Following his recent visits to Bolivia and Argentina, Alan Woods began the third and final stage of his speaking tour of three Latin American countries with a highly successful meeting in the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Florianopolis, Brazil.

More than 60 people attended a meeting on Monday (March 28) with comrade Alan Woods in Rosario which was held in the office of the CTA trade union in the La Toma Cultural Centre – a building that used to be a supermarket but was then occupied by its workers and remains under workers’ control.

The conferences recently held by Alan Woods and organized by the Sociology Student Centres ay the USFXCh University in Sucre and the UAGRM University in Santa Cruz, in collaboration with the International Marxist Tendency, have been a resounding success, which we could even describe (without fear of exaggeration) as unprecedented, with around 800 taking part.

From 15 to 19 March the second Pan American School of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) was held in Florianópolis, Brazil. Amid the greatest economic, social and political instability of the world capitalist system in decades, the American Marxists have come together to participate in a series of discussions on topical issues on the class struggle and the socialist revolution internationally.

“There are so few moments of happiness in life. But I have felt happiness in this marvellous congress.” Comment on the congress of The Struggle from Karamat Ali, a veteran from the 1968 revolution.

This year’s congress of The Struggle, the IMT in Pakistan, was the most successful of all the congresses held so far, with the biggest turn out ever. The conference was a special event as it marked the 30^th anniversary of the founding of The Struggle. In that period, The Struggle has gone from a tiny handful of comrades to a sizable organisation with deep roots covering the whole of Pakistan.

We now close the financial appeal for In Defence of Marxism. We have reached the target we set ourselves of raising €3,000. Since the last update an additional £440 and $295 have come in, bringing the total raised to €2,970.

We had a wonderful response to the financial appeal for In Defence of Marxism. We have already collected €2446, only €550 short of the target. We are now extending the appeal for a few more days to give readers a last chance to help us reach the target.

The last weekend of January 40 Marxists from Sweden, Britain and Denmark gathered in Copenhagen for the Northern European Marxist Winter School. Even though it was freezing cold outside, the mood at the school was excellent as news from the revolutionary development in the Arab world kept coming in.

One month into the financial appeal we launched for In Defence of Marxism, we have raised €1,600, which is more than half of the money we were aiming for. Many contributions have come in over the last few weeks. We are very grateful for those contributions and would like to ask the rest of our readers to help us raise the remaining target.

Since we launched the appeal last Friday, we have already received €660. We still have €2,300 to go. We would like to thank all that have contributed and urge all readers that have not done so yet, to give a serious thought about giving something.

From 7-11 December the Austrian Marxists organised a speaking tour with Hubert Prévaud (CGT Airbus Toulouse and member of the Editorial Board of La Riposte). Hubert spoke in several public meetings on the protest movement against the pensions „reform“ in France.

The Nigeria section of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) recently held its national Conference on Saturday 27^th and Sunday 28th November, 2010. The Conference which was well attended by the members witnessed a lot of highly educational and inspiring leadoffs and contributions from the comrades present in the sessions. Some of the comrades living outside Lagos travelled hundreds of kilometres on the ever deteriorating Nigerian roads to be part of the conference.

2010 has been a very important year in the struggle against Capitalism and recent events bring to the fore, more now than ever before, the need for Marxist ideas. On our website we have provided analysis and updates on the most important events in this crucial year but we need your help to continue, and expand, this work.

The annual National Winter Marxist Youth School of the Pakistani section of the IMT was held from December 3rd to December 5^th, 2010 at Hawks Bay, Karachi. In spite of the very long distances and difficult economic situation more than 150 comrades from all over the country participated in the school with great revolutionary spirit.