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Barack Obama’s racialist lecture to black workers in Pittsburgh

Fearing that the potential power of the emerging movement will disrupt profits or undermine its ability to wage imperialist war abroad, the Democratic Party is incapable of making any genuine appeal to the “aspirations of working people” which Obama mentioned.

The SEP is intervening in this parliamentary election to build an independent political movement of the working class, based on international socialism, against war, austerity and the turn to authoritarian methods of rule.

Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka)

Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia

Tea plantation workers block roads in India opposing government pay cuts; Pakistani teachers fight privatisation; Garment workers strike in Bangladesh against job and pay cuts.

National public transport strike across Italy to demand improved collective agreement; protests continue across Iran against worsening conditions; health workers on indefinite strike in Kaduna state, Nigeria over outstanding pay award

Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa

Italian transport workers in 24-hour stoppage over pay, workload, funding and safety as collective agreement runs out; workers and retirees protest worsening social and economic conditions across Iran; national walkout by Nigerian health workers in Kaduna state over outstanding pay rise and hazard allowance

Germany’s Left Party expresses solidarity with Israel's genocide in Gaza

Leading representatives of the Left Party have used the anniversary of the Hamas attack on 7 October to demonstrate their solidarity with Israel, which has been committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza for a year and is now expanding its campaign of annihilation to the entire region.

Johannes Stern
84 years since the assassination of Leon Trotsky

Trotsky's assassination was the greatest political crime of the 20th century. Alongside Vladimir Lenin, Trotsky was the leader of the 1917 October revolution in Russia, which led to the establishment of the first workers’ state in history, and the preeminent strategist of world socialist revolution.

Analyzing a World in Chaos from an Island of Tranquility

This speech was given by David North at the second international commemoration of the work of Leon Trotsky on Büyükada (Prinkipo), Turkey, during the first period of his exile from the Soviet Union between 1929 and 1933.

David North

On the anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky

Eighty-four years ago today, 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.

David North

US “debt bomb” ticking louder

The US budget deficit for fiscal 2024 came in at close to $2 trillion, with total debt rapidly heading to the $36 trillion mark.

Nick Beams

Autumn COVID wave develops in Germany

In the last weeks, an autumn COVID wave has been developing in Germany, exposing all the claims that the pandemic is over.

Tamino Dreisam

While over 1 million Americans continue to be infected with COVID each day

Study shows that COVID-19 causes cognitive decline among those without long COVID symptoms

Significantly, infected controls did not report any symptoms related to these cognitive deficits, indicating that potentially billions of people worldwide with a history of COVID-19, but no symptoms of long COVID, could have persistent cognitive issues without knowing it.

Bill Shaw

Kenya’s Gen Z insurgency, the strike wave and the struggle for Permanent Revolution-Part 1

The recent strike wave by workers in Kenya, following the Gen Z-led uprising, reflects deep-seated anger towards the regime of President William Ruto and its International Monetary Fund-backed austerity measures. Workers and the youth must forge a new path grounded in Leon Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution—the programme that inspired the October 1917 Russian Revolution. It is essential to revive the struggle of Trotskyism against Stalinism, Maoism, Pabloism, and bourgeoisie nationalism.

Kipchumba Ochieng

Kenya’s Gen Z insurgency, the strike wave and the struggle for Permanent Revolution-Part 2

The recent strike wave by workers in Kenya, following the Gen Z-led uprising, reflects deep-seated anger towards the regime of President William Ruto and its International Monetary Fund-backed austerity measures. Workers and the youth must forge a new path grounded in Leon Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution—the programme that inspired the October 1917 Russian Revolution. It is essential to revive the struggle of Trotskyism against Stalinism, Maoism, Pabloism, and bourgeoisie nationalism.

Kipchumba Ochieng

This week in history: October 7-13

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

The Gaza genocide and the death of Aaron Bushnell: What are the political lessons?

This lecture was given by World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, March 12.

As US prepares to allow NATO weapons to strike Russia, Putin threatens nuclear retaliation

Amid ongoing high-level meetings between NATO leaders and Ukrainian officials at the United Nations over plans to allow Ukraine to strike Russian cities with NATO weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined Wednesday a proposed update to Russia’s nuclear policy document that would expand the conditions under which Russia would use nuclear weapons.

Andre Damon
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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What does Turkey’s application to join BRICS mean?

The discussion of Turkey's possible membership of BRICS comes amid US authorisation for Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with NATO long-range weapons, bringing the two nuclear-armed powers to the brink of direct war.

Barış Demir

The Middle East arena of competition between the US and China

Washington has no intention of allowing Beijing to extend its influence in the Middle East, or anywhere else in the world, and will not hesitate to use all the means at its disposal to prevent this—utilising support for Israel’s annihilation of the Palestinians in Gaza as the basis for an expanding war for control of the region initially targeting Iran.

Jean Shaoul
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

Ten months of the Gaza genocide: The way forward in the fight against war

As millions of students are re-entering their classrooms in schools and on college campuses across the United States for a new semester, the threat of world war and fascism is greater today than at any point since the 1930s.

International Youth and Students for Social Equality (US)
One Hundred Years Since the Death of Lenin

January 21 marked 100 years since the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924. This page includes a collection of essays reviewing the life and ideas of the great Marxist theoretician, founder of the Bolshevik Party, and co-leader of the Russian Revolution.

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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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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
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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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

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
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.

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.

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

Bankers in the Ivory Tower by Charlie Eaton

The financialization of higher education and the fight against war

Eaton’s book traces the financialization of higher education from the 1980s through the 2010s, which underlay the subordination of academia to Wall Street and the war machine of US imperialism.

Emma Arceneaux
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.

Barack Obama’s racialist lecture to black workers in Pittsburgh

Fearing that the potential power of the emerging movement will disrupt profits or undermine its ability to wage imperialist war abroad, the Democratic Party is incapable of making any genuine appeal to the “aspirations of working people” which Obama mentioned.

Eric London

“Put aside the search for half-measures!”

Socialism and the fight against war and genocide

The discussion framed the Gaza genocide within its social, economic and political context, explaining that the struggle against imperialist barbarism requires the building of a socialist movement by the working class against capitalism.

Andre Damon
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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New Zealand: Court action continues over Pike River mine disaster

Families of some of the 29 workers killed in the 2010 coal mine disaster are continuing their fight for answers about why authorities dropped charges against Pike River Coal chief executive Peter Whittall over the extremely dangerous conditions in the mine.

Tom Peters