Sweden: COVID-19 policy shift reveals failure of capitalism
Revolution (IMT Sweden)
"This autumn, too many people have neglected to follow advice and recommendations." This was the explanation for the deadly wave of coronavirus sweeping over Sweden given in late November by Prime Minister Stefan Löfven in an address to the nation. While shifting blame to the general public, he was conveniently silent about the government's responsibility for decades of cuts to healthcare, understaffing in the elderly care sector, and lacklustre testing capacity. Now the government has been forced to introduce several measures that they for a long time argued against. But it is all too, little too late.
Featured Sweden Coronavirus
Food poverty in Britain: school meals scandal reveals depth of the crisis
Emma Stanhope
Public outrage over the meagre rations offered to hungry children, along with the recent intervention by Unicef, have again brought the burning issue of UK food poverty to the fore. Capitalism cannot feed those in need.
Britain Featured
In scandalous last minute decision, Trump designates Cuba as "state sponsor of terrorism"
Jorge Martin
In yet another scandalous provocation, on 11 January the US has decided to designate Cuba as a "state sponsor of terrorism". The statement, signed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, comes as the Trump administration has less than 10 days left in office. It has no basis in reality and is clearly motivated by cynical political calculations.
Imperialism Cuba Featured USA
Turkey: student protests amidst social crisis
Britain: Unison election – potential for a historic left victory revealed
Happy New Year – for some
Fundamentals of Marxism
Marxism provides the tools for comprehending society, nature and the class struggle. If you want to develop your revolutionary understanding, start here!
Dialectical materialism is the philosophy or methodology of Marxism. We must seek to understand the laws of society and nature in order to change them.
Historical materialism is the theory of how and why society develops as it does. Each social system has inherent laws that drive it forward, and eventually spell its undoing.
Marxist economics is the study of the laws of motion of capitalist production and society, allowing us to understand why capitalism perpetually goes into crisis.
Marxism & the State
The state is an instrument of class rule. We must understand the state's role by analysing it scientifically, from its first emergence out of class society, to the present day.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 is the greatest event in world history. For the first time working people took power into their own hands and began the gigantic task of the socialist reconstruction of society.
The Russian Revolution was betrayed and degenerated under a counter-revolutionary bureaucracy, led by Stalin. Understanding why this happened is critical for Marxists.
The National Question
Marxists are internationalists, who fight for world revolution. We also stand for the liberation of oppressed nationalities as part of this struggle.
Marxists share anarchists' objective of overthrowing the bourgeois state. But the anarchist understanding of power and the state is abstract, rather than scientific - and therefore limited.
Imperialism & War
Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, and war is the extreme expression of capitalism's contradictions and rapacious hunt for profit.
Identity & Oppression
Marxists are irreconcilably opposed to oppression and fight determinedly for the liberation of marginalised groups, which can only be achieved through class struggle.
The madness of fascism in the 1930s expressed the historic crisis and dead-end of capitalism, and could have been averted through revolution. But is fascism a major threat today? And how can it be combatted?
Marxism rejects superstition, but religion cannot be overcome by recourse to argument alone; we must instead attack its social foundation: the class system itself.
The capitalists and their political representatives are completely incapable of saving the planet from environmental disaster. System change, not climate change!
Art under capitalism is shackled to the profit motive, and the majority of people are denied the opportunity to experience and develop culture to its fullest. Only socialism can liberate the arts.
Capitalism is supposed to drive innovation, technological sophistication and scientific advancement. But in fact, it has become a brake on progress.
Under capitalism, a minority runs production for their narrow interests. We advocate workers seizing control of their workplaces, and running them for the common good.
In Defence of Genuine Marxism
There have been countless attacks, falsifications and distortions levelled against Marxism over the years. It is our duty as Marxists to set the record straight.
Revolution — the locomotive of history
The history of the ancient world is ripe with lessons about the development of class society and the heroic struggle of the early oppressed classes against their masters.
English Revolution
The Civil War in England was a revolutionary clash by the rising bourgeois class of English merchants and bankers, led by Oliver Cromwell, against the rotten feudal regime of Charles I.
In the Great French Revolution of 1789, the revolutionary bourgeoisie and popular masses overthrew the decrepit Ancien Regime, creating an earthquake that shook the world.
Paris Commune
For a tragically brief period in 1871, the workers of Paris began the tremendous task of replacing the capitalist state with the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The first international proletarian organisation, with the participation of Marx and Engels, paved the way for the development of organised working-class struggle worldwide.
Second International
The Second International was a formidable bastion of working-class internationalism until it descended into national chauvinism and opportunism. Its history is rich with lessons.
To understand the causes of the great slaughter, it is necessary to lay bare the real mainspring of war in the modern epoch: the contradiction between the interests of different capitalist states.
German Revolution
After the Russian Revolution, the German proletariat entered the scene of history and brought an end to WW1 - but their revolution was sadly defeated.
Third International
The Third (Communist) International was a vital school of revolutionary ideas and strategy, which degenerated with the rise of Stalinism.
The history of the Fourth International was a struggle (led by Leon Trotsky) to keep the genuine traditions of Bolshevism alive, against colossal odds.
The Spanish masses strived towards socialist revolution in the 1930s, but were strangled by the class collaboration of their leadership, paving the road to fascist victory.
Although WW2 is often portrayed in the history books as a clash between 'democracy' and Hitler's Germany, the war was mostly a titanic struggle between fascism and the USSR in which the latter triumphed.
Chinese Revolution
The Chinese Revolution saw the heroic masses throwing off the yoke of imperialism, although the revolution degenerated along Stalinist lines, culminating in capitalist restoration.
On 1 January 1959, the brutal Cuban dictator Batista fell to the guerrillas of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Within three years, capitalism had been abolished on the island.
Colonial Revolution
In the colonial and ex-colonial countries, the post-war period saw unprecedented upheaval, characterised by famine, social unrest, wars, revolution and counter-revolution.
Revolutionary 1968
The year 1968 saw one revolutionary eruption after another worldwide, including the greatest general strike in the post-war period in France, which almost toppled Charles de Gaulle.
Ireland & Republicanism
The national struggle and the class struggle in Ireland have always been closely connected. Today, the struggle for a united Ireland is bound up with the struggle for a workers' republic.
British Labour Movement
Despite its conservative reputation, Britain's history is full of class struggle: from Chartism to the foundation of the Labour Party, to the general strike of 1926, to the Miners' Strike of the 1980s.
Class Struggle in the USA
The history of the class struggle in the United States illustrates that the ideas of Marxism, socialism and communism aren't at all alien to "the land of opportunity."
Black Struggle
Racism is hardwired into the capitalist system, serving as a convenient weapon of divide and rule to keep the exploited masses from uniting against their shared oppressors.
Deformed Workers' States
A revolutionary wave swept Europe after the Red Army's victory over fascism in WW2, but the new regimes established were deformed workers' states modelled on Stalinist Russia.
Arab Revolution
In 2011, a tremendous revolutionary tsunami swept the Arab world, bringing down multiple dictatorships. Sadly, a lack of revolutionary leadership opened the door for counter-revolution.
Venezuelan Revolution
The Bolivarian Revolution led by Hugo Chavez defied imperialism and carried out huge reforms for the workers and poor, but its failure to break with capitalism led to compromise and crisis.
The purpose of Marxist perspectives is to provide a guide to action based on scientific analysis of the main processes in society. These documents ask: where is world politics going?
[Video] Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
[Video] The Theory of the Permanent Revolution
[Video] The Marxist view of history
[Video] Spain's Revolution Against Franco: The Great Betrayal
Read book online
The Ideas of Karl Marx
Reason in Revolt
Classics of Marxism 1
In the Cause of Labour
Germany 1918-1933