The largest human migration
in the world gets under way every Chinese
New Year, as China’s 120
million strong army of migrant workers make
their annual trip home. This
year heavy snows led to railways and
roads being overburdened and
transport bottlenecks wreaked sudden
nationwide chaos.

For years Socialist Appeal
and the International Marxist Tendency have been arguing that the world is an
increasingly unstable place, where war threatens on many fronts
and revolution and counter-revolution hang in the air. The bourgeois and the Labour
right wing basically argue that it’s all down to evil people and that nice
President Bush and the generals keep us all safe by attacking terrr’sts and
keeping the world safe for freedom and ‘mockracy.

Even before panic hit the financial markets
the UK press was determinedly ignoring the big victory of German train drivers
last week. The train drivers won an
11% pay increase! Yet the emergence of what amounts to a five party system shows
Germany is entering a period of increased political instability.