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The decision of the Federal Supreme Court to order the repeat of the federal election in Berlin, despite blatant shortcomings in only a few constituencies, is a fundamental attack on democratic rights. The wider electorate are to be deprived of the opportunity to express opposition to the hated pro-war policy and the social devastation of the federal coalition government.

Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei

Report to London meeting on the centenary of Trotskyism

Genocide in Gaza: Imperialism descends into the abyss

The unfolding genocide in Gaza is the realization of “the descent into the abyss” of which James P. Cannon warned in his Open Letter, published 70 years ago last week.

David North

Socialist internationalism and the struggle against Zionism and imperialism

This lecture provides a political and historical analysis of the genocidal war now being conducted by the Zionist regime in Israel against the Palestinians. It explains the relationship between the contemporary struggle against imperialism and the international socialist program of the Left Opposition, founded by Leon Trotsky 100 years ago in October 1923.

David North

Workers Struggles: The Americas

Some 900 educators and administrators at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies are on strike, while Culinary Workers Union Local 226 continues contract talks with 21 casino resorts ahead of 2024 Super Bowl.

Popular music and jazz in 2023, a selection

The most urgent and relevant musical developments in 2023 took place not in recorded albums and songs, but rather on concert stages.

Erik Schreiber, Matt Brennan

Ukraine continues strikes on Russian city of Belgorod

As the Ukrainian war effort continues to falter, the Zelensky government is carrying out attacks on Russian civilians that threaten further destruction and civilian casualties on both sides.

Jason Melanovski

Ukraine proposes mobilizing 500,000 more troops

The plans announced by Zelensky amount to an admission that the continuation of the imperialist-backed war is predicated on an even greater slaughter of the Ukrainian working class.

Jason Melanovski

Teamsters president meets with would-be Führer Donald Trump

At multiple points in their account of the meeting, the Teamsters and O’Brien referred to Trump as “President Trump,” implicitly lending credence to Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 election was “stolen.”

Tom Hall

School shooting in Iowa follows record year for incidents in 2023

Thursday's high school shooting in Iowa resulted in the death of one sixth-grader as well as the shooter, injuring five others. School shootings resulting in mass killings are a social phenomenon, both in the US and internationally and reflect deeper social causes.

Renae Cassimeda

New York City to evict 3,500 migrant families from shelters in January

New York City’s Democratic Party establishment has begun to implement measures to cycle migrants out of city shelters and limit the times in which buses transporting them from the US-Mexico border can arrive in the city. It continues to house them in atrocious conditions.

Sandy English

Malaysian government targets workers and the poor

The bourgeoisie’s demand for “tough reforms” consists of cuts to government subsidies and public sector pensions and salaries as well as the reintroduction of a deeply unpopular goods and services tax.

Kurt Brown

New Zealand media demands more military spending

The New Zealand Herald is seeking to soften up the population to accept a major increase in military spending as the country is integrated into US war plans against China.

Tom Peters

Germany’s Left Party leaders pay homage to arch-reactionary Wolfgang Schäuble

The personal and political reverence of leading Left Party representatives for Schäuble, the long-serving chairman of the Christian Democrats and former finance and interior minister, is not simply a character quirk. It expresses the thoroughly pro-capitalist and right-wing essence of the Left Party.

Johannes Stern

Spain’s PSOE-Sumar government renews austerity

The PSOE-Sumar government is now preparing to roll back all the concessions made to workers at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and impose the dictates of the European Union on behalf of the banks and major corporations.

Santiago Guillen and Alejandro López

This week in history: January 8-14

This column profiles important historical events which took place during this week, 25 years ago, 50 years ago, 75 years ago and 100 years ago.

Ten years since the death of leading British Trotskyist Dave Hyland

Ten years ago, Dave Hyland, a leading figure in the British Trotskyist movement, died on December 8, 2013, at the age of 66. Below we republish the remarks of comrade David North to a January 18, 2014, memorial meeting honouring comrade Hyland.

David North
On the 50th anniversary of the Chilean coup

Fifty years after Chile’s horrific September 11 coup, its political relevance is becoming ever more urgent as the specter of dictatorship once again haunts the political life of Latin America.

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Leon Trotsky and the Struggle for Socialism in the Twenty-First Century

The essays in this book, though written over the span of more than 40 years, are connected by a central argument: Leon Trotsky was the most significant figure in the history of socialism during the first four decades of the twentieth century, and his legacy remains the critical and indispensable theoretical and political foundation of the ongoing contemporary struggle for the victory of world socialism.

Order your print or epub version of the book from Mehring Books today.

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Ruling class witch hunt against anti-genocide protesters and university presidents intensifies

Forty-one Brown University students arrested for protesting Gaza genocide

The Brown Divest Coalition called Tuesday’s protest in solidarity with Hisham Awartani, a 20-year-old junior at the university and one of three Palestinian-Americans who was shot by a right-wing libertarian last month.

Jacob Crosse

University of Michigan permanently bans student resolution against genocide in Gaza

What is really behind the suppression of the anti-genocide resolution is the fact that it was headed for victory, something the billionaire donors and regents, Democratic and Republican politicians, and Pentagon, CIA and State Department officials who collectively run the university would not allow.

Judy Ryden, Barry Grey
NOW AVAILABLE
COVID, Capitalism, and Class War: A Social and Political Chronology of the Pandemic

Mehring Books, the publishing arm of the Socialist Equality Party (US), is proud to announce the publication of Volume 1 of COVID, Capitalism, and Class War: A Social and Political Chronology of the Pandemic, a compilation of the World Socialist Web Site's coverage of this global crisis.

Read the introduction
20 years since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq

March 20 marks 20 years since the beginning of the US invasion of Iraq, launched on the basis of lies. At the time of the initial invasion, the WSWS published many statements on the background of the war, its history and its implications. This page features some of the most important statements.

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On the 25th anniversary of the World Socialist Web Site

Twenty-five years ago, the International Committee of the Fourth International began posting the World Socialist Web Site. In this video, WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North explains the background to the WSWS, reviews its record and contemporary significance and makes an appeal to all readers to donate to the WSWS and expand its readership.

Watch now

Indigenous Voice leaders denounce Australian voters

An open letter, issued by a privileged layer of indigenous figures who led the Voice Yes campaign, further highlights the immense class chasm shown in the referendum’s overwhelming defeat on October 14.

Mike Head
2023: The global capitalist crisis and the growing offensive of the international working class

In 2022 the accumulating pressure of these intersecting elements of the world capitalist crisis attained the equivalent of critical mass: that is, they have reached the point where the dynamic of crisis has passed beyond the ability of governments to control the movement toward a social cataclysm.

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The social roots of the Moroccan earthquake disaster

The scale of the Moroccan catastrophe is an indictment of the inability of the capitalist system to deliver earthquake-resistant housing and emergency services to the working population.

Alex Lantier
25 years since the death of Vadim Rogovin

Vadim Z. Rogovin (10 May 1937 – 18 September 1998) was a Soviet Marxist sociologist and historian. Working in close collaboration with the International Committee of the Fourth International, Rogovin helped lay the foundations for the Trotskyist movement’s fight against the post-Soviet school of historical falsification, including in his six-volume Was There an Alternative? This page collects major essays and commemorations on Rogovin as well as links to his own writings.

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A call to youth throughout the world: Build a mass movement to stop the Ukraine war!

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality—the student and youth movement of the Socialist Equality Parties, the national sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International—calls for the building of a mass global movement of young people to end the reckless escalation toward World War III.

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Statement of the Editorial Board
For a Global Workers’ Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Inquest is necessary to break through the cover-up, lies and misinformation that have been used to justify policies responsible for the avoidable deaths of millions.

Find out more
Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Right-wing propaganda disguised as historical scholarship

This five-part series and historical timeline exposes Snyder’s Bloodlands as a work of falsification, aimed at justifying the imperialist proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and the alliance of US imperialism with the Ukrainian far-right.

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The Wuhan lab lie: “Weapons of mass destruction” redux

In an uncanny instance of history repeating itself, the lies used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq based on false claims about “weapons of mass destruction” are being used to promote the United States’ unprecedented military buildup around China.

Andre Damon

A discredited conspiracy theory about the origins of COVID-19

The Wuhan Lab Leak slander being resurrected to bolster US war drive against China

The Wall Street Journal disclosed that the Department of Energy has shifted its opinion on the origin of the coronavirus to it being most likely a result of a lab leak. However, unnamed sources who have read the report indicate the evidence is of low confidence.

Benjamin Mateus
Timeline of thirty years of war: The historical background to the US-NATO conflict with Russia

This interactive timeline presents some of the most important events that have brought humanity to the brink of World War III. It includes links to critical articles and statements produced by the International Committee of the Fourth International over the past 30 years.

View the Timeline

Marcus Garvey and the reactionary logic of racialist politics

More than one hundred years after the formation of his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Marcus Garvey's legacy remains highly relevant in the struggle to overcome efforts to divide the working class along racial lines.

Lawrence Porter

Report to Seventh Congress of Socialist Equality Party (US)

Build rank-and-file committees, the organs of 21st century working class struggle!

This report was given by Eric London to the Seventh Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US) in support of the resolution titled “Build the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees! For a global counteroffensive of the working class!”

Eric London
Forty-five years since the assassination of Tom Henehan (1951-1977): A Revolutionary Life

October 16 marked the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Tom Henehan, a member of the Political Committee of the Workers League—the predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party in the US. We are republishing here a tribute delivered by David North at a meeting in 1997.

Wije Dias: A fighter for Trotskyism (1941-2022)

Comrade Wije Dias, the longtime general secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka), died in Colombo on July 27, 2022. This exhibit includes two tributes to Wije by WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North as well as a selection of Wije’s most significant articles and speeches.

Pentagon national strategy document targets China

The US military published a series of documents Thursday outlining US plans for war with Russia and China, and asserting the central role of nuclear weapons in US warfighting.

Andre Damon

German President Steinmeier delivers war speech to the nation

Steinmeier's remarks to invited soldiers, journalists, think tank representatives and leading politicians can only be described as a “war speech to the nation.” The focus was de facto a declaration of war on Russia and the Russian population.

Johannes Stern, Christoph Vandreier
A historic advance in the fight for Trotskyism
The International Committee of the Fourth International accepts application of the Sosyalist Eşitlik Grubu to become its section in Turkey

The June 19 decision followed extensive discussions with representatives of the International Committee in Istanbul on the development of the fight for Trotskyism in Turkey and the Aegean and Black Sea regions.

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The fight for Trotskyism and the political foundations of the World Socialist Web Site

The WSWS is publishing the report delivered by David North 25 years ago, on February 1, 1997, motivating the proposal to end publication of the SEP’s printed newspaper and replace it with an international website; as well as North’s reply to the National Committee ‘s discussion of the proposal.

WSWS Review
Thirty years since the dissolution of the USSR

Review the most critical essays, lectures and letters produced by the ICFI in the course of its intervention in response to the crisis of Stalinism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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Eighty years since the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union

The WSWS has published a feature page incorporating a selection of essential essays from its own archives, and other documents produced contemporaneously by the Fourth International.

Read more

New Zealand: Court action over Pike River mine disaster

The fathers of two of the 29 workers killed in the 2010 Pike River mine disaster are campaigning for the release of documents and correspondence relating to a 2013 decision to drop charges against Pike River CEO Peter Whittall.

Tom Peters
Cliff Slaughter: A political biography (1928-1963)
By David North

Cliff Slaughter died on May 3, 2021, in Leeds, England, at the age of 92. His enduring contribution in the 1960s to the defense of Trotskyism stands in tragic contrast with his subsequent political opportunism and repudiation of revolutionary Marxism.

Sylvia Ageloff and the assassination of Leon Trotsky
With David North and Eric London

North and London discussed the significance of the latest revelations of the the Security and the Fourth International investigation into Trotsky’s assassination.

Watch the video