I have been reading the WSWS for the past eight years and find it to be essential reading for anyone on the critical left who wants to see a Marxist analysis combined with a realistic strategy to fight back against the austerity programme of the global capitalist class.

For too long the working class has been hampered by so-called left groups who refuse to build a revolutionary alternative to the gamut of reformist parties and their trade unions. In the UK, from where I am, there is a whole melody of left organisations who are in the process of forming their own front bodies such as the “Peoples Assembly” of Counterfire, the “Unite the Resistance” of the SWP, the “TUSC” of the Socialist Party, and finally the dreadfully named “Left Unity” of the other fragments of the ACI, CPGB, Workers Power. What each and every one of these organisations rely upon is a gamut of celebrities of the left—Owen Jones, Tariq Ali, Mark Serwotka, Bob Crow et. al. to somehow inspire millions of workers who are experiencing the brutal attacks on our wages and benefits.

For me, the WSWS’s great contribution in building an alternative to these pathetic attempts at politically misleading the working class, is to highlight the class position of the groups as being from the petit bourgeoisie in pamphlets such as The Theoretical and Historical Origins of the Pseudo-Left .

What I find the most fascinating is the coverage of the current Syrian civil war. Only the WSWS has clearly portrayed this tragedy for what it is—a civil war between various fractions of the Syrian bourgeoisie armed and abetted by US Imperialism and the Gulf Monarchies. The tragedy is that so many workers are suffering, and paying with their lives in either defending a dictatorial regime or being pulled into fighting with what are deeply reactionary Muslim organisations such as the Al-Nusra Front. Or even worse, being caught in the crossfire. All of the pseudo-left groups support this civil war as being somehow a part of the revolutionary process. Maybe they should revisit Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution to understand the dynamics of revolution.

There’s much more I could praise, such as the art pieces and the science pieces, but I won’t. I’ll stop here to wish another successful fifteen years, or even better—that in the coming fifteen years the various SEPs develop and grow—unlike the bankruptcy of the pseudo-left, as is shown in their inability to stop the austerity attacks while at the same time their leaders are living a comfortable life. The working class, especially the youth will see that if we are to avoid a catastrophe of the worst order, then a revolutionary Marxist organisation needs to be built.