Around half a million workers took strike action across Britain on 1 February in the biggest wave of strikes for over a decade. - IV577 - February 2023 / Britain, Trade unions/workplace organizing

“The attacks against the Peruvian people, the deaths, the wounds, the beatings, the humiliation, the slander are wounds for all of us, those who aspire to a just society, free from exploitation and oppression.” - IV577 - February 2023 / France, Peru

“Police departments typically have a culture of machismo and an attitude of contempt for Black and Latino people.” - IV577 - February 2023 / United States (USA), Racism

“All these social movements need our solidarity as well as our solidarity against Putin's war.” - IV577 - February 2023 / Ukraine

“We need to remain united, from the bottom to the top. This is why the NPA is working everywhere to bring together trade unions and left-wing parties to demand the withdrawal of the reform. ” - IV577 - February 2023 / France, Trade unions/workplace organizing

Isabel Solís has spent decades participating in struggles for freedom and in defense of life and communal land in Guatemala. - IV576 - January 2023 / Guatemala, Indigenous struggles

“It is an exciting time in Denmark and it could open up whole new possibilities for a left that has had difficulty finding itself and mobilizing in the last few years.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Denmark, Trade unions/workplace organizing

“1 February is a good start but we need far more to stop this massive attack on workers' rights. ” - IV576 - January 2023 / Britain, Trade unions/workplace organizing

On August 22, 2022, coinciding with the 231st anniversary of the start of the Haitian Revolution, the most recent wave of popular mobilizations against the pro-imperialist regime of the Haitian Baldhead Party (PHTK) began. - IV576 - January 2023 / Haiti

More than 20 years later, the Peruvian people have set in motion a mass struggle against a government that wants to assert itself with dictatorial elements. - IV576 - January 2023 / Peru

“Let's make the voice of social movements heard in Marrakech next October. We want to demonstrate the power of organized peoples, defend popular sovereignty and promote social and environmental justice.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Morocco, Global Justice, Debt

“From the past situation of Abe's politics, the fascism inherent in “Abeism” emerges. “Abeism” is closely associated with fascism and the fascist movements, if not fascism itself.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Japan, Far Right

“Sixty-two percent of Americans support the right to abortion. While liberals and progressives dominate the abortion rights movement, socialist feminists are also active in it.” - IV576 - January 2023 / United States (USA), Women

“Whether for traffickers, the mafia or "honourable" business leaders, exporting waste to Africa is a way to earn or save money. But it is also and above all a way to perpetuate a system of overconsumption generating profits, whatever the consequences for the environment.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Ecology and the Environment, Africa

“It is all the more important now to highlight the inadequacy of this agreement and to mentally prepare for the fact that we must therefore act ourselves, that this is the most effective way of imposing higher wages and salaries.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Germany, Trade unions/workplace organizing

“This mobilization is a test: all the trade unions and parties, the whole social and political left, the vast majority of the population, are opposed to the reform. If it passes, the government will feel that it has wings and will steop up the attacks.” - IV576 - January 2023 / France, Trade unions/workplace organizing

Since 16 September, an unprecedented popular uprising has shaken the Islamic Republic of Iran. The repression has left more than 500 people dead, including 69 minors. To avoid "solutions imposed from outside", many political, social and intellectual figures propose "a real campaign of international solidarity with all those who are mobilising in Iran

First reports show massive support for the day of strikes and action on 19 January in France. Léon Crémieux explains the background. - IV576 - January 2023 / France, Trade unions/workplace organizing

Anti*Capitalist Resistance call for international solidarity on 1 February as the trade union movement resists Tory anti trade union legislation. - News from around the world / Britain, Trade unions/workplace organizing

“Last year alone, six unions representing 32,000 struck at various hospitals across the United States. They have done so with great sympathy from the public, which has viewed the nurses as heroic.” - IV576 - January 2023 / United States (USA), Trade unions/workplace organizing, Public services

“Today, we seek to renew the thread of the construction of a useful party for the exploited and the oppressed.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Fourth International, New parties of the left, Mexico

“Arend van de Poel was above all a rock-solid and reliable party-activist […] equally sharp and erudite.” - In Memoriam - Obituaries and appreciations / Netherlands, Obituary

The latest developments in the ongoing strike wave in the United Kingdom, as workers fight for higher pay while the Conservatives prepare new anti-union legislation. - IV576 - January 2023 / Britain, Trade unions/workplace organizing

At first glance, the trajectories of Russia and China in the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries seem very similar: from revolution to reintegration into the capitalist world market at the risk of (again) becoming dominated countries, followed by a rebound leading to the affirmation of two new imperialisms. On closer inspection, these trajectories

“So far, the German government has successfully conveyed the image: Putin is to blame for inflation, but the government is helping out.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Germany, Economy

The internationally-renowned intellectual was arrested in late November 2022, joining an ever-growing list of political prisoners detained by the Ortega regime. - IV576 - January 2023

“In many cases, rights groups deemed that those killed did not pose an explicit threat to the lives of the Israeli soldiers when they were killed. ” - IV576 - January 2023 / Palestine, Israel

Despite different approaches toward the pandemic, the US and China share a commitment to capital accumulation. - IV576 - January 2023 / China, Covid-19 Pandemic

“We had to first bring back the left and insert left issues into the centre of Polish political debate. We had to bring back social protest and unionising into everyday Polish political practice — and we succeeded. These were our motivations.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Poland, New parties of the left

“The last time the United States saw violent, rightist politicians in Congress was in the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s to the 1940s.” - IV576 - January 2023 / United States (USA), Far Right

“n addition to the immediate response, we need to go further and take action to undo the coup agents, put them behind bars and begin to nip the evil in the bud, taking advantage of the enormous rejection in all layers of Brazilian society and even in the international community.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Brazil, Far Right

“The invasion of the National Congress, the Federal Supreme Court and the Alvorada Palace represents an attempted coup d'état.” - News from around the world / Brazil, Far Right

The war in Ukraine has revealed the growing rift between Western and African countries. The US is trying to overcome the consequences of its two-decade-long political apathy on the continent. - IV576 - January 2023 / United States (USA), Africa

“How does this exactly change our strategy around international solidarity as socialists? We must rethink what “the main enemy is at home” means in practice. Of course, this is not to abandon the struggle against imperialism in the West, but to expand our horizons to target sites where different states intersect with each other and international institutions.”

“The war determined the main directions of Social Movement's activity. The first priority was to help the victims of Russian aggression, as well as those who stood up to defend their homeland.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Ukraine

Interview with François Sabado by Mathieu Dejean published in Mediapart on 26 December 2022. - Features / France, New parties of the left

“My job is never to tell you want to think but to draw you into a conversation and really invite you into a world where you have maybe never walked before and when you have finished and put that life down and come back into your own, you are different, you have felt something for the theoretical other… for me that is a political act.” - Reviews section / United States

The war in Ukraine has generated a vast amount of reportage, analysis, opinion and debate (and also propaganda and disinformation), but the voices of the Ukrainian Left – socialists, feminists, union activists – are too seldom heard. - Reviews section / Ukraine, Reviews

Kohei Saito is an associate professor at Tokyo University and an erudite Marxist scholar. Not a candidate for a best-seller in the non-fiction book world, you might think. But you would be wrong in this case. - Reviews section / Marxism, Ecology and the Environment, Economy, Reviews

Can global capitalism endure? William Robinson tries to answer this question in his book entitled with the same question. Robinson is professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In a fast-moving account, Robinson covers a lot of ground in offering the reader a vision of the global capitalist crisis and the accompanying international

“The immigration crisis has largely been caused by U.S. foreign policies and neoliberal economic policies everywhere […]. Now climate change also forces farmers from their lands and drives them to migrate.” - IV576 - January 2023 / United States (USA), Migration

“The heavy monsoon rains from mid-June to September resulted in flash floods and standing water across Pakistan, causing human and livestock casualties as well as widespread destruction of homes and infrastructure.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Pakistan, Solidarity after disasters

For over a decade, Russian antifascists have commemorated January 19 as their day of solidarity. This is the date when in 2009, in the center of Moscow, the human rights and leftist activist Stanislav Markelov and the journalist and anarchist Anastasia Baburova were gunned down by neo-Nazis. - IV576 - January 2023 / Russia, Protest movements

What happens to Russia after peace is achieved? How can we overcome the consequences of the February catastrophe? What political and economic measures can we anticipate today? - IV576 - January 2023 / Russia

In South Korea, there was a focus on hate and discrimination against transgender people in 2020 and 2021, when the Covid-19 backlash targeted LGBTIQ people. - Sexual politics / South Korea, LGBT

“Meanwhile looking forward to the New Year, as well as continuing action from many groups of workers who have been striking over recent months, new groups could be joining the campaign for fair pay.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Britain, Trade unions/workplace organizing

“In short, Bolsonaro was defeated electorally. Everything leads us to believe that the PT is trying to recompose alliances from above, and to make it difficult for workers to organize themselves. […] After a small moment of respite, the struggle has only just begun.” - IV576 - January 2023 / Brazil

The smoke has cleared, or more accurately thickened, over the U.S. midterm election results. The result of the Georgia Senate runoff means that Democratic control of the Senate (51-49) will become a bit less razor-thin. Has the crisis of “our democracy” passed? Not by a long shot. - IV575 - December 2022 / United States (USA)

“Thirty years of the Oslo Accords, thirty years of the apartheid regime, thirty years of concession after concession by the Zionist Left to the extreme Right, thirty years of refusing cooperation with Arab society, thirty years of maintaining the “national consensus” -– all of these paved the way for Ben Gvir.” - IV575 - December 2022 / Israel

“The turning point that this congress represents in the history of the NPA also comes at a political moment in which the terrain on the French left is moving and which demands political reflection, tactical flexibility and capacity for dialogue with the other political forces. ” - IV575 - December 2022 / France, New parties of the left

A statement from a variety of campaigning organisations about the debates at COP 15 on biodiversity in Montreal from December 7-19 issued during the debates there - IV575 - December 2022 / Ecology and the Environment, Debt

“It is very doubtful that Peru's oligarchy will be able to bring political stability to the country. Since 2016 the country has had 6 presidents, none of whom has completed their mandate, and the impeachment of Castillo has let the genie (militant mass mobilizations) out of the bottle and it looks pretty unlikely they will be able to put it back. ” - IV575 - December

In 1965, Ho Chi Minh described U.S. President Lyndon Johnson's half-baked $1 billion gift to the Vietnamese – and simultaneous threat of endless bombing – as a “rotten carrot and broken stick.” The National Liberation Front's aim was to achieve full-fledged sovereignty in a unified country by defeating the world's most powerful army, an awesome task yet one

Contrary to a notion that spread in 2022, the global food crisis started before the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the rise in the cereal prices due to speculation. On a global scale, from 2014 to 2021, the number of people affected by serious food insecurity increased by over 350 million, from 565 to 924 million. The rate of increase was particularly sharp from

“Unfortunately, war is not the only enemy of Ukrainian workers, who are simultaneously facing frontal attacks from their own government on labour rights and trade union freedoms.” - IV575 - December 2022 / Ukraine

“Despite the crackdown, the regime has failed to quell the uprising. To save their power and privileges, its dignitaries have decided to take it to the next level. The judiciary holds show trials and sentences detainees to long prison terms. Death sentences are multiplying.” - IV575 - December 2022 / Iran, Protest movements

“The reasons for this historic standstill are not unknown to us: every day we feel the disastrous effects of disinvestment in the public health service, the inadequacy of ratios or the loss of wages.” - News from around the world / Britain, Portugal, Trade unions/workplace organizing, Public services

Maurice Ferares 5 January 1922 - 18 December 2022, member of the Dutch section of the Fourth International. - In Memoriam - Obituaries and appreciations / Netherlands, Obituary, Fourth International

“They're doubling down on their union-busting, so we're doubling down, too,” said Michelle Eisen, a barista from a Starbucks café in Buffalo, New York that was the first to vote for the union a year ago. - IV575 - December 2022 / United States (USA), Trade unions/workplace organizing

This contribution highlights the effects of this war in the opposite direction to what Putin was seeking, both in Ukraine - on the basis of popular mobilizations for dignity - but also in its Eurasian neighbourhood, as well as in NATO and the EU. It discusses interpretations of a NATO essentialized as hostile to Russia and of a reactive Russian war. While underlining

FI supporters in the Chinese diaspora outline the significance of the ongoing protest movement in China and their stance to it in this statement approved by the Bureau. - IV575 - December 2022 / China, Protest movements

“Even if a football victory succeeds in making people forget for a few days their terrible living conditions, the feeling of discontent and contempt (Hogra) of the working classes will return.” - IV575 - December 2022 / Morocco

“So while there is a new leadership, it has not been propelled to power either by a widespread militant worker upsurge in the workplaces nor by a powerful movement for reform.” - IV575 - December 2022 / United States (USA), Trade unions/workplace organizing

“Labour are now to the right of the Tories on immigration”. - IV575 - December 2022 / Britain

“What is important is to challenge transphobic behavior and attitudes continuously rather than being bound by the peripheral argument about the transgender peoples' movement.” - IV575 - December 2022 / Japan, LGBT

In an almost inexplicable leap into the void, the Peruvian president tried to shut down Congress, a Congress which wanted to remove him. A few minutes later, he was arrested and replaced by the vice president. - IV575 - December 2022 / Peru

Feminists in South Korea are planning to conduct nationwide protests against gender-based violence this weekend, the first to occur simultaneously in several major cities since the pandemic. - IV575 - December 2022 / Women, South Korea

“The Korean crisis contributes to the general dynamic of militarization underway on the Eurasian continent and in the Indo-Pacific, with its attendant humanitarian disasters, from Ukraine to Burma, as it contributes to the acceleration of global warming that has spiralled out of control.” - IV575 - December 2022 / South Korea, Japan, North Korea

In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx referred to the Napoleonic return to power in the French coup of 1851 as “first as tragedy, then as farce.” There could be no more fitting a characterization of the saga of Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega's conversion — in about as many years as had lapsed from the fall of the first Napoleon Bonaparte

“To achieve these demands, organisation and struggle are a necessary fundamental tool that we workers and the people have.” - IV575 - December 2022 / Peru

“The Ukrainian left should also determine its position on the terms for ending the war, as it cannot adhere unconditionally to the view of Ukraine's government.” - 2022 - Ukraine / Russia, Ukraine

These two articles were published in Socialist Politik's weekly magazine Internationalen no. 47, and can be seen as a quick portrait of the late comrade Göte Kildén. - In Memoriam - Obituaries and appreciations / Sweden, Obituary

Foxconn workers' struggle served as a key prelude to the A4 Revolution, and we must continue to bridge between workers and broader mass struggles. We encourage global allies to organize their own protests at Apple stores to support Foxconn workers and other Chinese workers under threat. - News from around the world / China, Trade unions/workplace organizing

A joint statement published in Against the Current, New Politics, Spectre, and Tempest. - IV575 - December 2022 / China

“The reasons for the anger are many but all converge towards the same consequence: the end of the month is increasingly difficult for the popular classes.” - IV575 - December 2022 / Belgium, Trade unions/workplace organizing

“Many railroad workers feel betrayed by Biden and the Democrats and some say they will seek revenge in the next election, which means abstaining, voting Republican, or for a minor party.” - IV575 - December 2022 / United States (USA), Trade unions/workplace organizing

“All these "warnings" should alert us to the capacity of Bolsonarism to ripen the conditions for a new coup d'état in the style of the one carried out against Dilma.” - IV575 - December 2022 / Brazil

“Fortunately, feminist mobilizations in Africa are succeeding in moving the lines and, with each retreat of patriarchy, the right to education for all advances.” - IV575 - December 2022 / Women, Africa

“A few days before the opening of COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, I wrote that this conference would be a “new height of greenwashing, green capitalism and repression”. It was a mistake.” - IV575 - December 2022 / Climate

“Supporting people protesting from below will not escalate the US-led imperial conflict with China. In fact, our popular solidarity across borders is the best way to dampen down tensions and build a common international struggle for justice, equality, and democracy, all of which are under threat from our rulers throughout the world.” - IV574 - November 2022

“There is today a real issue at stake of political polarization, of crystallization on class bases of discontent and of social struggles.” - IV574 - November 2022 / France, Trade unions/workplace organizing

“The movement today has made possible a considerable leap forward in the feminist consciousness of Iranian society, and whatever the outcome of the current confrontation, there will be no turning back.” - IV574 - November 2022 / Women, Iran

“Far from what we might have feared […] the struggles of the working class have not only resumed, but have spread and increased.” - IV574 - November 2022 / Britain, Trade unions/workplace organizing

Belgium is no exception to the wave of strikes in this hot European social autumn. - IV574 - November 2022 / Belgium, Trade unions/workplace organizing

17 November 1973 is one of the key dates in contemporary Greek history and in the country's political and social struggles: following the countless acts of resistance to the fascist regime of the colonels' dictatorship (1967-1974), hundreds of students occupied the Polytechnic University of Athens and popularised their action by calling for the fall of

Faced with the promise of finally seeing his family on Thursday 17 November and after 7 months on hunger strike, Alaa Abdel Fattah, an Egyptian activist imprisoned since 2019, a figure of the 2011 revolution, decided to start eating again on 12 November. - IV574 - November 2022 / Egypt

“This huge strike, especially if it wins, could have a significant impact on other workers, in higher education and public employees.” - IV574 - November 2022 / United States (USA), Trade unions/workplace organizing

“The new military orientation advocated will, without a doubt, continue to be exercised against the peoples in struggle.” - IV574 - November 2022 / Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Benin

“The crisis of the right may not last but will weaken the government in the face of social pressure from the street.“ - IV574 - November 2022 / Greece

“I tend to be a pacifist,” said Ŝabatová, “and I was on 24 February when Russia invaded Ukraine, but when I saw what was happening, I thought, Ukraine has to defend itself. The Ukrainians must defend themselves and we must support the Ukrainians.” - IV574 - November 2022 / Czech Republic, Ukraine

“When the war ends — once again assuming that Russia does not succeed in taking over Ukraine — the experience that working class communities have had in self-organized mutual aid may be the ground for future successes. ” - IV574 - November 2022 / Ukraine, LGBT

“Who should be our first concern in this triangular relationship between Beijing, Taipei and Washington? I argue that it is neither Beijing nor Washington, but the Taiwan people.” - IV574 - November 2022 / United States (USA), China, National question, Taiwan

Mamadou Ba is a leader and spokesperson for the Portuguese association SOS Racismo, and an active voice in the public debate on the origins and realities of racism and is part of a generation of black activists who discuss the country's colonial responsibility with its long-lasting effects. His public exposure makes him a target for far-right organizations

“The debate in the left is whether one can build a future socialist party within the Democratic Party or one must run independent socialist candidates as in the past. All agree that until there is a mass movement of the working class the creation of a socialist party is not on the agenda.” - IV574 - November 2022 / United States (USA)

“Regardless of the energy output the nuclear tests, heightened and intensified regional tensions will endanger geopolitical stability which may trigger unexpected nuclear weapons not only in the Asia-Pacific region but in other parts of the world. ” - IV574 - November 2022 / Japan, China, North Korea

“A blockade of the country by strikes would be the only way to put an end to Mullahrchia.” - IV574 - November 2022 / Iran

Political dissent curdles in an anti-political society - the view of a Russian sociologist. - IV574 - November 2022 / Russia

“The Labour Relief Campaign also organised a Climate Justice rally in Lahore with over 2000 in attendance on 30 September 2022, to raise awareness about different aspects of the climate justice campaign. It also demanded the suspension of Pakistan foreign debts.” - News from around the world / Pakistan, Solidarity after disasters

“This COP will be a new summit of greenwashing, green capitalism and the police state. It is a total illusion to believe that it could take the radical decisions necessary to seriously limit the catastrophe - not to speak of stopping it in a way that respects social justice.” - IV574 - November 2022 / Climate

“Ukrainians are very conscious of what they are doing: they understand that this is an existential threat to their families, their friends, their community and their country.” - IV574 - November 2022 / Russia, Ukraine