English

Top Stories

Perspective
Perspective
Perspective

Two years on, the January 6 coup continues

Two years after former president Trump and his Republican allies tried to overturn the Constitution, the aspiring dictator and the social and political forces that supported him remain free and are openly plotting their next coup.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced on Wednesday that 18,000 jobs would be eliminated at the global tech company and that employees would learn of the layoffs starting on January 18.

Kevin Reed

The United States, France, and Germany have announced that they will send over a hundred tanks and other armored, tracked vehicles to Ukraine, massively escalating NATO’s proxy war with Russia.

Andre Damon

The new anti-strike laws were first conceived as a response to the national rail strikes. Their two main leaders, the Rail, Maritime and Transport union’s Mick Lynch and train drivers’ union ASLEF’s Mick Whelan, have made clear they will abide by the legislation.

Thomas Scripps

The Department of Homeland Security will begin pushing back into Mexico tens of thousands of refugees seeking asylum from four countries. It will also reject automatically any asylum claim filed by all other refugees traveling through Mexico, adopting the “transit ban” established under Trump.

Patrick Martin
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.

Read

SGP holds successful launch event for the Berlin state elections

On Monday, the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) broadcast its launch event for the 2023 Berlin state elections. In it, leading members of the party explained the SGP’s principles, socialist program and historical foundations.

Our reporters

Racist campaign for a police state after Berlin New Year's Eve

The new year has begun in Germany with a vicious racist campaign for a police state. The events of the “Berlin New Year's Eve” are serving as a pretext, with the political and media establishment claiming that unprecedented violence was directed against the security forces.

Johannes Stern

Will Lehman discusses his protest to the UAW monitor

After widespread vote suppression by the apparatus resulted in a turnout of less than 10 percent in the UAW presidential election, candidate Will Lehman has filed a formal protest arguing that the election is not a legitimate expression of the will of the membership and the results cannot be certified.

our reporter

Concluding remarks to the December 10 rally

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality and the fight against war

These are the concluding remarks by WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North to the December 10 rally, “For a Mass Movement of Students and Youth to Stop the War in Ukraine!” organized by the International Youth and Students for Social Equality.

David North

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.

Statement of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE)

Amazon confirms layoff of 18,000 workers

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced on Wednesday that 18,000 jobs would be eliminated at the global tech company and that employees would learn of the layoffs starting on January 18.

Kevin Reed

Airline and airport workers across Europe hold strikes throughout the Christmas period over pay and conditions; French GPs extend indefinite strike for more health funding; New Year begins with week of strikes by UK rail workers over jobs, pay and conditions; protests in Iran over death of Mahsa Amini joined by protests against cost of living crisis

Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa

Airline and airport workers in Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal hold strikes throughout the Christmas period over pay and conditions; French GPs organised in Facebook group outside the unions extend indefinite strike for more health funding; New Year begins with week of strikes by UK rail workers over jobs, pay and conditions, but unions keep drivers’ and conductors’ disputes separate; protests in Iran continue over death of Mahsa Amini, joined by protests and strikes against cost of living crisis

US Fed says no letup in financial tightening

Once again, the Federal Open Market Committee, the key policy-making body, underscored that for all the talk in public about the need to bring down inflation, the discussion behind closed doors is about blocking a wages upsurge in the working class.

Nick Beams

Central bank gold purchases highest in more than half a century

The buying surge appears to be a response to two developments––the freezing of the Russian central bank’s dollar holdings after the invasion in Ukraine, and the development of uncertainty over the stability of US financial markets and its political system.

Nick Beams

2022: A year of deepening economic and financial crisis

The most significant shift in the economic and financial landscape has been the development of global inflation to the highest level in four decades and the response of central banks led by the US Federal Reserve.

Nick Beams

60,000 Detroit households threatened with water shutoff

In the face of 7 percent inflation, and with the immune-evasive new XBB.1.5 variant now spreading throughout the country, the resumption of water shutoffs will be a social and health disaster for Detroit’s working class.

Zac Corrigan

Proud Boys, far-right groups terrorize New York City drag event

A social media video showing New York City police holding transit fare gates open for Proud Boys has garnered millions of views. The video was filmed after the Proud Boys threatened a Drag Queen Story Hour event at the Queens Public Library in Jackson Heights.

Jesse Thomas

Britain’s National Health Service faced with deliberate collapse

COVID policies backed by all the major parties of allowing tens of thousands of people to die unnecessary deaths and countless more to suffer prolonged ill health—rather than taking measures impacting on profits—were only the sharpest expression of a growing hostility to health spending seen as an intolerable drain on British capitalism, to be reduced as quickly as possible.

Thomas Scripps

COVID-19 infections surge in China

China’s abandoning Zero-COVID also meant abandoning any tracking of real figures in terms of case counts and deaths. Estimates, however, provide a horrific account of the public health crisis sweeping across the country.

Benjamin Mateus

New Zealand’s COVID wave continues over holiday season

With another surge of cases over the Christmas period, New Zealand’s COVID-19 related death toll over the past year has reached nearly 2,500 since Labour scrapped its zero-COVID policy in October 2021.

John Braddock

Films and television in 2022

Despite the many obstacles and difficulties, there are artists in the field with vision and sensitivity, who exhibit a growing awareness that something is terribly wrong with the social order.

David Walsh, Joanne Laurier

Popular music and jazz in 2022, a selection

Many working musicians must now tour and play live concerts most of the year in order to support themselves financially. They thus constantly face the potential long-term prospect of playing until they get terribly sick with a deadly virus, or face financial ruin, or both.

Matt Brennan, Erik Schreiber

In Memory of Keerthi Balasuriya

This tribute was written by David North and originally posted on the WSWS in December 2007 to mark the twentieth anniversary of the death of Keerthi Balasuriya.

David North

US and South Korea hold talks on “nuclear sharing”

Despite Biden’s denial, a senior US official confirmed that the two countries were discussing enhanced information sharing, joint planning, as well as training, and a simulation exercise for nuclear warfare “in the not-too-distant future.”

Peter Symonds

This week in history: January 2-8

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.

Lenin’s last struggle

One hundred years ago, on December 23, 1922, Lenin began writing one of the most politically significant documents in the history of the Soviet Union, which was to go down in history as Lenin’s Testament.

David North

SEP (UK) 2022 Congress Resolution

Build the Assange defence campaign in the working class!

The Socialist Equality Party (UK) Congress resolution states, “The international working class must take the lead in the fight to free Assange. It is the sole constituency for the defence of democratic rights, and it alone has the power to wrest the WikiLeaks founder from his captors.”

SEP (UK) 2022 Congress Resolution

The COVID-19 pandemic and the fight for socialism

The Socialist Equality Party (UK) Congress resolution explains: "The two alternatives posed before mankind are either unending mass infection, debilitation and death, or the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and implementation of a policy of global elimination, to end all human-to-human transmission of COVID-19."

Orion spacecraft splashes down, completing Artemis I mission

The landing was the final major milestone of the Artemis I mission, which is being hailed by the Biden administration and the corporate media as the precursor to new crewed missions to the Moon and possibly Mars.

Bryan Dyne
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

Musk continues to ban from Twitter journalists who criticize him

Twitter owner and fascistic billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged late Thursday that he had shut down the accounts of numerous prominent journalists earlier in the day, claiming falsely that they had violated a new policy on the platform against “doxxing."

Kevin Reed

What took them so long? New York Times, Guardian finally call for Assange’s freedom

Ten years after Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange was forced to seek refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and three years after he was arrested and subjected to solitary confinement, the editors and publishers of the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, El País and Der Spiegel have issued an open letter calling on US President Joe Biden to end his prosecution.

Thomas Scripps

SEP (UK) 2022 Congress Resolution

Build the Assange defence campaign in the working class!

The Socialist Equality Party (UK) Congress resolution states, “The international working class must take the lead in the fight to free Assange. It is the sole constituency for the defence of democratic rights, and it alone has the power to wrest the WikiLeaks founder from his captors.”

“I felt like I was in quicksand… at times it seemed like it was never-ending”

Flight attendant shares his experience being intubated for 19 days with COVID-19

In this interview for the Global Workers’ Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic, flight attendant Tim Yoder shares his experiences in early 2020. Tim caught COVID-19 in mid-March 2020 after being told he was an “essential worker” and had to continue flying despite feeling ill when multiple coworkers had already tested positive for COVID-19.

Evan Blake
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

Libyan citizen kidnapped and flown to US to face Lockerbie charges

A 71-year-old Libyan, Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi, appeared in a US federal court in Washington D.C. to face charges related to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Mas'ud has effectively been kidnapped and subjected to extraordinary rendition.

Steve James

Ebola infections take hold in Uganda’s capital Kampala

There have now been 14 Ebola infections in Uganda’s densely populated capital, Kampala, raising concerns among health officials about the potential for the epidemic to spiral out of control.

Benjamin Mateus
Watch: UAW presidential candidate Will Lehman’s final campaign video

Watch and share the powerful video of Will Lehman, a second-tier worker at Mack trucks in Macungie, Pennsylvania, explaining the basis of his campaign for UAW president, accompanied by statements of support from workers across the US and Mexico.

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

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.

On the 82nd anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky

Eighty-two years ago, on August 20, 1940, Leon Trotsky was assassinated by an agent of the Stalinist secret police, the GPU, in his villa in Coyoacan, Mexico, where he spent the final three years of his life as a political exile.

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.

A video presentation by Evan Blake
What must be done to end the pandemic
Watch
Global Workers’ Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic
Family of Detroit autoworker who died of COVID-19 demands answers

Autoworker and grandmother Catherine Pace died on March 27, 2020 after contracting COVID-19 in the paint department at the Warren Truck Plant outside Detroit, then operated by Fiat-Chrysler, now Stellantis.

Watch video testimony
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.

Read more
May Day 2022: The NATO-Russia war and the tasks of the international working class

In his introduction to the International May Day Online Rally, WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North reviews the historical origins of the US-NATO war drive against Russia and outlines the political strategy of the working class to oppose the danger of World War III.

Watch the recording
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.

Read more

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

One year since the US military's withdrawal from Afghanistan

The Afghan withdrawal represented a debacle for US imperialism, which based its policy throughout thirty years of uninterrupted wars, beginning with the first Gulf War in 1990-91, on the conviction that military force could overcome Washington’s precipitous economic decline.

Jordan Shilton
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
100 years since the birth of Jean Brust

August 31, 2021 marks 100 years since the birth of Jean Brust, a leading figure in the Trotskyist movement. Comrade Jean, who died November 24, 1997 at the age of 76, joined the Trotskyist-led Young Peoples Socialist League as a teenager in 1937.

Two years on, the January 6 coup continues

Two years after former president Trump and his Republican allies tried to overturn the Constitution, the aspiring dictator and the social and political forces that supported him remain free and are openly plotting their next coup.

Jacob Crosse, Joseph Kishore
Twenty years since the September 11 terror attacks

The horrific massacre of civilians was immediately exploited by the imperialist powers, led by the United States government itself, to justify far-reaching attacks on the democratic rights of their own populations, and the launching of decades-long wars in the Middle East and Africa.

Read more
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

Nazi Billionaires by David de Jong: How Hitler’s financiers are still in business

De Jong gives a detailed and well-researched account of the intimate involvement of some of Germany's largest business dynasties with the National Socialists (Nazis) and shows how, after the war, they were able to continue amassing wealth, retain decisive influence in business and financial spheres, and even resume the financing of fascist tendencies.

Ela Maartens, Verena Nees
150 years since the birth of Rosa Luxemburg

The meeting examined Luxemburg’s role as a Marxist theoretician and political leader, and discussed the significance of her legacy to the contemporary struggle to build a Marxist leadership.

Watch the video