"Predictably, the Chinese government’s response was to stage an unprecedented show of force, multiplying the number of flyovers of the island, parading their tanks through their cities and along beaches facing Taiwan, and launching batteries of missiles that never, as on this occasion, get close to the target. The challenge between the two superpowers is increasingly taking on the contours of an exhausting chess game in which each of the contenders tries to move their pieces to acquire a positional advantage, taking care not to provoke an open conflict, but being ready, just in case circumstances require it."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-08-27/nancy-pelosi-s-visit-to-taipei-opens-a-new-episode-in-the-us-china-crisis

"For decades workers have paid for the capitalist crisis in declining real wages, austerity and job insecurity. Now all over the world price rises of basic goods are at last triggering strikes and protests. In the UK, BT workers have been on strike for the first time in more than thirty years. More strikes by rail and tram workers, airport and airline workers, barristers, bus drivers, tube workers, baggage handlers, postal workers and refuse collectors are planned, or already underway. Ballots are in the pipeline for teachers, doctors, nurses and civil servants and even junior barristers. The working class cannot stand the onslaught any longer."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-08-29/workers-respond-to-the-bosses-class-war

"The article we are re-printing here is the first part of the first pamphlet ever produced by the CWO. It was initially published as a separate article in 1975, entitled The Economic Foundations of Capitalist Decadence, by the small collective of Revolutionary Perspectives which preceded the formation of the CWO. It has long been out of print, yet its uncomplicated explanation of key concepts of Marxist economics lays the groundwork for revolutionary militants today to understand that the same underlying material forces are at work in today’s global capitalism as in Marx’s day."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-08-31/capitalism-s-economic-foundations-part-i

"As mentioned in our recent article on wildcat strikes in the UK, back in May it was reported that over a thousand offshore oil and gas workers in the North Sea walked out across 19 rigs demanding their wages match inflation. And now, according to a statement circulating across social media, more action is being planned for 8 September. Not only is this being organised outside the unions, which have been deliberately dragging their feet, it appears that the workers have formed their own strike committee to lead the struggle. Although only limited information is available so far, if true, this is an encouraging step which deserves the solidarity of all workers. In that spirit, we reproduce here in full the statement signed by the Offshore Oil and Gas Workers Strike Committee."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-08-31/north-sea-oil-and-gas-fields-the-struggle-continues

"The Hague Congress of the International Workingmen’s Association (aka the First International) took place in September 1872. After a tumultuous session, Bakunin was expelled by a majority vote and from then on, the red and black tendencies of the workers’ movement went their separate ways. Or so it is said. 150 years on from that event we can look back with fresh eyes at what exactly happened and at the disagreements which continue to divide revolutionaries to this day."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-09-02/150-years-on-the-split-in-the-first-international

"Imperialist war clearly afflicts workers everywhere. We don’t just mean the obvious threat of famine or higher prices (which are products of the same economic crisis that is pushing the great powers to war) but in the way it imposes a war agenda on workers. Most absurd of all, is that both sides claim to be against “fascism” whilst making fascist thugs heroes in their cause. The fact is that ‘patriotism’, nationalism of all kinds, is the stock response of the capitalist class when workers try to resist wage cuts, job losses and increasing repression."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-09-06/the-ukraine-war-is-a-war-against-workers-everywhere

"Across the board, the working class finds itself struggling with declining real wages as the prices of food, housing, and fuel skyrocket. The price of food in Quebec has increased by 10% in just one year, whereas the rents of traditionally working-class neighbourhoods such as Verdun have gone up by as much as 20%. Workers across Montreal and across the world are striking to defend their basic necessities. With such inflation, the point is bluntly clear: the losses faced during the pandemic and exacerbated by the war are being unloaded onto our class. We are being forced to pay for our bosses' crisis."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-09-08/don-t-let-them-deal-you-a-bad-hand

"Often the dynamics of war lead to results that are diametrically opposed to the objectives pursued by the contenders; the conflict in Ukraine, instigated by the Russian Federation mainly to hinder NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe, has in fact accelerated the enlargement of the Atlantic Alliance in an extremely important region from a geopolitical point of view, Northern Europe. On the other hand, the ongoing war of "attrition", thanks to the fundamental Western – primarily US – support for Ukraine, risks "handing over" an extremely weakened Russia into the hands of China."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-09-09/sweden-and-finland-entering-nato

"We reproduce the following article in solidarity with Assembly, an anarchist group based in Kharkiv which has been reporting on workers’ struggles in Ukraine on both sides of the front line. In a recent interview, they said of themselves: “we give useful information for workers in their daily confrontation with bosses or officials, and our position with the condemnation of both warring states … is quite close to those who have nothing to defend in this bleak hole with no clear future.” They also criticise those anarchists who in the face of imperialist war “immediately merged with the ruling class in a single nationalist impulse”. Despite our political differences, it is clear that Assembly tries to chart an internationalist course in the most difficult of circumstances. Such critical voices are important as they demonstrate that class war does not stop, even under imperialist war. They also give lie to the claims of certain anarchists in the West who have made “listening to voices from Ukraine” synonymous with the defence of the Ukrainian state."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-09-10/a-report-on-socio-economic-unrest-in-ukraine

"Workers’ councils have a prominent place in our agitation. Recently we have received a number of questions regarding what we mean by workers’ councils, what we think is the relationship between political organisations and workers’ councils, and what might workers’ councils look like today. Our answers to these questions are, as always, informed by the experience of the class struggles of the past."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-09-12/the-meaning-of-workers-councils-in-the-21st-century

"The following article is our translation of a critique of Juche by the group Internationalist Communist Perspective in South Korea. We publish it here as a contribution to the analysis of a Stalinist legacy which still “weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living” (Marx)."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-09-15/juche-stalinism-and-maoism-with-feudal-characteristics

So far this year the CWO has had stalls at five radical/anarchist bookfairs around the UK (Glasgow, Liverpool, Newcastle, Bradford, London). Peterborough and Manchester still to go!

In each case we tried to put across our internationalist message, to stress the gravity of the situation that the world working class finds itself in. Thanks to everyone who engaged with us at these events and to the organisers for giving us a space.

We now have our own Linktree page which contains links to our website and all our social media.

"More than six months have passed since the war in Ukraine was moved from the level of "frozen" civil war (with 14,000 deaths between 2014 and early 2022) to full-blown imperialist proxy conflict between the US and NATO on the one hand and Russia on the other. In that time the US has reasserted itself, after its humiliating defeat in Afghanistan last year, as the leader of the NATO imperialist alliance in Europe. The US is now effectively setting the agenda for NATO's policy with regards to the war in Ukraine."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-09-27/war-in-ukraine-no-war-but-the-class-war

"Across Russia, the announcement of the mobilisation was met with spontaneous demonstrations throughout the day in 39 cities, notably including Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, and at least 1,332 people were arrested on Wednesday. It was one of the most important protests in the country since those that followed the announcement of the offensive on Ukraine."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-09-28/demonstrations-against-the-mobilisation-great-getting-rid-of-capitalism-that

"We will deal with the political aspects of the protests in Iran in our next article, but for now, we publish translations of three statements, from the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Workers’ Syndicate, the Council for Organising Protests by Oil Contract Workers and the Coordinating Council of Trade Union Organisations of Iranian Teachers."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-09-29/workers-voices-on-the-protests-in-iran

"The article which follows is a translation from Battaglia Comunista, paper of our sister organisation in Italy. Its title refers to the slogan that Giorgia Meloni, leader of the ultra-right Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d'Italia) party, repeated throughout the electoral campaign: “I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am a Christian”. She will now become Italy’s first female prime minister but has hardly had a resounding victory."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-10-06/italian-elections-bring-far-right-to-power

"Because the path to the Third World War goes through the progressive impoverishment of the working population, the way to oppose this march to the slaughterhouse is to resolutely advance our needs as a class. Today, the priority need for workers everywhere is higher wages. The cost of living is shooting through the roof. The price of rent is outrageously high in Toronto and the surrounding area. Food and energy costs have increased. These are issues that affect the entire working class. The only way to push back this assault from the capitalists against the working class is for us to unify as a class, across all divisions, be they industrial sector or identity."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-10-08/no-war-but-the-class-war-statement-from-nwbcw-toronto

"In the coming days, we will likely see more protests, however the repression will certainly continue with more violence and more arrests. The announcement and call of the teachers' coordinating council on the eleventh day of the protests had a positive effect and brought more students to the square. The idea of a general strike among militants is floating about. As we are writing, social activists are distributing flyers to "link strikes to protests". A large number of worker-leaders and activists are in prison, a new chapter has begun, political Islam has been hit by protesters, the scope of this assault can cover not only all of Iran but the entire region. And it has the potential to fuel the class struggle, as this movement progresses and develops, or on the contrary, as it declines and recedes."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-10-11/iran-on-the-hijab-as-labour-discipline-and-the-slogan-of-woman-life-freedom

"The claims about the revolutionary nature of what has been happening in Northern Syria are essentially based on two assertions: 1) the progressive political agenda of the authorities, and 2) the existence of a grassroots social movement on the ground. The Communist Left has from the very beginning been highly critical of attempts to portray Rojava as some kind of alternative to capitalism. However, after 10 years of existence, there is now enough information out there to test the claims of the believers against reality and answer the question of what kind of society actually exists in Rojava."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-10-12/rojava-the-myths-and-the-reality

"Empty are the capitalists’ slogans of democracy, national self-determination, rule of law, and peace between nations. What do these abstract ideals mean in reality except as an excuse for food shortages in Africa, the coming cold winter in Berlin, cities reduced to rubble in Ukraine, and mass refugees? Empty are all the capitalist slogans of national unity and social peace when it is only the working class at the forefront of this suffering, as we clearly see here in Montreal and is apparent all around the world. Empty are the Russian slogans of “de-nazification,” equal partnership, and sovereignty next to civilian bombings, energy profiteering, and the slaughter of a generation of young Russian and Ukrainian workers."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-10-19/no-war-but-the-class-war-statement-from-nwbcw-montreal