Days after a self-described democratic socialist won the New York mayoral election, over 300 communists sang a rousing rendition of “The Internationale” to conclude the third and final installment of the RCA’s 2025 Marxist School series.

Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City is one of the highest-profile victories for a socialist candidate in American history. In the “capital of capitalism”—the largest city in the most powerful imperialist country on earth—over one million people voted for a self-described democratic socialist, in what The New York Timescorrectly described as a “surge of anti-establishment discontent.”

Dick Cheney is dead. The world’s workers and oppressed should mourn, not for Dick Cheney’s passing, but for the fact that yet another imperialist war criminal has passed away without ever facing justice for his crimes.

The escalation of US imperialist bullying against Venezuela, which started in August, has reached fever pitch and now involves the bullying of Colombia as well. As well as a military build-up in the Caribbean, the blowing up of speedboats, provocative bomber plane flights off the coast of Venezuela, we now see the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group to the Caribbean.

Communism has returned to Chicago! In a city with a rich history of labor struggles—including the world-famous Haymarket martyrs and the fight for a forty hour work week—about 200 revolutionary communists met on October 25–26 for the first-ever RCA Chicago Marxist School.

The financial markets are booming like never before. After a few jitters in April as Trump announced his ‘reciprocal tariffs’, the stock markets have hit record after record. This at the same time as workers are being squeezed, government finances are in crisis everywhere, central banks are failing to curb inflation, and unemployment is rearing its ugly head. Something doesn’t add up.

In a world on fire with revolutionary uprisings and mass movements, 165 communists from across the West Coast and beyond gathered in Los Angeles on October 11–12 for a landmark weekend of Marxist education.

80 years ago, in the early hours of 5 October 1945, a pitched battle erupted at the Warner Brothers studio lot in Burbank, California. This was not a shoot for a new war movie, but an armed clash between unionised set decorators on one side; and strikebreakers, mafia goons and police, allied with the studio bosses, on the other. ‘Black Friday’ was the bloody culmination of the biggest strike in Hollywood’s history, a high watermark of labour militancy the likes of which the industry has not seen since.

“When the leaders speak of peace, the common people know that war is coming.” (Berthold Brecht)

The US federal government “shut down” last Wednesday night after a deadlock in Congress over the latest budget proposal. Around 750,000 federal workers have been furloughed—temporarily laid off—while those deemed essential will be forced to work without pay until lawmakers come to an agreement.

“I have been right about everything.” Thus spoke Donald Trump very modestly about himself as he addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on Tuesday 23 September.

“He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news.” – Berthold Brecht

If it is enough to arm oneself with a pistol in order to achieve one’s goal, why the efforts of the class struggle? If a thimbleful of gunpowder and a little chunk of lead is enough to shoot the enemy through the neck, what need is there for a class organization?

According to Red Scare mythology, communism is an “anti-American” doctrine that threatens “democracy” and “freedom.” Trump recently proclaimed that communism is “a philosophy that this country is not ready for and never will be.”

The cracks in Trump’s cross-class coalition are growing into a chasm. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the failure of Trump’s trade war, a sluggish economy headed for disaster, and persistent inflation have fractured MAGA. Now the Jeffrey Epstein scandal threatens to tear it apart.