"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

"As we get to grips with the destruction that capitalism is capable of inflicting on the world and humanity, and which it looks increasingly likely to turn towards, as militant internationalists we must not fall into the pessimism of saying that all is lost and waits for the final collapse. We must not go down the road that some have taken, which says that the working class has lost its ability to fight, ignoring the growing evidence to the contrary."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-10-22/russia-s-annexations-in-ukraine-are-another-step-towards-global-imperialist-war

"As the protest movement in Iran develops, we publish here a few more translations of recent statements from the Council for Organising Protests by Oil Contract Workers and the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Workers’ Syndicate. Their decision to go on strike has inevitably been met with repression by the regime. Despite this, as they say themselves, they remain hopeful that workers "can play their historical role in directing and uniting the street protests, in order to herald emancipation from oppression and exploitation.”"

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-10-27/as-protests-continue-workers-strike-in-iran

"Facing its own deep crisis, the capitalist class has one message to the world working class: tighten your belts and forward march! Offloading their losses onto workers and imperialist rivalry are the two solutions to the crisis the ruling class has formulated."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-10-28/tighten-your-belts-and-forward-march

"As the war progresses, the intensity of the bosses’ attacks at the workers becomes more frequent and severe. Ukrainian courts have recently pushed through Law 2136 and Law 5371, enabling employers to bypass national labour laws entirely. The Ukrainian state makes it clear that even when workers are not marched off to the front, they remain disposable pawns for capital. Russian workers are also crushed under the same double conflict. A spontaneous strike broke out in June at the Ural Compressor Plant in Yekaterinburg, led by hundreds of workers over more than 20 million roubles in unpaid wages. The recent partial mobilisation and the size of post-sanction fossil fuel windfalls reaped by the Russian state spells urgent danger for workers on both sides of the conflict. The ‘Achema’ strike offers us a snapshot of the need for workers’ struggle by their own means and to oppose imperialist war on that basis."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-10-29/business-as-per-emergency-bill-strike-at-achema-plant-in-lithuania

The working class worldwide is fighting massive cuts in its living standards while in Ukraine workers are being press-ganged and sent to be slaughtered as cannon fodder in an imperialist war. The Ukraine war is a dress rehearsal for a Third World War, the inevitable outcome of competing imperialist interests. The root cause of all this is the capitalist system itself which has now become a threat to human existence. How should revolutionaries react to the present situation? Come to a discussion of these issues at our public meeting.

"Just to show that the No War but the Class War (NWBCW) initiative supported by the ICT is neither immediatist nor something new in our political methodology, we are republishing here the appeal for a united proletarian front against the war that the Internationalist Communist Party put out during the Second World War."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-10-31/1944-appeal-of-the-internationalist-communist-party-for-the-creation-of-a-united

The war in Ukraine has intensified the antagonism between rival imperialisms, with neither side willing to back down. NATO's decision to integrate Sweden and Finland, and Russia's recent annexations of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaphorizhia, are leading both into a more generalised, possibly nuclear war. Meanwhile, closer to home, wages continue to fall in real terms against inflation, and many will soon have to choose between whether to eat or keep the heat and lights on this winter. The working class have begun to fight back, but the usual suspects are cynically co-opting the rage and fury for their own ends. The working class needs its own internationalist organisations to dismantle the capitalist system and create a new world without war or immiseration. Join us in Glasgow to discuss the future of the class war and what the working class must do to win it!

"After six weeks of bloody protests in Iran, which resulted in the death of more than 200 people, what is going on in the minds of the protesters on the streets of Iran? What is the next step? Will the Islamic Republic be overthrown as the saying goes: "dictators neither listen nor reform, dictators are only overthrown"? If yes, how? And the more important question, what will replace it? This note tries to briefly review the background of imperialist rivalry in the region and the attempts of various imperialist camps to use the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement in line with their own goals."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-11-02/iran-imperialist-rivalries-and-the-protest-movement-of-woman-life-freedom

"The contract passed with a slim margin of 54%, with 46% of workers bitterly rejecting it. Due to the underhanded tactics of union bureaucrats in collaboration with the Weyerhaeuser corporation, one of the largest strikes in over a decade in the Pacific Northwest has been broken, resulting in a miserable sellout contract. Despite a massive propaganda and intimidation campaign by union officials, the company and local media outlets, a large number of workers are beginning to see the controlled opposition (aka the union apparatus) for what it is — just another tool of the companies to thwart effective strike action. In response, workers have already begun to self-organize by forming independent forums from which to voice their opposition."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-11-05/weyerhaeuser-workers-not-finished-yet

"Biden's austerity isn't anything new. In fact, it's been the go-to method for the capitalist class in the US and all over the world for half a century. Faced with diminishing returns of profits from their system, world capitalism has resorted to ever more vicious methods of breaking the backs of workers through forcing us to work longer hours while our wages are cut or devalued through inflation."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-11-06/inflation-cuts-workers-real-wages-with-no-end-in-sight