The Conformist Rebellion: Marxist Critiques of the Contemporary Left

Philipp Nolz Elena Louisa Lange and Joshua Pickett-Depaolis (eds) The Conformist Rebellion: Marxist Critiques of the Contemporary Left Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, 2022. 326 pp., £100.00 hb ISBN9781538160152 Already a century ago, political thinkers and philosophers were confronted with an apparent paradox: the failure of revolution. Just when the material conditions and the political organisations of the popular…

Give Peace A Chance: China and the World Today

This presentation by Friends of Socialist China co-editor Carlos Martinez was given at a webinar organised by the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) Education Commission on the theme ‘Give peace a chance – China and the world today.’ The webinar took place on 22 January 2023. Carlos discusses the current state…

The Abuse of the Concept of “Populism”

Prabhat Patnaik ALL regimes based on class antagonism require a discourse to legitimise class oppression and this discourse in turn requires a vocabulary of its own. The neoliberal regime too has developed its own discourse and vocabulary and a key concept in this vocabulary is “populism”. This concept is given great currency by the media,…

Why is China’s Battle Against Corruption Grave and Complex?

General secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping, also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, addresses the second plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection in Beijing, capital of China, January 9, 2023. Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang…

A Closer Look at the Far-Right in Santa Cruz, Bolivia

Cindy Forster Cadres from the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista (UJC), the Bolivian fascist youth group where Luis Fernando Camacho got his start. Grayzone The far-right is again trying to unleash devastation from their stronghold in Bolivia’s largest city, Santa Cruz, in the lowland department of the same name, this time to liberate from jail the department’s…

What is Socialist Revolution?

Nino Brown Thomas Sankara meets with Fidel Castro in the early 1980s Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. and other imperialist countries have repeatedly declared that history is over, meaning that humanity cannot transcend the capitalist system, which is elevated as the pinnacle of human development. As Margaret Thatcher claimed “there is…

Venezuela: Rentier Capitalism and a Project for Change

CARLOS DÜRICH The Bolivarian process has gone through several phases in its almost three decades of existence. The following is a historical analysis on the evolution of the dynamics of the class struggle in the Venezuela of Chavismo. Part I: The emergence of rentier capitalism “To historically articulate the past does not mean to know…

“African Labor in the World Community”: CLR James’ Political Economy

Matthew Quest On CLR James’ 122nd Anniversary, Matthew Quest celebrates his intervention in global freedom movements by placing his radical political economy in conversation with the African world and the African continent. He argues that CLR James offers a different and better understanding of capital, the state, and the role of the working class than…

Liberation in Our Lifetime: Towards an African Socialist Movement Manifesto

Alieu Bah A template for social movements and organisations across the African continent to look to the science and laws that can be used to change the time and bring on a post neocolonial Africa. The haunting spectre of communism doesn’t hold the world at ransom any longer. The unholy capitalist alliance has all but…

On the Application of Xi Jinping Thought in an Imperialist Country

On 10 December, the first of two online seminars on the theme ‘The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and its World Significance’, organised jointly by Friends of Socialist China and the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, was held. We are pleased to publish below…

When a Spectre Haunts for a Century

Ronnie A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of Communism… In 1976, the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) – the Communist party of Italy and the largest communist party in Western Europe – stood on the edge of winning in the general election. Paolo Spriano, an Italian historian, once mentioned the Gramscian party’s relation with the USSR as…

People Be Vigilant!

PEOPLE, BE VIGILANT! Speech by the Representative of the UPC-CPSU at the 22nd International Meeting of Communist Workers in Havana December 19, 2022 Esteemed Comrades, We have gathered here on the Island of Freedom at a difficult time. Analysis of the international situation shows that: –the forces of international imperialism, the sharks of globalization brutally…

US – African Leaders Summit Aimed to Bribe Leaders to Align with the US Against Russia and China

Sourav Chakraborty It would not be new to point out that the US with its more than 200 years of history is soaked with blood and tears and it remained an epicenter of  forced labor and slavery. It is a country that led coups and numerous air strikes on nations to stop them from advancing….

Steps to a Socialist Pan-African Movement

Nicholas Mwangi A recently published book by Vita books publishers Essays on Pan-Africanismedited by Shiraz Durrani & Noosim Naimasiah contains essays on Pan-Africanism written by Pan-Africanist intellectuals at various times. In its preface, Prof. Issa Shivji says writings on Pan-Africanism never become dated for the desire of Africans globally for freedom continues burning, sometimes dimming into…

The Volatility of US Hegemony in Latin America

Roger D. Harris (L to R) Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Lula da Silva and Rafael Correa. Mauricio Lima/ AFP. Part I: The Pink Tide Latin America and the Caribbean have again began to take on a becoming pink complexion, all the more so with June’s historic electoral victory in Colombia over the country’s long-dominant US-backed…

What is the Future of Venezuela’s Communes?

Owen Schalk A man walks past a mural depicting Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chávez, Latin American independence hero Simon Bolivar and Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. Photo by Marco Bello. The challenges facing the communes intensified after Hugo Chávez’s death in 2013 One of the most compelling aspects of Venezuela’s ongoing Bolivarian Revolution, founded…

The Coming Wave of Revolutions Have No Place for America’s Imperialism-Compatible Left

Rainer Shea There’s an incurable detachment between the reality of the global class struggle, and the illusory view of the world that America’s “left” is always going to cling to. Therefore for revolution to come to the imperial center, the class struggle here will need to be guided by something other than its current default…

China is Building a Truly Ecological Civilization

Carlos Martinez At the World Economic Forum in January 2022, Xi Jinping stated that the realisation of carbon neutrality is an “intrinsic requirement of China’s own high-quality development and a solemn pledge to the international community.” While the inertia of the market-led nations gives us terrifying forecasts for the planet, state socialism in the east…