In one of the most volatile political years in a generation, the stability and even predictability of the presidential election has stood out. On March 8, a few days after the Super Tuesday Democratic primary and before the full national weight of the COVID-19 pandemic asserted itself, former Vice President […]
The understanding of the nature of the world system is, or should be, a central question for the Left in the United States. We live in what the Left used to call “the heart of the beast”—the largest world power on the planet—armed to the teeth with weaponry capable of […]
Colombia is engulfed in a nationwide uprising against police violence and government assassination of social movement leaders. The uprising erupted after September 9 when police detained and murdered lawyer Javier Ordoñez by repeated Taser shocks to his head. Police claimed they had to subdue Ordoñez after they were called to […]
The Russian Revolutionary Leon Trotsky was assassinated by a Stalinist agent on August 21, 1940. Many today who are interested in socialism know little or nothing about him. And yet Trotsky was a key leader of the only successful working-class revolution in history—the 1917 October Revolution. In the face of […]
In January 2015, SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left) won the Greek general election and its leader, Alex Tsipras, became president on an anti-austerity platform. Almost immediately, and to the alarm of many left organizations in SYRIZA, Tsipras began backtracking, betraying all the hopes placed upon him by the millions […]
The following is the first chapter of Ahmed Shawki’s Black Liberation and Socialism (2005). Footnotes have been removed. Other chapters of this book will be posted in the coming weeks. “Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. […]
Interview with Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins The Green Party, at a virtual convention completed on July 11, nominated the ticket of Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker to run in the U.S. presidential election in November. To find out more about the candidates and their platform, visit their campaign […]
The following is chapter six of Lance Selfa’s The Democrats: A Critical History. The footnote references have been removed. One of the enduring truisms of American politics since the 1960s is the notion that Republicans are “strong on national defense” while Democrats are “weak.” In 2004, largely on this […]
The following, written by FK, is taken from a pamphlet, Dr. Lal Khan (1956–2020): What a Heart Has Ceased to Beat!, published by the Asian Marxist Review as its Spring 2020 special edition. Lal Khan, who died in February 2020, was one of the founders of The Struggle, a Marxist […]
A movement is needed more than ever to defend a woman’s right to choose The United States Supreme Court, in another sharply divided abortion rights decision, struck down a Louisiana statute that would have required doctors performing abortions in that state to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. The requirement […]
The Black Lives Matter movement has shaken US society to its core in 2020—and accomplished more in a matter of weeks of struggle than decades of waiting for Democrats to take action. The US Supreme Court is now preparing to rule on the most draconian anti-abortion legislation since the 1973 […]
Second only to the U.S., Brazil has emerged as the main “hot spot” for the coronavirus outbreak in the world. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the presidents of both countries are corrupt, far-right politicians who have made racism and climate (and now virus) denialism central to their appeal. The government […]
On May 25, George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin of the Minneapolis Police Department. Like so many times before, at least since the attack on Rodney King in 1992, the police were caught on camera. What’s different now is that George Floyd’s murder has sparked a rebellion larger, broader, […]
Bernie Sanders ended his second presidential bid in April—endorsing Joe Biden and urging his supporters to vote for him. Since then, the political climate in the U.S. has been transformed. The Covid-19 pandemic, the ensuing economic crisis and large scale unemployment, followed suddenly by the mass uprisings triggered by the […]
The tsunami of demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd has awakened an interest in revolutionary ideas and strategy. Militants are confronting sharply posed issues such as what type of society could actually “defund the police” and can the Democratic Party take us even one inch of the way towards […]
