On 1 May, International Workers’ Day, comrades of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) mobilised all over the globe, raising the standard of revolutionary Marxism. We raised our banners, flags and voices; and through dozens of speeches, and the distribution of thousands of newspapers, books, pamphlets and leaflets, we were able to connect Marxist ideas with more people than ever. Below is a taster of some of this activity.

In this week’s episode of International Marxist Radio, Josh Holroyd, a leading comrade of the International Marxist Tendency and editor of In Defence of Marxismmagazine (issue 41 available now), discusses the early life, works and revolutionary career of Karl Marx, whose 205th birthday we mark on Friday!

The International Marxist Tendency has warned from day one that the government of Gabriel Boric has been marching to the drumbeat of the right. As early as the second round of the presidential elections in 2021, we denounced his populist use of immigration and public security issues in the campaign. With this repressive agenda, he aims to win the support of moderate or depoliticised layers of society and draw them away from the right. Ultimately, this merely adds grist to the mill of the far right. Last month, President Boric spearheaded a policy that was overflowing with betrayals and inconsistency by supporting the enactment of a ‘trigger happy’ law for the police (the ‘Carabineros’,

Lucha de Clases – the Spanish section of the International Marxist Tendency – is proud to present the Spanish translation of Alan Woods' The History of Philosophy: A Marxist Perspective. This book provides a profound and clear overview of the development of human thought. It is now available to order from Libreria Marxista, the bookshop of Lucha de Clases.

This year’s May Day celebrations are taking place against a backdrop of bitter strikes and struggles, with teachers, nurses, and civil servants all walking out in the coming days. To win, the working class needs a revolutionary leadership. This article was originally published by Socialist Appeal on 27 April.

In less than a week, a nationwide strike has broken out across Iran. Beginning on 21 April, with 18 workplaces affected in the oil-gas sector, it has now spread to now involve over 100 workplaces across the mining, steel and oil-gas sectors. The strikes began in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan, but they rapidly spread to Bushehr, Fars, Kerman, Isfahan, Kerman and Yazd province.

On 23 April, 152 comrades of der Funke/l'étincelle (the Spark) – the Swiss section of the International Marxist Tendency – met in Bern to discuss the crisis of capitalism and clarify the tasks of Marxists.

In his inaugural speech as President of France in 2017, Emmanuel Macron said that he wanted to “convince our compatriots that France’s power is not declining, but that we are on the threshold of an extraordinary renaissance”. Since then, the decline of French imperialism has accelerated, both economically, geopolitically and militarily. This is particularly the case in Africa.

During his televised speech on 17 April, French President Emmanuel Macron tried to move on from the uproar surrounding the recent pension reform by promising the Earth to all those who, since 19 January, have mobilised in the streets and have been on strike against this bill.

The carefully maintained picture of a unified bloc of unconditional support for Ukraine turned slightly grainy recently, as Poland imposed import bans on Ukrainian agricultural products. The move widened the rift within the EU as Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria followed suit. These unilateral moves have added to the friction that already existed between Brussels and these frontier states.

This week on International Marxist Radio, Tom Trottier, a leading comrade of Socialist Revolution, the US section of the International Marxist Tendency, speaks about exciting developments in the labour movement in the United States of America!

Today, 25 April, is a day of celebration in Italy. It is the anniversary of the final fall of the hated Fascist regime in 1945. The official history books tell us that the anti-fascist movement, the hundreds of thousands of armed partisans who fought in the resistance, were fighting for a democratic republic, which is what was finally established. This ignores the fact that what was taking place was a social revolution – not just for democracy, but for workers’ power. In this brilliant text written in 1930 – 15 years before these events – Leon Trotsky predicted that a “democratic republic”, i.e. a bourgeois-democratic regime, would only emerge from a defeat of the revolutionary

“Those of you who haven’t joined yet – now is the time to do it. Join the struggle to finish capitalism once and for all, to finish the history of class struggle, to finish our prehistory so that we can enter the era of communism.” With these powerful words, Ylva Vinberg ended the congress of Revolution (IMT in Sweden), gathering over 100 enthusiastic Marxists from all over the country. 

A new study by the London-based charity War On Want finds that, even though the global food system produces more than 2.6 times the average person’s caloric needs, 2.3 billion people lack secure access to healthy and nutritious food. How is this criminal contradiction to be explained?

The most recent launch of a rocket by Elon Musk’s spacecraft manufacturing company SpaceX ended dramatically on Thursday, as the vehicle touted as the most powerful rocket ever built went up in flames just off the coast of Texas. Despite being heralded as a “successful failure”, SpaceX’s escapades show the frivolous wastefulness of the capitalist class, who grow fat on government handouts, while the standard of living for workers only continues to worsen.