A member of our editorial board, Jorge Martín, was interviewed by the Turkish daily paper BirGün about the recent explosive developments in Peru, in which a Congressional coup has seen left-wing president Pedro Castillo deposed and arrested. This has now provoked a mass protest movement, led by enraged workers and poor peasants. 

Progressive Youth Alliance, a countrywide organisation of revolutionary students and youth, held its third central youth convention on 8 December 2022 in Multan. More than 700 students, youth, workers and progressive political activists from across the country participated in the Central Youth Convention.

So-called left activists, even some self-described Marxists, often exclaim with despair and frustration: "look at how terrible things are, why hasn't there been a revolution yet?" As Alan Woods explains in this article, those who ask such questions have no understanding of the consciousness of the masses, nor of the dialectical method, which Marxists use to penetrate below the superficial surface appearance of society, to the growing tension underneath. This article, which originally appeared in issue 37 of In Defence of Marxism magazine in March 2022 (buy and subscribe here), provides an excellent analysis of the world situation, and

Britain's winter of discontent has begun. With nurses, ambulance staff, and border guards all taking action, the country is set for its biggest month of strikes in decades. And the struggle is set to intensify, as the Tories threaten repression.

A week ago, China saw the rapid proliferation of protests against the regime’s harsh COVID-19 lockdown measures, many of which quickly acquired a political character challenging the entire capitalist regime of the CCP. Although individually the protests were small, the regime is clearly afraid of their potential to mobilise far larger layers. Now, whilst the regime is cracking down, they are also having to relent on its ‘zero COVID’ measures. But in doing so, they face even more instability in Chinese capitalism.

A third impeachment motion had been filed against president Pedro Castillo and was to be discussed on December 7, by Congress. However, at 11:45am Castillo gave a message to the nation announcing the dissolution of parliament, in response to the multiple attacks and obstacles that it has placed on his mandate from the beginning.

A new wave of youth protests coupled with student and bazaari strikes in Iran began on 5 December, and were planned to continue until 7 December. The protests, which have so far reached 83 towns and cities, were initially called by revolutionary students, but the call was echoed by workers’ organisations.

In the last few hours, the political crisis has accelerated in Peru. President Castillo decreed the closing down of Congress, but was swiftly arrested by police. Congress voted to impeach him and proclaimed his vice president as the new president.

Just a week before the ANC’s 55th National Conference, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa is embroiled in a scandal involving the theft of huge sums of undisclosed foreign currency from his Phala Phala game farm in the Limpopo province. This scandal has deepened the factional fighting that has seen the ANC lurch from one crisis to the next for nearly two decades. At bottom though, this is part of a struggle within the ruling class for control of the party.

As the long-awaited results of the ratification vote for the contract brought forward by the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU) were announced, there was a wave of anger over the yes vote. Workers said they were “bullied”, “this is bull&!”, “you built us up and let us down”, “many will be leaving the position because they can’t afford to work”, “screwed for another 4yrs!!!”, “we were so united and now divided… this contract does absolutely nothing to help students or ease our

On 26-27 November, the sixth International Francophone School of the International Marxist Tendency took place in Geneva, Switzerland. Nearly 150 activists and sympathisers of the IMT from Switzerland, France, Quebec and Belgium participated in this weekend of training in Marxist ideas. About 30 others followed the event via Zoom from Montreal, Quebec.

On 28 October, German president and member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) Frank-Walter Steinmeier addressed an array of distinguished guests at Bellevue Palace, his official residence. In his ‘State of the Nation’ address, he noted that the world was “heading into a period of confrontation” and that the “struggle for dominance” was coming to the fore.

After decades of low inflation and rock-bottom interest rates, economies throughout the world are now facing a spectre unseen since the 1970s: rising inflation levels combined with the beginnings of another recession.

[Note - 01/12/22]: Since the publication of this article, in a bipartisan vote, the House of Representatives has voted 290 to 137 for Biden’s scandalous legislation to ban rail workers from striking over the holiday period. Virtually all the Democrats in the House voted to steal the right to strike from rail workers, including “left-wingers” such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.

1,200,000 people flooded the streets of Mexico City, according to government figures. The given figure does not seem to be an exaggeration. People from all over the country, and even Mexican migrants living in the US, gathered in the country's capital in response to Andrés Manuel López Obrador's call for a march on the fourth anniversary of his taking office.