Over five-hundred reports of abuse and harassment were made to the police in Cologne, Germany, on New Year’s Eve. What exactly happened remains unclear. What is not uncertain is that the assaults in Cologne have been used by the ruling class and the right-wing media to attack and demonise immigrants, dividing the working class.

The ugly face of Obama’s “hope we can believe in” has been starkly revealed. The extrajudicial killings of Michael Brown andEric Garner, unarmed black males killed by white police officers, have set off an emotional firestorm of protests and outrage on a scale not seen in the US in many years. It is the task of the Marxists to help people draw out the revolutionary conclusions implicit within the situation.

The murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner have reverberated loudly worldwide. From New York to Palestine to Mexico, young people are fed up with this racist system that sanctions the death penalty for stealing a piece of candy, and are connecting their struggle across borders. In London, too, thousands of young people have taken to the streets in solidarity, with Marxist students showing their support at the demonstrations taking place.