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2025 New Year Statement

Socialism against oligarchy, fascism and war

Underlying the interlinked crises of the capitalist system is an oligarchy that subordinates all of society to profit and the accumulation of personal wealth. The fight against the oligarchy is by its very nature a revolutionary task.

Ko is the second major politician to face anti-graft investigations and charges since President Lai Ching-te took power in May 2024. Both have shown an interest in competing for president in 2028, and they were and continue to be Lai’s political opponents.

Shih-Yu Chou

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Seventh Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (UK)

Introduction by Thomas Scripps to resolution “War, the class struggle and the tasks of the Socialist Equality Party”

We are publishing the speech introducing the resolution “War, the class struggle and the tasks of the Socialist Equality Party” at the Seventh National Congress of the SEP (UK) given by Tom Scripps, its assistant national secretary. The resolution was passed unanimously. Scripps was re-elected to his position by the Congress.

Thomas Scripps

Film, television and politics in 2024

Amid war, austerity and the promotion of far-right forces, a major radicalisation of workers and youth is underway. Films and television series have spoken very weakly so far to these complex, convulsive processes.

David Walsh, Joanne Laurier

Assessing popular music in 2024

In a year of historic crises and growing working class opposition, popular music in 2024 remained largely removed from the burning issues shaping global reality, with some notable exceptions.

James Martin, Erik Schreiber, Matthew Brennan

Impeached South Korean president blocks arrest

The danger of another declaration of martial law or military coup remains in South Korea as Yoon makes clear he intends to cling to power, emboldened by the rolling back of protests by the opposition party.

Ben McGrath

US police killed record number of people in 2024

For over 10 years, Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group, has documented a steady increase in police killings in the United States, including over 1,250 in 2024.

Jacob Crosse

Stock market bubble gets even bigger

The US market has risen by more than 40 percent in the past two years on the basis of speculative hype and expectations over high-tech and AI.

Nick Beams

“Feminist foreign policy” in action: German Foreign Minister Baerbock meets al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria

When Green foreign minister Annalena Baerbock presented her “Guidelines for a Feminist Foreign Policy” in March 2023, we wrote that this project, as absurd as it is reactionary, was “ultimately about enforcing geostrategic and economic interests.” If necessary, this would also be done in “close cooperation with the most reactionary regimes in the world.”

Johannes Stern

US imperialism seeks to restructure political relations in Lebanon after Israeli invasion

The US is building a new $1.2 billion fortified embassy on a 43-acre site near Beirut whose declared purpose is to counter the “Axis of Resistance”, meaning Iran. Its scale, out of all proportion to the country’s size, is indicative of US geo-political interests in Lebanon, with its strategic location and newly found sources of gas and oil under the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

Jean Shaoul

This week in history: January 6-12

Öcalan death sentence delayed; Soviet Union launches Soyuz 17; Nkrumah independence campaign in Gold Coast; Polish nationalist campaign on Danzig.

Kurdish nationalist DEM Party delegation meets imprisoned PKK leader Öcalan

The renewed negotiations between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers Party, which Turkey has been trying to suppress for 40 years, are part of the war in the Middle East--which has escalated with the genocide committed by Israel in Gaza, the struggle for the division of Syria, and the efforts of the US imperialism to reshape the region.

Barış Demir

Petition against the frame-up of the Socialist Laborers Party in Turkey

The Socialist Laborers Party in Turkey has launched a petition against the frame-up “terror” charges targeting its leader and many members. The World Socialist Web Site and the Sosyalist Eşitlik Grubu, notwithstanding their political differences with the SLP, oppose this sham police operation and support the petition.

Ulaş Ateşçi

COP29, climate change and the normalization of mass death

The latest climate summit embraced the same policy that has been adopted since such climate talks began in 1995: the subordination of Earth’s environment and the lives of those impacted to the corporate and economic demands of the United States and the other major capitalist powers.

Bryan Dyne

Namibia elections see declining support for ruling SWAPO

SWAPO’s decline and that of other anti-colonial national movements have exposed the organic incapacity of Africa’s bourgeois nationalists to realise the aspirations of the African masses for freedom from foreign domination, democracy and social justice.

Alejandro López

Chad ends longstanding military cooperation with France

Chad, a former African colony of France, has for decades been central to its military operations in Africa, but it is developing closer ties to Russia amid the NATO war with Russia in Ukraine.

Kumaran Ira
84 years since the assassination of Leon Trotsky

Trotsky's assassination was the greatest political crime of the 20th century. Alongside Vladimir Lenin, Trotsky was the leader of the 1917 October revolution in Russia, which led to the establishment of the first workers’ state in history, and the preeminent strategist of world socialist revolution.

Wisconsin judge strikes down Act 10, the law behind mass 2011 protests

Act 10 stripped public sector employees in the state of their collective bargaining rights, allowing them to bargain only over wages—with increases capped at the rate of inflation—while prohibiting negotiations for improved safety, benefits, and working conditions.

Bill Shaw

University of Michigan DEI administrator fired over alleged “antisemitic” remarks

Dawson was terminated despite the admission of an investigating law firm hired by U-M that there was no independent verification of alleged “antisemitic” remarks. A member of the Board of Regents, Mark Bernstein, intervened to overturn a lesser disciplinary action by the university and demand that she be terminated.

Matthew Brennan

After fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO

Jacobin promotes Bernie Sanders to peddle illusions in the Democrats and “Medicare for All”

While the gunning down of the UnitedHealthcare CEO has exposed widespread public opposition to the criminal practices of the health insurance corporations and capitalism generally, Jacobin has published an interview with Bernie Sanders aimed at reviving illusions in the Democratic Party and reform of the healthcare system.

Kevin Reed
The Gaza genocide and the death of Aaron Bushnell: What are the political lessons?

This lecture was given by World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, March 12.

On the 50th anniversary of the Chilean coup

Fifty years after Chile’s horrific September 11 coup, its political relevance is becoming ever more urgent as the specter of dictatorship once again haunts the political life of Latin America.

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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

Analyzing a World in Chaos from an Island of Tranquility

This speech was given by David North at the second international commemoration of the work of Leon Trotsky on Büyükada (Prinkipo), Turkey, during the first period of his exile from the Soviet Union between 1929 and 1933.

David North

On the anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky

Eighty-four years ago today, on August 20, 1940, Leon Trotsky was assassinated by an agent of the Stalinist secret police, the GPU, in his villa in Coyoacan, Mexico, where he spent the final three years of his life as a political exile.

David North
One Hundred Years Since the Death of Lenin

January 21 marked 100 years since the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924. This page includes a collection of essays reviewing the life and ideas of the great Marxist theoretician, founder of the Bolshevik Party, and co-leader of the Russian Revolution.

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

The essays in this book, though written over the span of more than 40 years, are connected by a central argument: Leon Trotsky was the most significant figure in the history of socialism during the first four decades of the twentieth century, and his legacy remains the critical and indispensable theoretical and political foundation of the ongoing contemporary struggle for the victory of world socialism.

Order your print or epub version of the book from Mehring Books today.

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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
25 years since the death of Vadim Rogovin

Vadim Z. Rogovin (10 May 1937 – 18 September 1998) was a Soviet Marxist sociologist and historian. Working in close collaboration with the International Committee of the Fourth International, Rogovin helped lay the foundations for the Trotskyist movement’s fight against the post-Soviet school of historical falsification, including in his six-volume Was There an Alternative? This page collects major essays and commemorations on Rogovin as well as links to his own writings.

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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

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
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.

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.

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

Aidan Beatty’s hackwork: The Israel-Zionist connection

The academic career of prominent DSA member Aidan Beatty, the author of a slanderous trash biography of long-time Trotskyist leader Gerry Healy, has been funded by Zionist institutions and Israeli-state sources.

Andrea Peters
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.

2025 New Year Statement

Socialism against oligarchy, fascism and war

Underlying the interlinked crises of the capitalist system is an oligarchy that subordinates all of society to profit and the accumulation of personal wealth. The fight against the oligarchy is by its very nature a revolutionary task.

WSWS Editorial Board

The right-wing legacy of Jimmy Carter

The media eulogies of the former president, who died Sunday, are silent on his initiation of a frontal assault on the working class and, above all, his effort to smash the 1977-78 coal miners’ strike by invoking the Taft-Hartley Law.

Patrick Martin
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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New Zealand: Court action continues over Pike River mine disaster

Families of some of the 29 workers killed in the 2010 coal mine disaster are continuing their fight for answers about why authorities dropped charges against Pike River Coal chief executive Peter Whittall over the extremely dangerous conditions in the mine.

Tom Peters