"China is currently experiencing the most significant wave of unrest since the labour strikes of the early 2010s, if not since Tiananmen Square. A number of factors are at play here. The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in October already elicited symbolic protest in the form of banner drops which were then circulated online. These expressed widely felt frustrations with the rule of Xi Jinping and the Zero-Covid strategy that China has adopted to fight the virus. However, it was only a sign of things to come as anger and discontent soon spread onto the streets."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-11-28/protests-in-china-not-just-about-covid

"After more than 75 days of protests, the regime's barbaric repression has resulted in over 450 deaths and more than ten thousands arrests. Yet the working class in Iran continues to fight back. The regime's alleged disbandment of the “morality police” seems to have had little effect, as sectors of the oil workers have already begun to strike and many workers are now preparing for a general strike. The two statements translated below were issued in support of three days of action and strikes commencing on 5 December."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-12-06/iran-towards-a-general-strike

"All in all, NWBCW Montreal has thus far been a modest success. It comes with the grave recognition that no outside force will fight for our class – it is up to us to fight in whatever capacity available against the misery and militarism imposed on us by the capitalist class. With this in mind, we are already planning another public meeting on the history of mutinies and strikes by the working class against imperialist war and are orienting NWBCW towards interventions in strikes and other struggles as has been Klasbatalo’s focus during the strikes of the Covid pandemic."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-12-07/report-on-nwbcw-montreal

"For a brief moment, the Ontario education workers’ struggle imposed itself on the public consciousness. News reporters addressed it with a serious tone, young Trotskyists took to Twitter giving empty slogans, union representatives extended Halloween and put on their costumes as labour leaders, Doug Ford came to tears pleading: “please, and I’m begging you, don’t go on strike!”, and Trudeau spoke of his love of collective bargaining to a stunned audience of postal and port workers! But now that the strike has been defeated and Karen Watson kept her pledge (not the 11.5% raise, but that the union is “not on a path to strike”), it is necessary for our class to reflect on its struggle and the role the unions played in sabotaging it."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-12-14/ontario-education-strike-no-union-wants-to-walk-the-picket-line

"To summarise and reiterate our point of view, the behaviour of the "rank and file" unions, which put their ambitions for leadership in the field of "alternative" trade unionism before all else, end up breaking up even that small combative segment of the class which manages to act together, contributing to the fragmentation of struggles and the impossibility of political growth, despite their "internationalist" camouflage against the war. Empty slogans against the war and the war economy are just words in the wind, if they are not accompanied by outlining the revolutionary alternative to capitalism, which is the root cause of wars, and of the sacrifices to which the proletarians are called to make via cuts to healthcare, education, pensions, not to mention environmental disasters."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-12-17/notes-on-the-union-demonstration-of-3-december-in-rome

"In their latest attempt to scare the participants of anti-government protests into submission, the Iranian authorities have resorted to public executions. Mohsen Shekari, accused of injuring a member of the Basij militia, and Majidreza Rahnavard, accused of fatally stabbing two Basij militia volunteers, were both charged with “moharebeh”, or "waging war against God", and hanged. The statements translated below come from the Council for Organising Protests by Oil Contract Workers and the Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Workers’ Syndicate, both of which have called for a united working class response."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-12-22/iran-workers-respond-to-the-executions

"In reality, a strike by rail workers was not “averted,” but instead declared illegal. And the Tentative Agreement was not “adopted” by Congress; rather, the state is forcing an already-rejected contract on workers against their will. We denounce, unequivocally, the state, rail companies, and unions for their attacks against rail workers and the working class at large."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-12-23/statement-on-the-us-rail-workers-struggle

"Due to the capitalist crisis, living conditions are getting worse and worse in Turkey, just like in the rest of the world. With the increasing cost of living, it has become impossible to pay the rent, provide adequate nutrition or socialise. This situation also adversely affects working conditions. Many people have to leave their homes before sunrise and return home after sunset, living without even seeing the sun. At the same time, we hear of children dying of hunger, and people committing suicide because of their debts. In this rather grim picture, it is the struggles of the working class that gives us hope."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-12-27/turkey-nation-or-class

"The document which follows was translated from the Italian pages of our website written by our comrades of Battaglia Comunista. The story is the same the world over. The global capitalist system is in crisis in every sphere you care to mention and, for many, either climate change or war compels them to flee the intolerable conditions in which they find themselves in order to survive. The same powers who are most responsible for their misery (either by growing wealthy as they pollute the planet or by fomenting wars to grab more of its resources) are the very ones who are throwing up the barriers to migration."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-12-29/migrants-and-italy-the-show-must-go-on

In 2022 we published 110 articles on the English section of our website. Here’s a rundown of the 5 most read ones.

1. No War but the Class War - A Call for Action
2. War in Ukraine: Imperialist Rivalry in a Global Economic Crisis
3. Ukraine and Taiwan: Flashpoints in an Uncertain Imperialist World
4. Kazakhstan: The Working Class Attempts to Find its Voice?
5. Internationalism and the War in Ukraine

"The Scholz government was initially opposed to the aggressive course of US imperialism in Ukraine. It was obvious that this fundamentally endangered the interests of German imperialism as the leading power of the EU and its important economic relations with Russia. The Russian invasion of Ukraine changed this abruptly. In view of the new situation that had arisen on the global level, the German government had no choice but to enter into a bloc with US imperialism. It was no coincidence that Scholz spoke of a "turning point" in this context."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-01-01/notes-on-the-political-situation-in-germany

"In other words, the same relations of production that exist in every capitalist country underpin “capitalist-socialism with Chinese characteristics” but the surplus value (extracted in China, as everywhere else, from the exploitation of the proletarian labour force) occurs under the control of a Party that purports to be "communist"."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-01-07/a-spectre-of-capitalist-socialism-is-haunting-china

"What a difference a few years makes! The period between 2015 and 2019, despite being one of the worst for wage growth, saw some of the lowest levels of strike action in the UK since records began. The period of the Covid-19 pandemic, despite revealing how deeply the divide has grown between the ruling class and the rest of society, did not elicit a wider fightback then and there. Yet come 2022, strikes became part of everyday life."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-01-11/notes-on-the-uk-strike-wave

"Guy left us on 4 January 2023. He remained throughout his life a revolutionary militant of the working class."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-01-13/guy-sabatier-an-internationalist

"The World Cup may be over but the scandal of how it came about continues to haunt some of our rulers. The latest episode, as the article which follows highlights, is about the bribery of European MPs although the “Qatargate” label is not new. It first surfaced soon after the World Cup was awarded to Qatar in 2010. Within a short time questions were being asked about how such a bid could have succeeded."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-01-16/qatargate-after-the-world-cup-the-scandal-of-a-decadent-spectacle-goes-on

"Ramping up the anti-migrant rhetoric, Sunak has pledged legislation that goes even further to criminalise illegal entry than the recent Nationality and Borders Act. And it’s all for their own good. After all, who would risk their lives crossing the Channel when they can fly in business class if they really have a genuine asylum claim? The reality is that most asylum seekers are not in a position to apply for visas to come to the UK, say as a tourist or a student and then apply for asylum on arrival. For the majority with extremely limited means small boat crossings are the only option as most other avenues have been closed down."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-01-18/the-migration-crisis-stems-from-the-crisis-of-capitalism

"Everyone who has ears and eyes knows the NHS has been in crisis for decades. The lack of investment has left it with a growing shortage of nurses, doctors and other frontline staff. Callaghan began the cuts at the behest of the IMF in 1976, then Thatcher mothballed the beds and Blair got rid of them. Instead, we have had layer upon layer of well-paid managers imposed on a service which increasingly is forced to rely on more expensive agency staff and private health care to cope with the increasing demand of an ageing population. Now the service is crumbling, there are, at the time of writing, over a hundred thousand unfilled vacancies, many employed by the NHS are crushed by the workload and poorly rewarded, hence the current crop of strikes."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-01-24/our-lives-are-not-safe-in-their-hands

"There is no point pretending that the prospect for 2023 is anything other than dismal. Inflation has come back to haunt capitalism and wage workers throughout the world are facing sharp cuts in their standard of living, if not outright penury. As the economic options for capital in general are narrowing, the politicians’ room for manoeuvre is also becoming more limited."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-01-27/the-outlook-for-2023

"The survival of capitalism in the imperialist phase brings its own logic. Moscow, for instance, is driven towards pursuing the establishment of parity between the rouble and gold in an attempt to recover the value of the rouble and thus re-establish a more favourable exchange rate with the dollar. The prospect of a monetary system made up of currencies based on states that produce and control strategic raw materials (such as Russia and China), payable no longer in dollars but in roubles and yuan, is a bit worrying for some. At stake is command (partial or possibly total) over the entire world, provided that the crisis does not overwhelm both."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-01-31/are-they-going-back-to-gold-to-preserve-money-and-the-rouble

"The first meeting of the committee took place in December. 30-35 internationalists met and were able to discuss the drive towards generalised war and our possible responses. The meeting was split into two parts. The first dealt with the international situation, and the second asked what the committee could do about the war."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-02-02/report-on-nwbcw-paris

"Behind the figures, the implications for daily life are arduous. The health service and the railways are at breaking point. In both cases the pay freeze of the last ten years has produced a massive shortage of nurses (tens of thousands), doctors and train drivers. There are huge shortages of workers in social care and the “hospitality” sectors. Previous shortages were covered to some extent by EU workers but with Brexit many of them have left. Add to this the corruption of billions of pounds’ worth of contracts awarded to government supporters for PPE that never worked or arrived, and the financial meltdown which we have just described, we can see that the economic situation has been made worse by incompetence."

https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-02-05/cost-of-living-the-other-war-on-workers