Europe

The Emergence, Growth, and Characteristics of a Large-Scale Mobilization Just a few days before the start of the school year, there were teachers’ strikes and high school blockades, independent of the movement that emerged later: in Mayotte (Indian Ocean), in Rennes, in Villeneuve d’Ascq, and in Caen. But it was the Saint-Exupéry High School in […]

By Javier Martínez and Jordi García for Corriente Roja, Spanish State Exactly one week ago today, Maricarmen was evicted. This event sparked one of Spain’s most significant ongoing conflicts: the housing crisis. It was just one of more than 25,000 evictions that take place each year, highlighting the plight of the working class, who are […]

Marxism Now! Editorial Board

From September 18 to 20, voting for the parliament—known as the State Duma—took place over three days and three nights. There have been no free or democratic elections in the country for several decades. In particular, since Putin came to power, elections have been a mere formality within a regime whose central institution is the FSB—the direct successor to the KGB. The State Duma and the Federation Council serve a purely decorative function, with a handful of parties under the regime’s strict control. But on this occasion, due to the economic, social, demographic, political, and military crisis engulfing the country—a result of its imperialist war in Ukraine becoming bogged down—that regime revealed its enormous fragility. And the “election results” it presented to the world only heightened its embarrassing ridicule.

On the morning of September 13, we woke up to terrible news regarding the LGBTI+ movement in Turkey. Police raids were conducted on the homes of the board of directors and supervisory board members of Kaos GL Association. Numerous executives, including alternate members, were detained, and the association building was searched. News reports indicated that more than 10 LGBTI+ activists were taken into custody. At the center of the investigation are allegations of "obscenity" under Article 226 of the Turkish Penal Code and opposition to the Law on Associations.

Whilst Burnham is a more capable and charismatic politician, despite his rhetorical claims, he is unlikely to reverse Thatcherism’s policies of privatisation and deregulation, and the anti-trade union legislation. Nor will he reverse the brutal immigration controls being introduced, as he voted for the Immigration and Asylum Bill at its second reading in July.

On Sept. 6, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany or AfD) trounced its opponents in the state election in Sachsen-Anhalt (Saxony-Anhalt) state. For the first time in German postwar history, a party of the far right has won a state election. Everyone here from the far left to the liberal center sees this as one of the darkest moments of German postwar history.

We must consider the phenomenon of migration within the context of human history, and particularly within the context of the capitalist system. It is a system of colonization and plunder that makes survival impossible for millions of people in their homelands, especially in Africa. In light of this, defending the right to migrate becomes a moral obligation and an act of remembrance for the entire working class, particularly in Spain. We must also bear in mind that the preservation of the rights and freedoms won in Europe is partly built upon the colonization and exploitation of peoples under imperialism.

NATO is an international counter-revolutionary apparatus created to defend the imperialist-capitalist order against the revolutionary struggle of the working class. It is a military-political instrument constructed by the bourgeoisie to suppress working-class organization, socialist movements, and national liberation struggles throughout the world. The fact that NATO neither dissolved nor diminished after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, despite the disappearance of its alleged enemy, but instead expanded continuously, demonstrates that its true function has never been “defense against communism.” Its real purpose has always been the global defense of the capitalist order and imperialist hegemony. Today, the struggle against NATO is not merely a matter of foreign policy. It is an inseparable part of defending the democratic rights of the working class, trade union freedoms, and the struggle for social emancipation. Against imperialist wars, against the clandestine machinery of the state, against capitalist barbarism, the genuine alternative is the independent, united, socialist struggle of the international working class.

NATO is not merely a military defence organisation; it is an aggressive structure safeguarding the global political and economic order of US imperialism. In this century, the economic centre of gravity is gradually shifting from the Atlantic to the Pacific. As China becomes the world’s second-largest economy, a significant portion of global trade and production is concentrating in Asia. Consequently, China’s rise is now not merely an economic issue, but a geopolitical one. We view this as the emergence of a new imperialist power; the unipolar world is giving way once more to a multipolar power struggle. As Europe’s security concerns grow, Turkiye’s geopolitical position and military strength will become one of the key factors bearing a significant portion of this burden. So, what price will Turkiye’s working people have to pay for this expanding role within NATO?

War lords and partners in interest in the Epstein scandals are gathering in Ankara on 7–8 July under the guise of the NATO Summit. It is clear that this summit, at which the strategies of US imperialism and its allies to turn the world into a plunder ground and a battlefield will be discussed, will bring no benefit whatsoever to either the Turkish working class or the peoples of the world.

As we explained in the first part of this article, the European Union (EU)—the unified apparatus of big capital in European countries created in a world where U.S. supremacy was unchallenged—is the product of a world order in crisis, one that no longer exists as we knew it after World War II. In this turbulent context, the EU has entered an existential crisis, with its economy in decline relative to those of the U.S. and China and doomed by Trump’s new foreign policy, which explicitly aims to dismantle it.

The European Union (EU), the unified apparatus of big capital in European countries created in a world where U.S. supremacy was unchallenged, is the product of a world order in crisis—one that no longer exists as we knew it after World War II. In this turbulent context, the EU has entered an existential crisis, with its economy in decline relative to those of the U.S. and China and doomed by Trump’s new foreign policy, which explicitly aims to dismantle it.

The annulment decision targeting a CHP party congress and the attempts to reinstall former chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu at the head of the party through the judiciary, acting on orders from Erdoğan's Palace like a court-appointed guardian, is proof that the institutions and constitutional order of the bourgeois regime in Türkiye have ceased to function even at a symbolic level. The Supreme Election Council (YSK), which since 1950 existed as the guarantor of electoral security within bourgeois democracy, has now become a direct apparatus of the Palace judiciary. What we face is not a legal process but a political coup; therefore, these decisions are illegitimate. Yet merely stating this does not solve the problem. The solution lies in organizing a broader and more radical united struggle rising from the streets.

May 20th marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Akın Reçber; the Fourth Red Rose (Turkish: Dördüncü Kızıl Gülü) of May Day 1996, who died on May 20, 1996 as a result of the brutal torture he endured in police custody. Despite the brutal torture, Akın Reçber resisted to the end, and for thirty years his courage and determination have continued to live on in our struggle.

Well before Magyar took office, the LGBTQI+ rights and labor movements won significant victories against Orban. Securing those victories will require Hungarian workers to get ready to face the new boss