This article is based on a presentation to the International Socialist Project in December, 2019. For those on the revolutionary left, Karl Kautsky seemed like little more than an historical figure. Someone whom your Marxist education would expose you to, but someone you’d never think would become a reference point […]
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México: Year I of the “Fourth Transformation”
This is an editorial marking the first year in office of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador [AMLO] published in Unidad Socialista, the publication of the Liga de Unidad Socialista, a socialist organization in México. The editorial refers to the “Fourth Transformation,” AMLO’s name for his program that seeks to […]
The Road to Prison Abolition: A Practical Solution
Seemingly overnight, politicians are tripping over themselves as they clamor for prison reform in a climate where cases of police murder and prison abuses have drawn thousands in protests onto the streets. Today, few would doubt that America’s criminal justice system is racist and unfair. Moreover, many now point to […]
Plekhanov: an alternative assessment
Reading the literature of not only academic Marxism, but also of the Marxist tradition overall, it would be easy to conclude that Plekhanov, the founder of the Russian Marxist movement, had very little, if anything, to contribute to Marxism. Indeed, if his name is mentioned at all, it is to […]
Colombia’s unprecedented social explosion: a balance sheet and the movement’s challenges
Daniel Libreros Caicedo, a lecturer at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and member of the steering committee of the Movimiento Ecosocialista (Ecosocialist Movement) analyzes the ongoing mass mobilization in Colombia. On November 21 (21N), millions participated in the country’s largest strike and mass demonstrations ever. This article appeared first in […]
Latin America: conservative offensives and the return of the class war
Latin America today is a site of very powerful class conflict, repression and extremely violent attacks by reactionary forces. Franck Gaudichaud introduces our dossier addressing the situation in these countries and the dynamics of these struggles. This interview, conducted by Antoine Pelletier, originally appeared on the Web site of the New […]
Uruguay: The defeat, without extenuating circumstances, of the “governing party”
INTRODUCTION On November 29, after nearly a week of ballot recounts, Uruguay’s election authority recognized Luis Lacalle Pou, the candidate of the right-wing National Party, as the country’s next president following the second round of elections on November 24. Although the result was close, with Lacalle Pou winning over the […]
The state of the class struggle in the U.S.
When socialists look at the situation in a country, one of the first questions we ask is what is the balance of class forces? Where does the struggle between the employers and the working class stand? This article will attempt to answer that question. Unemployment The October unemployment figure was […]
Chile: The Street Hasn’t Signed Any Agreement
INTRODUCTION What began in October as a student protest over an increase in subway fares turned into a Chile-wide revolt of millions. On October 25, 1.5 million—in a country of 18 million—filled the main boulevards of Santiago, the capital, to demand a change in the political and social system inherited […]
Sweden’s ‘radical’ Meidner plan was a defeat of the workers
The Meidner Plan wasn’t a path to socialism. It wasn’t even an advance in workers’ rights within capitalism. It was a defeat for workers and an attack on their power to organise.
Bolivia: A popular uprising hijacked by the far right
Evo Morales’s attack on his own social base opened up the space for the right wing to intervene in Bolivia.
More than just a “Spring”: the Arab region’s long-term revolution
The Arab regime is immersed in a long-term revolutionary process that pits youth-led movements against authoritarian rulers and neoliberal capitalism explains Gilbert Achcar, in an interview that first appeared in ROAR magazine on November 8. When in late 2018 the people of Sudan took to the streets demanding an end […]
Max Shachtman and the Workers’ Party—from class independence to Democratic Party liberalism
The example of Max Shachtman and the Workers Party (WP) is an instructive example of how committed revolutionaries can be coopted by the Democratic Party. The Workers’ Party, founded in 1940 as a split away from the Socialist Workers’ Party, evolved from an organization strictly opposed to the Democratic Party […]
Principles, strategy, culture, and revolutionary organization
This article first appeared as a document in ISO preconvention bulletin #43, February, 2019. It more or less accurately predicts that the then-current trajectory of the ISO could lead to its liquidation into the DSA/Democratic Party. Though the ISO collapsed before this outcome came about, a month after this article was […]
A day to give thanks?
THE THANKSGIVING myth is intertwined with this country’s origin myth. Puritans fleeing religious persecution in England landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620 in search of freedom. Indians helped them plant corn and survive. They made a compact that is the basis of our first constitution, and they held a feast, […]