The resounding victory for Pablo Iglesias and his list of candidates at the recent Podemos congress, the National Citizens’ Assembly, marks an important development for millions of workers and youth in Spain. At the same time, it represents a defeat for the ruling class, who hid behind the right-wing stance of Íñigo Errejón.
After years of stagnation and struggle under the “Socialist” government of Hollande in France, the establishment parties have been completely discredited and the situation has grown into a full-blown political crisis. The next presidential election, taking place in the next few months, is set to be the most unpredictable in generations.
With around 500,000 protesters on the streets, the ongoing anti-government protests in Romania have seen the largest number of people involved since the collapse of the Ceausescu regime in 1989. These protests come after a year of rising unrest and political crisis. A mood of anger and resentment has been on the rise. But what is the nature of this movement?
In just a few days, Trump has set his stamp on US and world politics, economics, and relations. Already, his Islamophobic, anti-immigrant policies – in particular – have sparked mass protests across America and internationally. This is what is meant when we talk of sharp and sudden changes being on the order of the day.
On 9th January, Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minister of the Stormont Assembly in Belfast, resigned in protest against the ongoing “cash for ash” scandal. As the Assembly was unable to elect a new Deputy, new elections have been triggered, as required under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, adding yet more fuel to the fire for the political establishment in Westminster and Belfast.
And so begins the Trump era: with worldwide protests, pessimism, and polarization – full of combustible material, to put it mildly. The most anti-worker administration in decades has formally taken possession of the White House, and an avalanche of austerity and attacks on the working class is on the order of the day. A turbulent period of class struggle lies ahead.
On Saturday 21st January, millions of demonstrators took part in women-led marches across the world, protesting Donald Trump’s inauguration and the threat to democratic rights that he represents. We publish here a collection of reports and pictures from the mass protests against the newly-inaugurated US President.
This week, the global business elites are congregating in Davos, a Swiss ski resort, to discuss the state of the global economy at the annual World Economic Forum. Coinciding with this gathering of the Establishment, Oxfam have released their latest figures on the eye-watering inequality on a world scale.
The recapture of Aleppo by loyalist forces in December, represents a decisive milestone in the Syrian civil war, as well as for the crisis in the whole region. But, as Hamid Alizadeh discusses, it also has wide ranging consequences for world relations in the coming period.
Twenty-five years ago after the fall of the Soviet Union the defenders of capitalism were euphoric. They spoke of the death of socialism and even the end of history. But, as Alan Woods explains, today not one stone upon another is left of those confident predictions. History has returned with a vengeance.
2016 was the most unstable year since the end of the Second World War. Rising discontent is reflecting itself in different ways. In particular, with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, we learned to expect the unexpected. 2017 – the centenary of the Russian Revolution – is set to be even more turbulent.
We publish here the second instalment of our update to the perspectives for the class struggle internationally. In this second and final part, we look at the latest developments in the Middle East and the decline in US imperialism that these events reflect. Most importantly, we analyse the biggest political shock of 2016: the election of Trump.