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Biden’s debt deal: A bipartisan blueprint for war and austerity

The rapid and lopsided passage by both houses of Congress of the debt ceiling bill worked out between President Joe Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, with the Democrats supplying the bulk of the votes, must serve as an object lesson on the unbridgeable class chasm between the entire political establishment and the working class.

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

This essay by WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North is the preface to the upcoming book, Leon Trotsky and the Struggle for Socialism in the Twenty-First Century. The print and epub versions of the book are available now for pre-order from Mehring Books.

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Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific

India: Utter Pradesh government workers protest against new pension scheme; Western Australian firefighters protest after rejecting pay offer; New Zealand nurses hold stop-works to demand pay rise

Where is our Zola?

It is not necessarily the case that no books about working lives are being written, only that they are not eagerly sought by the publishing industry.

James McDonald

Sri Lankan government approves paying wards in state hospitals

The introduction of paying wards, to convert the free public health system to a paid service, is occurring amid a deliberate rundown of the public health system and its network of government hospitals.

Tisara Senanayake, Kamal Mahagama

What next in the growing dollar crisis?

Sanctions imposed by the US and the major imperialist powers against Russia at the start of the Ukraine war have produced some unintended consequences, most notably attempts to shift away from dependence on the dollar as the global reserve currency.

Nick Beams

Interest rate hikes, inflation, rent and financial parasitism

According to economist Ross Garnaut, interest rate hikes actually increase rather than decrease inflation because of changes in the structure of the Australian economy over the past several decades, above all the rise of monopolies which make their money not through productive activity but by the extraction of economic rents.

Nick Beams

27 gold miners perish in Peru

The May 6 fire of the Esperanza 1 gold mine in the Arequipa region in southwestern Peru killed 27 miners 80 meters below ground.

Rafael Azul

This week in history: May 29-June 4

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.

As Clarios strike ends second week:

Lessons of the 1984-1985 AP Parts strike in Toledo

The 285-day strike by Toledo AP Parts workers was the longest in the history of the city and bears important lessons for autoworkers today.

Shannon Jones

May 8 and the rehabilitation of Nazism in Germany

At least 13 million Soviet soldiers and 14 million civilians lost their lives in the war. But at the Berlin commemorative events this year, the displaying of the Soviet flag was forbidden.

Peter Schwarz

Attendees at Sydney protest defending Assange speak out

“We need people like Julian, so we know what’s really going on in the world. Biden is trying to get a US journalist out of Russia, and he said, ‘Journalism is not a crime,’ so why hasn’t Julian been released?”

Our reporters
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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Preview release of ChatGPT shows potential of artificial intelligence

ChatGPT, released as a free prototype by the research laboratory OpenAI last November, is a powerful artificial intelligence technology with socially transformative potential that is being used under capitalism to eliminate jobs, increase exploitation and automate warfare.

Kevin Reed
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.

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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
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.

Read statement

Sudan fighting provokes mass exodus

United Nations figures show that more than 420 people have been killed, including at least 256 civilians, and more than 3,500 wounded since fighting broke out on April 15.

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

DSA leaders of U-M grad students’ strike promote top UAW sellouts Shawn Fain and Bob King

The outbreak of the campus strikes in New Jersey and Illinois threatens to break through the isolation imposed by the AFT bureaucracy and its local enforcers on the strike by U-M grad student instructors. This makes all the more sinister the promotion by the GEO leadership at U-M, dominated by the DSA, of the phony “reform” wing of the United Auto Workers bureaucracy headed by newly installed UAW president Shawn Fain.

Barry Grey, Tim Rivers
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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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.

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
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 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.

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
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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Biden’s debt deal: A bipartisan blueprint for war and austerity

The rapid and lopsided passage by both houses of Congress of the debt ceiling bill worked out between President Joe Biden and Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, with the Democrats supplying the bulk of the votes, must serve as an object lesson on the unbridgeable class chasm between the entire political establishment and the working class.

Barry Grey
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.

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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