The violent abduction and disappearance of 43 students in the state of Guerrero in September has plunged Mexico into a deep social and political crisis. The case of the Ayotzinapa students has brought the masses onto the streets and convulsed the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto.

It is now seven weeks since the police attacked students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training college and then kidnapped 43 of the survivors and handed them over to a drug cartel. The brutal incident in the town of Iguala, Guerrero, acted as the proverbial last straw, opening up a wave of mass protests which continues to grow and spread.

Yesterday hundreds of thousands marched in Mexico city and tens of thousands more in dozens of other cities across Mexico to protest at the kidnapping of 43 student-teachers from Ayotzinapa. They were clear in pointing the finger squarely at the Mexican state. The actions were part of a widespread nationwide 48 hour student strike which continues today.

The undersigned organisations join in the call by students from the Rural Normal of Ayotzinapa and the National People's Assembly for a day of action on October 22 and we extend internationally. We appeal for the organisation of protest actions at Mexican embassies and consulates around the world that day.

It is now a month since the beginning of the movement of students at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) in Mexico. This is a huge movement involving tens of thousands of students in dozens of schools, mass assemblies with thousands of participants, which has forced the national government to make important concessions in order to prevent a general explosion of the youth movement.

The horrendous incident in which police officers opened fire on students killing 6 people and injuring 17 and then kidnapped another 43 and handed them over to a drug cartel, has brought out sharply the depth of the rottenness of the Mexican capitalist state, to what degree its structures are linked with those of the drug cartels, and finally, how they stop at nothing in suppressing anyone they perceive as a threat to their interests.

Since late July 2013, an important and radical sector of Mexican’s National Teachers Union has staged massive protests and called for a sectorial strike that, even if many times interrupted and not followed by the majority of the Trade Union, has shaken the ground in the country.

La manifestación que recordaba la represión contra el movimiento estudiantil en 1971 -cuando fueron asesinados decenas de estudiantes y trabajadores- terminó con una nueva represión. De una forma muy similar a los acontecimientos del 1° de diciembre, cuando tomó posesión Peña Nieto, una vez más fueron apresados compañeros de forma arbitraria.

The first national congress of Morena, the Movement for National Regeneration, was held on November 19^th. This is the new left-wing political formation promoted by Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), formerly the leader of the left wing of the PRD [the Democratic Revolutionary Party]. Here we provide a report by the Marxists of the Izquierda Socialista who took part in the congress.

The humble headquarters of a Mexican student organisation, CLEP-CEDEP, “accidentally” burned down on the morning of the 26th of October. As expected, no one has claimed responsibility and the police, as well as the authorities of the Instituto Politecnico Nacional (National Polytechnic Institute - IPN), have given up pursuing the investigation and have decided that a short-circuit caused the fire (a “short-circuit” in a building where power is turned off every night). Once again, what is clearly a politically motivated attack – possibly conducted by the police itself – against a left wing organisation, will be filed for all eternity as a simple accident.

Mass street protests have erupted against electoral fraud in Mexico. The official version of the results of the presidential election on 1 July gave Enrique Peña Nieto, the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) 38.21% of the vote, with 31.59% for leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), and 25.41% for Josefina Vázquez Mota of the conservative National Action Party (PAN). The small New Alliance party got 2.29%.

For them, it was over very soon. Less than a couple of hours after the polling stations were closed, the night of July 1, the main monopoly television stations were already declaring the victory of bourgeois candidate, Pena Nieto, of the hated Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The newspaper “El Universal” had already printed in advance its morning edition with Pena Nieto on the cover as the “winner” in the country’s presidential elections. They had in fact planned this months and years ahead and just couldn’t wait a few more hours for such niceties as an official declaration of results!

“It will be the biggest march of your life” a comrade of La Izquierda Socialista (Marxist wing of Morena) told me before Wednesday, 27th of June, when leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), like other candidates in the coming Mexican presidential elections, was to hold his final election rally or ‘cierre de campaña’ (campaign closing) as it is called here.

It came like a bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky, but now that is here it is not going away, anytime soon. I am talking about the #Yosoy132 movement here, which has mobilised tens of thousands of youth (and not only youth) all over Mexico in opposition to Enrique Peña Nieto of the bourgeois authoritarian Party of Institutionalized Revolution (PRI), the lead bourgeois candidate in the coming Presidential Elections of July 1.

On 23rd of March 2012, ‘Fundacion MEPI’, a NGO that dubs itself as a ‘regional investigative journalism project based in Mexico’ published a report on the participation of youth in the upcoming presidential elections on July 1. Reporting that there will be the decisive number of 24 million voters between the ages of 18 and 29, it however portrayed its own grim outlook on youth, claiming that most of them are not interested in the elections and are not participating. It suggested some gimmick solutions, such as the presidential candidates getting more active on Facebook and Twitter!