"One year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine nothing has happened to in any way change our view that this is more than a war over Ukraine. It is the next step in the growing imperialist rivalry for economic control of the resources of the planet which capitalist production has so degraded over the last two centuries. It is a real step towards generalised warfare to add to the myriad of conflicts which have already created 100 million refugees across the world."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-02-24/one-year-since-the-invasion-of-ukraine-on-the-road-to-world-war-three
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-02-24/one-year-since-the-invasion-of-ukraine-on-the-road-to-world-war-three
Leftcom
One Year Since the Invasion of Ukraine: On the Road to World War Three?
(Statement of the Internationalist Communist Tendency.) One year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nothing has happened to in any way change our view that this is more than a war over Ukraine. It is the next step in the growing imperialist rivalry for…
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"As explained in our previous issue, we have decided to re-issue a serialised and updated version of an article which appeared almost 50 years ago in only the second edition of the first series of Revolutionary Perspectives, when the group that was to become the CWO was setting out its Marxist political analysis. Apart from some additional commentary, mainly to address concerns by contemporary readers, most of the additions are in fact re-insertions of material from the original draft which had at the time been omitted to save space."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-02-28/capitalism-s-economic-foundations-part-ii
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-02-28/capitalism-s-economic-foundations-part-ii
Leftcom
Capitalism's Economic Foundations (Part II)
(_Part I_ (https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2022-08-31/capitalism-s-economic-foundations-part-i) – _Part II_ – _Part III_ (https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-09-08/capitalism-s-economic-foundations-part-iii) – _Part IV_ (https://www.leftcom.org/…
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"Only by recognising that capitalist society offers them nothing but increasing exploitation and ruinous conditions of life on behalf of a parasitic class can workers direct their efforts to destroy this murderous system and build a new one in which they alone plan production for their collective needs and not individual profit. However, the current union framework offers no such perspective. By agitating nearly exclusively for wage increases and splintering the class amongst each industry and sector, allowing themselves to be constrained by anti-strike legislation, and making bureaucratic manoeuvres behind their members’ backs, they prevent the workers from becoming a genuinely revolutionary class for itself and discovering the necessary political forms it needs to fight back in this intensifying class war."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-03/unite-the-strikes
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-03/unite-the-strikes
Leftcom
Unite the Strikes
On the first of February, 2023, over 500,000 workers walked out in what was the biggest strike day for over a decade. On pickets and rallies across the country, teachers, university lecturers, civil servants, and train drivers all made the same calls for…
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"This year, we repeat the fundamental message that the ‘liberation’ of women in general, and working-class women in particular, can only come about with the end of capitalism. It is only through the destruction of this rotten system that the working class as a whole will be able to establish a genuine human community that can allow everyone to be free."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-08/international-working-women-s-day-against-all-oppression-and-exploitation
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-08/international-working-women-s-day-against-all-oppression-and-exploitation
Leftcom
International Working Women's Day: Against All Oppression and Exploitation!
Since International Working Women’s Day last year, in the midst of war and environmental catastrophe, with the economic crisis making life harder for workers everywhere, there has been a wave of protests in response to issues affecting women in particular.…
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"On 14 February 2023, the "Charter of Minimum Demands of Independent Union and Civil Organisations of Iran" translated below was published with the signatures of 20 organisations and institutions. We don't know much about the background and history of how this Charter has come about, but we have previously reported on the struggles of three of the signatories – 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 – and published some of their statements."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-06/iranian-workers-need-an-internationalist-class-programme
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-06/iranian-workers-need-an-internationalist-class-programme
Leftcom
Iranian Workers Need an Internationalist Class Programme
On 14 February 2023, the "Charter of Minimum Demands of Independent Union and Civil Organisations of Iran" translated below was published with the signatures of 20 organisations and institutions.
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"The reformist Holy Trinity – activism, trade unionism and parliamentarianism – has been joined by the "Enough is Enough" campaign. Its 5 demands are "a real pay rise," cheaper and nationalised energy, using state welfare programs to limit food poverty and homelessness, and – of course – taxing the rich. They talk of "rights", "national disgrace", "government duty", “patriotic gestures” and complain about the "super-rich" and "big businesses." Like "Don’t Pay", this is again an attempt to make capitalism fair. If only the rich were taxed, state spending redistributed and different politicians (Labour) were in control, the system could be made fair. But this system, based on exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class, can never be made fair, and the entire ruling class and their political parties, including Labour, are committed to this."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-12/capitalism-cannot-be-made-fair
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-12/capitalism-cannot-be-made-fair
Leftcom
Capitalism Cannot Be Made Fair
The sudden rise in prices, combined with decades of attacks on wages, have not only produced a surge in strikes, they have also produced new activist-reformist campaigns. The "Don’t Pay" campaign, launched last June, is one. It calls for capitalism to lower…
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"Blinken and Biden have upped their rhetoric here. Not only has Blinken used it as an attempt to gain a “public apology” from China, which China refused. The administration is now making pronouncements that China may be considering supplying lethal military aid to Russia for the war in Ukraine, and that China may have already supplied non-lethal military aid for that purpose (armor, uniforms, etc.), on top of the economic assistance that China has provided Russia in the form of new markets for oil to replace the lost European ones. And this is of course always linked with China’s plans for Taiwan (which the US is now saying it will go to war with China over)."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-14/us-ramps-up-anti-chinese-aggression-amidst-maneuvers-over-ukraine
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-14/us-ramps-up-anti-chinese-aggression-amidst-maneuvers-over-ukraine
Leftcom
US Ramps Up Anti-Chinese Aggression Amidst Maneuvers Over Ukraine
After a Chinese balloon was spotted over Montana and shot down by the US government two days later over South Carolina, the US went into a balloon shooting frenzy. Anything in the sky that the US government and military could not immediately recognize was…
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"The war is not worth a drop of workers’ blood. In imperialist war there are no good sides or lesser evils. Any political support for either side, no matter how qualified, is support for imperialism; it represents abandoning the interests of the working class and supporting those of the capitalists and the crossing of class barricades."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-17/ukraine-war-no-to-imperialist-war-yes-to-class-war
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-17/ukraine-war-no-to-imperialist-war-yes-to-class-war
Leftcom
Ukraine War: No to Imperialist War, Yes to Class War!
February saw the first anniversary of the Ukraine war - a year of massive destruction and massive loss of workers’ lives. As the front lines move back and forth, the US and its NATO allies escalate the supply of deadly weapons to Ukraine. Following the artillery…
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"We don't have to show why it is imperative to reject this new attack, nor is it up for us to propose a more just reform. The balance of the budgets of the bourgeois state, the health of the companies or that of the national economy are none of our business! The concessions, rights or advantages obtained in the interest of the workers are determined by the struggle, the balance of power between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie whose interests are radically opposed. Nothing is secured, as long as capitalism lasts, it will try to take back what it was forced to give up. Instead, we must think about organising our fightback!"
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-20/inflation-pensions-war-spiral-only-open-mass-struggle-can-stop-the-descent-into
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-20/inflation-pensions-war-spiral-only-open-mass-struggle-can-stop-the-descent-into
Leftcom
Inflation, Pensions, War Spiral: Only Open Mass Struggle Can Stop the Descent into Hell Promised by Capitalism
(Leaflet distributed by Bilan et Perspectives during protests against pension reform in France.) While for months, proletarians have seen their real wages decrease due to inflation, and after a reform of the unemployment insurance which considerably restricts…
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"No matter what promises politicians and their parties make to working people to secure our support, we know that these promises, whether kept or unkept, will not make a single dent in the crisis of capitalism or improve our living conditions one bit under this system. Indeed, there is no law that could sate capital’s “vampire thirst for the blood of living labour”. And consequently, no method for running a competitive capitalist economy in the interest of the working class."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-24/nsw-elections-no-matter-which-party-gets-in-power-it-s-capital-who-wins
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-24/nsw-elections-no-matter-which-party-gets-in-power-it-s-capital-who-wins
Leftcom
NSW Elections: No Matter Which Party Gets in Power, It's Capital Who Wins
The last bastion of the Liberal Party is the state of New South Wales. Despite this, Labor has not been able to make the cost-of-living crisis go away, either on a state or national scale. Chris Minns, although condemning the wage cap introduced by the Liberals…
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"We workers have to recognise that "there is no homeland to defend" and that "the only war worth fighting is the class war". We have to take up the struggle of the world proletariat, not that of some nation or ethnicity. The internationalist communists of the world must patiently reorganise their revolutionary forces to build a future international revolutionary party, just as the Zimmerwald left did over a century ago."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-25/from-the-zimmerwald-left-to-the-establishment-of-the-communist-international
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-25/from-the-zimmerwald-left-to-the-establishment-of-the-communist-international
Leftcom
From the Zimmerwald Left to the Establishment of the Communist International
(Translation of an article originally published in _The Communist_ (May 2019 reprinted March 2021), organ of Internationalist Communist Perspective (South Korea).) == September 1915 - March 1919: From the Zimmerwald Left to the establishment of the Communist…
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"The working class across the globe is being asked to pay for the economic effects of its supply chain disruptions be it heating in Berlin or food security in Cairo. The deterioration of real wages is being met by a more proactive state in crushing strikes from the American rail workers to Ontario educators and Newfoundland paramedics. And with the above, it becomes clear that, in the tundra, both the NATO alliance and Russia are digging in as ICBMs in the Kola Peninsula and Nebraska aim at each other."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-27/trenches-of-the-tundra
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-27/trenches-of-the-tundra
Leftcom
Trenches of the Tundra
The media hysteria in February over flying objects and weather/spy balloons flying over American and Canadian airspace points out the increased military importance of the skies of the far north. These objects have left NATO higher-ups embarrassed over the…
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"We reproduce here the statement by the group Camarade, one of whose members was grievously injured by the police during the demonstration on 25 March. We believe that the brutality of police repression, like something out of a war zone, is no accident. It is linked on the one hand to the gravity of the various crises confronting the bourgeoisie, and on the other hand to the ongoing imperialist war."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-28/statement-concerning-s-comrade-who-is-in-a-life-threatening-condition-following
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-28/statement-concerning-s-comrade-who-is-in-a-life-threatening-condition-following
Leftcom
Statement Concerning S., Comrade who is in a Life-Threatening Condition Following the Sainte-Soline Protest
We reproduce here the statement by the _group Camarade_ (https://camaraderevolution.org/index.php/2023/03/26/communique-au-sujet-de-s-camarade-au-pronostic-vital-engage-a-la-suite-de-la-manifestation-de-sainte-soline/), one of whose members was grievously…
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"The mutiny of Terrace is just one of many in our class’s history which dismisses the myth that the Second Imperialist War was a period of social peace on the home front. With today’s imperialist tensions, it serves as a reference against the notion of national unity for the great, justified and heroic slaughter of our class. When the veneer of civilization was coming apart, two class perspectives opposed each other."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-29/the-terrace-mutiny-of-1944
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-29/the-terrace-mutiny-of-1944
Leftcom
The Terrace Mutiny of 1944
Despite being the largest mutiny in Canadian history, the 1944 mutiny of Terrace is given little thought in school textbooks and the general imagination. For us this is no surprise since it is the history of our class. The base around the village of Terrace…
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"Pitched battles in the class war were fought across the country; shipyard workers in Quebec and the Maritimes, workers at the transit system, steel mills, and an aircraft plant in Montreal, steelworkers in Sault-Sainte-Marie, ON, Trenton, ON, and Sydney, Nova Scotia, miners in Kirkland Lake, ON, and Ford auto workers in Windsor all took to illegal strikes in defence of their living conditions."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-31/the-good-war-of-wwii-class-struggle
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-03-31/the-good-war-of-wwii-class-struggle
Leftcom
The "Good War" of WWII: Class Struggle
Capitalist society is marked by the fundamental antagonism between two classes: the working class and capitalist class. Often, however, especially in times of crisis, the capitalists’ politicians and pundits make appeals to “social peace” to dupe the workers…
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"We must demand our wages, demand no sacrifices for the nation or its wars, and struggle to bring an end to the capitalist system that divides humanity into national-imperialist blocs. The working people of Chicago have not been passive through all of this. From health workers at Howard Brown Health Clinic to the service workers at the United Center, workers have shown the courage to stand up and strike. However this effort so far has only taken the form of unionizing efforts which are by design actively limiting and counterproductive to working class organization. In order to see real results we need independent working class organization from all third parties that act only as functionaries and middle management for capitalism and only negotiate wages, benefits, and concessions."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-04-04/no-war-but-the-class-war-statement-from-nwbcw-chicago
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-04-04/no-war-but-the-class-war-statement-from-nwbcw-chicago
Leftcom
No War but the Class War: Statement from NWBCW Chicago
(We publish here the founding statement of _NWBCW Chicago_ (https://chicagonwbcw.wordpress.com/2023/04/03/how-is-this-war-different-from-all-others/). You can follow their activities: _@NWBCWChicago_ (https://twitter.com/NWBCWChicago).) == How is this war…
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"But to truly win workers need to draw the political lessons of these strikes. No matter how many %s our wages increase we will still be at the mercy of capital and its wars. We need to overthrow it and take charge of our own destinies, which will ultimately mean challenging the unions as well as the bosses, but who knows what’s going to happen next week? A return of the wildcat and walkouts? To misquote Lenin, ‘There are weeks where nothing happens; and there are days where weeks happen’."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-04-06/two-comments-on-recent-bus-strikes-in-the-uk
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-04-06/two-comments-on-recent-bus-strikes-in-the-uk
Leftcom
Two Comments on Recent Bus Strikes in the UK
== A Week on the Buses... British strikes are very much like British buses. You hang around for ages for one to turn up, then three arrive, you turn away for a minute to sort out your change but when you look up, they’ve all disappeared! This scenario will…
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"Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a clear outgrowth of a decaying economic system, whose ever frequent crises oblige states to seek out scarce profits by going to war. Predictably, the ruling class has mobilized all its media and other propaganda apparatuses to drag workers the whole world over into a bloody conflict from which we have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Whether in Russia, or in Ukraine and NATO member countries, our exploiters—those who eat and live luxuriously off the wealth that our work creates—expect us to hurl ourselves into the meatgrinder of war for their personal benefit."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-04-08/no-war-but-the-class-war-statement-from-nwbcw-miami
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-04-08/no-war-but-the-class-war-statement-from-nwbcw-miami
Leftcom
No War but the Class War: Statement from NWBCW Miami
(We publish here the founding statement of _NWBCW Miami_ (https://nwbcwmiami.wordpress.com/). You can follow their activities: _@MiamiNwbcw_ (https://twitter.com/MiamiNwbcw).) Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a clear outgrowth of a decaying economic system…
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"The uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, which broke out on 19 April 1943, was a response to the final push to deport the remaining Jews to the death camps. The suppression of the ghetto lasted a month during which some 13,000 died as a result of the fighting. Most of the survivors were then deported. In this context, we present below a translation of a document written by a socialist participant of the uprising. It does not draw any political conclusions, but as an eye-witness report it is of historical interest for its presentation of the events."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-04-11/warsaw-ghetto-and-the-real-cost-of-imperialist-war
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-04-11/warsaw-ghetto-and-the-real-cost-of-imperialist-war
Leftcom
Warsaw Ghetto and the Real Cost of Imperialist War
In September 1939 Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany from the West and Stalinist Russia from the East. Warsaw – a city with a large Jewish population which was further swelled by Jewish refugees fleeing or being expelled from other cities and towns – came…
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"Over the decades, decent, affordable housing has been promised by successive governments and delivered by none. Housing policies have either been totally ineffectual or have made the problem worse. There isn’t a simple ‘get the Tories out’ solution to this. It’s a systemic problem and goes right to the heart of capitalism itself."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-04-14/the-death-of-sheila-seleoane-another-capitalist-housing-scandal
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-04-14/the-death-of-sheila-seleoane-another-capitalist-housing-scandal
Leftcom
The Death of Sheila Seleoane: Another Capitalist Housing Scandal
The tragic death of Sheila Seleoane tells us a lot about modern capitalism. Sheila was a medical secretary who lived alone in a housing association flat. She was an agency worker, so when she died, sometime in 2019, she wasn’t missed at work. In fact the…
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"The cleanup and coverup had as its only priority to get the freight rolling again. There is a military aspect in keeping rail freight running as surely as there was during Wilson's nationalization of the rails. The same reason that last year the federal government forced a settlement to avoid a rail strike is the same reason that Norfolk Southern incinerated the toxic mess left in the wake of the train crash. Disasters like these are recurring reminders of why capitalism must be overthrown."
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-04-21/east-palestine-chemical-disaster-capitalism-goes-off-the-rails
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2023-04-21/east-palestine-chemical-disaster-capitalism-goes-off-the-rails
Leftcom
East Palestine Chemical Disaster: Capitalism Goes Off the Rails
Years of deregulation, decaying transportation infrastructure and increasingly unsafe working conditions led to the conditions that created the East Palestine chemical spill. The means used to clean up the spill initially involved burning the chemicals off.…
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