepare for war.

The German government is being forced to ration hot water; street lights are being dimmed; and special heated halls are being set up for those who can’t afford central heating – in a country where winter temperatures regularly drop well below freezing. Many Germans are stocking up on wood to burn for warmth, as many predict that gas supplies will completely or nearly run out by early 2023. These are the grim prospects faced by the working class in the economic powerhouse of Europe.

Since June, the Netherlands has seen a new wave of militant, 40,000-strong farmers’ protests, aimed against government plans to reduce the emission of nitrogen compounds. These protests have reached the international media, with videos proliferating of heavy tractors blocking roads and supermarket distribution centres, and dumping manure outside the homes of politicians. What lies behind these protests, what class interests do they represent, and what is the position of the Marxists towards them?

Last month, under conditions of extreme economic turmoil, the Sri Lankan masses burst into the presidential palace in Colombo, forcing hated president Gota Rajapaksa to flee and, soon after, announce his resignation. It immediately prompted the most frantic discussion amongst representatives of the ruling class, who are terrified of similar events occurring elsewhere.

A mass fightback against the ruling class’ attacks is beginning, with strikes and grassroots movements building. To win, workers and youth must be armed with a militant strategy, bold socialist policies, and a clear revolutionary perspective.

A wave of class struggle, rising all over the world, is approaching Vietnam. Under increasing financial pressure, sections of the Vietnamese working class have engaged in furious wildcat struggles. The rising tension is also reflected in the actions of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (VCP), which is now led by its most powerful leader in decades. While making a show of proactively addressing corruption in Vietnamese society in an effort to appease the masses, it has simultaneously increased repression.

The latest economic predictions from the Bank of England provide a foreboding warning of the inflation and austerity that lies ahead for the working class in Britain. Only bold socialist policies can combat this capitalist catastrophe.

On 29 July, attempts made to recover 31 tonnes of gold worth over $1bn from a foreign central bank (that is supposed to mind the gold for safekeeping) by a democratically elected leader were repudiated by a foreign court. The sovereignty of a country’s highest judicial institution has been swept to one side by another country's ruling.

The trip by Speaker of the United States Congress, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan has placed the Taiwanese national question at the forefront of world politics. Though Taiwan is, de facto, an independent state, the Chinese government has always maintained that the island is part of its territory. Meanwhile, the United States has maintained a deliberately ambiguous stance on the question for decades. Pelosi’s trip is yet another nail in the coffin of this delicate balance which, if upended, could threaten the stability of the whole region.