This year has marked an important new stage in the crisis of world capitalism. At marxist.com we have aimed to provide a communist perspective at every stormy turn. Additionally, we have continued to publish original contributions to Marxist theory, which have been enthusiastically received by our readers. Hundreds of thousands of visitors have read and shared our 2023 articles, the most-popular of which are compiled below!

2023 marked a dramatic change in the world situation. War, exploitation and social unrest are intensifying, as the unbearable weight of the global capitalist crisis is offloaded by the ruling class onto the downtrodden and oppressed. In this period of turmoil and social explosions, it is imperative for communists to unashamedly and unerringly declare who we are, and what we stand for. Comrades of the International Marxist Tendency have been rising to the occasion all around the world!

2023 marked the 30 years since the shelling of the White House in Moscow, at the time of which the first bourgeois-democratic parliament of Russia, the Russian Supreme Council, was meeting. Hundreds of people died in a ‘mini civil war’ on the streets of Moscow. Indeed, this was a civil war between President Yeltsin and parliament.

As we were about to publish the latest editorial of the Argentine section of the IMT, concerning the first budget announcements of the new government of far-right demagogue president Milei, he doubled down: announcing by decree the abolition of over 300 pieces of legislation, which regulate economic activity in a wide range of fields. This is an unprecedented, ultra-liberal assault on the rights and living conditions of the working masses, introduced using undemocratic emergency decree powers. The announcement provoked a spontaneous movement of protest, with thousands coming out into the streets of Buenos Aires, as Alejandro Spezia describes in this special update (the original article

Protests and demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian people, who are being butchered by the Israeli military, have been dubbed an antisemitic incitement to violence against Jews. This is part of a conscious campaign to criminalise and silence the legitimate democratic right to express support for an oppressed people. In particular, the use of the term “Intifada”, including by communists of the IMT, has been condemned by the western establishment. But what is the attitude of communists towards antisemitism, and what was the real nature of the First Intifada?

With the IDF continuing to blast Gaza into bloodied rubble, Houthi militants (who control the West of Yemen) have retaliated by launching missiles at Israel and targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea. In response, a coalition of 10 countries, led by the US, have pledged to use their naval might to protect vessels along this key trade route. We see how swiftly the ‘international community’ takes action when capitalist profits and proxies are threatened, and how little Palestinian lives factor into their cynical calculations.

2024 will mark the centenary of the death of one of history's greatest revolutionaries: Lenin. Communists do not honour such great figures through pilgrimages or ceremonies; we think the best way to honour a great revolutionary is to study and learn their ideas.

Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza is undoubtedly the defining political event of 2023. The entire political establishment has lined up behind Israel, justifying a brutal military campaign of collective punishment against the Palestinians (which has killed around 20,000 civilians so far) as “self defence.” While liberals, reformists and even some self-proclaimed “communists” parrot the rhetoric of the bourgeoisie, or descend into utopian moralising, genuine communists must boldly proclaim a revolutionary solution for the liberation of Palestine.

2024 will mark 100 years since the death of Lenin, one of history’s outstanding revolutionaries, who led the Bolshevik Party that took power for the Russian working class and peasantry in 1917. Next year, the International Marxist Tendency will celebrate Lenin’s life, legacy and works with a series of events and publications, foremost amongst them a brand new biography, In Defence of Lenin, now available to pre-order from Wellred Books!

The year 2023 is coming to an end. This year was by no means a good one for the working class in China. However, it has also been a year in which we’ve seen new hopes springing up as workers have moved towards class struggle.

2023 has been an outstanding year for In Defence of Marxism magazine: the quarterly theoretical journal of the International Marxist Tendency. This festive season is the perfect time to buy yourself, fellow comrades, friends and relatives a subscription to the finest source of Marxist theory and analysis in print!

As the year comes to a close, the complete failure of the much-hyped Ukrainian counter-offensive has opened a chorus of mutual recriminations within Ukraine and between Kyiv and its imperialist puppet masters. Funding for the proxy war against Russia is drying up in Washington, Brussels and Berlin, and so western imperialism is now pushing Zelensky into a course of action which he is resisting as it spells his political (and perhaps physical) death: peace talks with Putin.

The United Auto Workers’ (UAW) contracts with the Big Three automakers—GM, Ford, and Stellantis—all expired on September 15, 2023. Shawn Fain and the new UAW leadership were willing to lead the workers on strike. History shows that workers can win more with a fight than when no struggle is engaged in at all. However, Fain put forward a strategy of the “stand-up” strike, which he argued would be this generation’s answer to the sitdown strikes of the 1930s.

Builders, painters, dockers, factory workers, electricians, postal workers: all are now acting together to win collective agreements for the workers at Tesla, in a battle that has become a decisive showdown. In Denmark, Norway and Finland, dock and truck workers have announced that they will join the fight. 

Boris Kagarlitsky, one of the most prominent left-wing sociologists in Russia, was released on 12 December after four-and-a-half months in jail. He was fined 600,000 rubles (around 6,000 euro) and faces restricted internet access for two years, avoiding further time in prison. A global campaign for his release, in which IMT comrades were prominently involved, was a factor in this victory.