While most articles on the ISP website address issues of interest to the broader socialist left, the following contribution provides a critical assessment of the International Socialist Organization’s (ISO) dissolution that is especially relevant to former ISO members. François Laforge is a research scientist at Princeton University. He has been […]
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Lenin and today’s resistance
Change the World Tens of thousands of young activists have taken to the streets this summer and fall. The response to the minimal slap on the wrist for the police in the Breonna Taylor case is only the latest example of this movement. The marchers are not only calling for […]
Getting Ready for the November election crisis
Trump prepares his crisis Donald Trump gave a clear outline of his post elections plans in the first of the TV Presidential debates. Trump will send teams of thugs to polling places under the guise of poll watchers. Mail-in ballots will be denounced as frauds and counterfeit. A bottomless pit […]
The threat of a Greco-Turkish War in the Eastern Mediterranean
A destructive Greco-Turkish war in the Eastern Mediterranean is not the most probable outcome of the competitions in the region, but it is a scenario whose prospects have been raised recently. In the waters south of the Greek island complex of Dodekanisos, south of the island of Crete and around […]
How should socialists approach the 2020 elections?
A number of recent articles on this web site have spelled out an overall assessment of the 2020 elections and explained why we consider opposition to the Democratic Party to be a fundamental cornerstone of class politics. The purpose of this article is to explain socialist strategy and tactics in […]
Chicago strikers fight for their patients
The largest strike taking place in this country today is the combined nurses and campus workers strike at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It represents one of the most important examples of united working class action in the time of Trump and COVID. What’s involved here? On Saturday, September […]
A difficult period for the working class
The International Socialism Project has held a series of discussions on the rapidly changing US political scene. This article is based on an introduction made to a meeting on September 13. It covers three points: Trump and the far right, the mood of the working class, and the state of […]
Elections in a time of multiple and deepening crises
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 […]
Imperialism, nationalism, and war
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: a nationwide uprising against police brutality
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 […]
Trotsky
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 […]
Five years after SYRIZA’s rise: How did we arrive here?
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 […]
Slavery in the United States
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. […]
“The two governing parties are presiding over a failed state”
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 Democrats: Defenders of Empire
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 […]