Marxism Today<\/em> aims to be one of the tools to assist in this fundamental \u201cbattle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nWe have reached issue 22 of the magazine, the third since we launched our new format. The goal\u2014and we hope it\u2019s been successful (but that\u2019s up to the readers)\u2014is to address both the main themes of the current class struggle with a theoretical rather than a merely chronological approach, as well as to delve into purely theoretical issues that we consider relevant for intervening in the class struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This issue opens with an article by Fabio Bosco (Brazil) on the aggression of U.S. imperialism and Zionism against Iran. Bosco offers arguments that both critique several of the prevailing positions on the \u201cleft\u201d and explain what we believe the position of Marxists should be. At the time of sending the magazine to press, we do not know what will happen next: but the fundamental reflections of the article, we believe, will remain valid in any case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also in the \u201cCurrent Affairs\u201d section, we find an essay by Laura Requena and Felipe Alegr\u00eda (Spain) analyzing the crisis of the European Union within the framework of the crisis of the world order and the (for now) distant confrontation between the declining imperialism of the United States and the emerging imperialisms of China and Russia. After analyzing the industrial and technological decline of the EU, the text describes the rearmament race of European imperialisms and the costs of bourgeois policies that fall on the masses. Finally, the authors point out some of the elements of that program which, according to the IWL, would be necessary to build a workers\u2019 alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This section is rounded out by an article by Tony Stabile and Erwin Freed (United States) that seeks to debunk one of reformism\u2019s new global myths: Zohran Mamdani, the (Democratic Party) mayor of New York, hailed by that entire \u201cleft\u201d that harbors illusions about the possibility of governing the capitalist system differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following section, \u201cDebates and Controversies,\u201d is also substantial. And what is more controversial on the left today than the characterization of the war in Ukraine? Tar\u00e1s Shevchuk (Ukraine) analyzes the reality of that war, which began in February 2022 with Russian imperialism\u2019s aggression against Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This characterization of the war by our International has led us to engage in polemics not only with the positions of neo-Stalinist \u201ccampism,\u201d but also with some organizations that define themselves as \u201cTrotskyist,\u201d as is the case (examined here) with the Current for the Permanent Revolution (formerly TF, organized around the Argentine PTS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The theoretical and programmatic debate continues with an article by Jer\u00f3nimo Castro (Portugal) on so-called \u201cmultipolarism.\u201d What is meant (within the campist and reformist left) by \u201cmultipolarism\u201d? What lies behind this new ideology? How can we apply the Leninist categories of imperialism and semi-colonies today? Castro argues why our International believes that we must not choose between supporting one imperialist bandit against another, but rather that we must fight them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This section concludes with an article by the author of this introduction on Palestine, the heroic Palestinian resistance (a topic often omitted in order to reduce everything to a mere humanitarian issue), and the positions of the Revolutionary Communist International, the name recently adopted by the IMT, led by Alan Woods. The RCI rejects the slogan \u201cFree Palestine from the river to the sea\u201d on the grounds that the national question is not a class question, and by invoking a united class struggle of the Palestinian and \u201cIsraeli\u201d proletariat. In this article, we attempt to identify the connections between this position (which seeks to present itself as \u201cmore revolutionary\u201d) and the revision it actually entails of the theory-program of permanent revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the previous issue, we have launched a new section of the journal: \u201cBasic Concepts of Marxism.\u201d In this issue, it includes three articles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An article by Florence Oppen (United States), titled \u201cWhat Is a Revolution and How to Intervene in It?\u201d, in which the author summarizes the Marxist conception of some fundamental concepts: what is a revolutionary situation? and what are the implications of the theory of permanent revolution? How do revolutionaries approach the question of revolutionary violence?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fabiana Stefanoni (Italy), for her part, addresses another highly timely issue: what are fascism and Bonapartism? What are the differences between these two concepts, which are often misused in debate? The author re-examines the writings of Leon Trotsky, particularly those from the 1930s, demonstrating that they not only constitute one of the principal contributions to the development of Marxism but are also an irreplaceable tool for today. Trotsky\u2019s analysis, summarized by Stefanoni, allows us to analyze today\u2019s right-wing movements and explain the relationships between Bonapartism and fascism\u2014and, within each, between the two main classes of society (the bourgeoisie and the proletariat) and the petty-bourgeois \u201csemi-class.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The section is rounded out by an article by Gustavo Machado (Brazil). Machado, who has for years run a popular YouTube channel in Brazil dedicated to spreading Marxism (Orienta<\/em>\u00e7\u00e3<\/em>o Marxista<\/em>), addresses here the topic of \u201cfictitious capital\u201d and, building on Marx\u2019s analysis, explains why fictitious capital is not something \u201cnon-existent,\u201d but rather a specific form of capital\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIn the \u201cIntroduction to Reading the Classics\u201d section of this issue, we find an article by Joana Salay (Brazil) who, marking the 90th anniversary of the publication of \u201cThe Revolution Betrayed,\u201d one of Trotsky\u2019s most important works, reviews the book\u2019s main elements to highlight its extreme relevance for orienting ourselves today. What was the bureaucracy in the workers\u2019 states? Was the restoration of capitalism inevitable? Returning to the present, Salay identifies a thread of continuity between the Stalinism masterfully analyzed by Trotsky and the positions of today\u2019s \u201cneo-Stalinism\u201d\u2014that is, the positions of political parties and groups that, more or less explicitly, revive certain \u201ctheoretical\u201d positions of Stalinism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This issue concludes with a section of reviews of several recently published books on Palestine and Marx.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We hope you enjoy reading this issue and ask that you help us distribute the magazine among your colleagues and fellow students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A journal for militants and activists who are aware that \u201cwithout revolutionary theory there is no revolutionary movement.\u201d The theory Lenin was referring to in this famous phrase was Marxism, and the meaning of that statement is that socialist consciousness\u2014that is, ultimately, the consciousness of the need to smash the bourgeois state in order to establish, through revolutionary means, workers\u2019 power over the whole of society (the dictatorship of the proletariat), does not spring up spontaneously among workers; it is not merely a reflection of their material condition or of the class struggle itself that they are inevitably compelled to wage in a class-divided society. That consciousness must be \u201cbrought in from outside\u201d the daily confrontation between the classes, and this is what justifies the need to build a revolutionary vanguard party that brings together the most advanced sector of workers and youth emerging from those very struggles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":76258,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"litci_post_political_author":"Francesco Ricci","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3491],"tags":[6855,6856],"class_list":["post-76257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theory","tag-marxism-today","tag-marxismo-vivo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/litci.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mv22-english-featured.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=1","fimg_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/litci.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/mv22-english-featured.jpg?fit=1920%2C1280&ssl=1","categories_names":["Theory"],"author_info":{"name":"Carlos S.","pic":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fdf3a2076204dbf848fa7838fc9e2787f3317262207b35e333f31316e39fce9c?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"political_author":"Francesco Ricci","tagline":"A journal of revolutionary theory","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76259,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76257\/revisions\/76259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/litci.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}