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20 years since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq

March 20 marks 20 years since the beginning of the US invasion of Iraq, launched on the basis of lies. At the time of the initial invasion, the WSWS published many statements on the background of the war, its history and its implications. This page features some of the most important statements.

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Strike wave sweeps across the Netherlands

This new wave of strikes takes place against the backdrop of relentless anti-Russian hysteria and intensified propaganda in the media to justify NATO’s war in Ukraine.

Daniel Woreck, Parwini Zora
On the 25th anniversary of the World Socialist Web Site

Twenty-five years ago, the International Committee of the Fourth International began posting the World Socialist Web Site. In this video, WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North explains the background to the WSWS, reviews its record and contemporary significance and makes an appeal to all readers to donate to the WSWS and expand its readership.

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Damien Chazelle’s Babylon: Disoriented and confused

The film deserves at least a brief comment, as it purports both to be an account of the transition from cinema’s silent era to sound film and to expose “the real truth” about Hollywood.

Joanne Laurier

All eyes in financial markets on Deutsche Bank

German chancellor Olaf Scholz has issued assurances that Deutsche is not the next Credit Suisse in a clear indication there are major concerns it could well be.

Nick Beams

Treasury secretary Yellen twists to the power of money

Over the course of three days this week, Yellen flip flopped on the question of guarantees for ultra wealthy bank depositors before predictably falling into line with the demands of Wall Street.

Nick Beams

US Fed attempts a balancing act on interest rates

In his opening remarks a press conference following the meeting, Fed chair Jerome Powell said the events of the past two weeks had demonstrated, as history had shown, that “isolated banking problems if left unaddressed, can undermine confidence in healthy banks” and threaten the entire system.

Nick Beams

Chicago Democrats promote racialist politics during mayoral election

Brandon Johnson’s campaign for mayor has almost exclusively employed the language of identity politics, while he and others, including Jeannette Taylor, an alderman who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have expressed xenophobic attitudes towards immigrants.

Alexander Fangmann

US Congress holds anti-China witch-hunt at TikTok hearing

On Thursday, the US House Energy and Commerce Committee put on a five-hour spectacle of xenophobia, anticommunism and anti-Chinese invective, focussed on demands to ban TikTok, the sixth most popular social network in the world.

Andre Damon

The revival of the Berlin-Tokyo Axis

The rapprochement between Germany and Japan comes at a time when both countries are abandoning all military restraint and massively rearming.

Peter Schwarz

Bankstown: A microcosm of Australia’s social crisis

The social situation in Bankstown, with soaring rents and mortgages, stagnant or declining incomes and mounting social distress, shows that capitalism offers no future for the working class.

Max Boddy, SEP candidate for Bankstown in NSW

White House to shut down COVID response task force

Eliminating the task force is part of the overall Biden administration policy of claiming the pandemic is “over,” even though COVID-19 continues to kill thousands of Americans every week.

Patrick Martin
Statement of the Editorial Board
For a Global Workers’ Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Inquest is necessary to break through the cover-up, lies and misinformation that have been used to justify policies responsible for the avoidable deaths of millions.

Find out more

Australian PM promotes AUKUS as platform for a total war economy

Albanese equated the creation of a civilian auto industry following the last world war with the building of an economy based on the production of weaponry for a third world war that could wipe out humanity.

Mike Head, SEP candidate for NSW Legislative Council

Honduras cuts ties to Taiwan in favor of China

The decision reduces Taiwan’s diplomatic allies to just 13—a measure of Washington’s falling economic and political influence in Latin America in relation to China.

Andrea Lobo

African protests met with savage repression

Regimes in four geopolitical and economic nodal points of the continent, with a combined population of 343 million, have launched mass arrests, teargassed protestors, arrested major opposition leaders, and killed at least two protestors.

Kipchumba Ochieng

Teacher describes struggle to get treated for Long COVID in New Zealand

An Auckland-based teacher told the WSWS how his increasingly severe Long COVID symptoms were misdiagnosed by doctors who said he had mental health issues. He said the government was allowing COVID to spread and ignoring the consequences for people’s health.

Tom Peters

The betrayers of Julian Assange

This comment is an abridged version of an address by John Pilger in Sydney on 10 March to mark the launch in Australia of Davide Dormino’s sculpture of Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, ‘Figures of Courage’.

John Pilger

This week in history: March 20-26

This column profiles important historical events which took place during this week, 25 years ago, 50 years ago, 75 years ago and 100 years ago.

This week in history: March 13-19

This column profiles important historical events which took place during this week, 25 years ago, 50 years ago, 75 years ago and 100 years ago.

2023: The global capitalist crisis and the growing offensive of the international working class

In 2022 the accumulating pressure of these intersecting elements of the world capitalist crisis attained the equivalent of critical mass: that is, they have reached the point where the dynamic of crisis has passed beyond the ability of governments to control the movement toward a social cataclysm.

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Vinyl chloride, dioxin and the poisoning of East Palestine, Ohio

The derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, on February 3, 2023 and the controlled release and burn of vinyl chloride on February 6 have contaminated the village and large regions of the area with highly toxic chemicals with the potential for significant impact on the health of the population.

Benjamin Mateus

The East Palestine disaster: A crime of capitalism

The poisoning of East Palestine, Ohio, is not merely an environmental catastrophe. It is a man-made disaster which raises fundamental questions about the structure of the society which produced it.

The Socialist Equality Party (United States)

The Wuhan lab lie: “Weapons of mass destruction” redux

In an uncanny instance of history repeating itself, the lies used to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq based on false claims about “weapons of mass destruction” are being used to promote the United States’ unprecedented military buildup around China.

Andre Damon

A discredited conspiracy theory about the origins of COVID-19

The Wuhan Lab Leak slander being resurrected to bolster US war drive against China

The Wall Street Journal disclosed that the Department of Energy has shifted its opinion on the origin of the coronavirus to it being most likely a result of a lab leak. However, unnamed sources who have read the report indicate the evidence is of low confidence.

Benjamin Mateus
A call to youth throughout the world: Build a mass movement to stop the Ukraine war!

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality—the student and youth movement of the Socialist Equality Parties, the national sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International—calls for the building of a mass global movement of young people to end the reckless escalation toward World War III.

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Timothy Snyder’s Bloodlands: Right-wing propaganda disguised as historical scholarship

This five-part series and historical timeline exposes Snyder’s Bloodlands as a work of falsification, aimed at justifying the imperialist proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and the alliance of US imperialism with the Ukrainian far-right.

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Watch: UAW presidential candidate Will Lehman’s final campaign video

Watch and share the powerful video of Will Lehman, a second-tier worker at Mack trucks in Macungie, Pennsylvania, explaining the basis of his campaign for UAW president, accompanied by statements of support from workers across the US and Mexico.

Concluding remarks to the December 10 rally

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality and the fight against war

These are the concluding remarks by WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North to the December 10 rally, “For a Mass Movement of Students and Youth to Stop the War in Ukraine!” organized by the International Youth and Students for Social Equality.

David North

A call to youth throughout the world: Build a mass movement to stop the Ukraine war!

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality—the student and youth movement of the Socialist Equality Parties, the national sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International—calls for the building of a mass global movement of young people to end the reckless escalation toward World War III.

Statement of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE)
Timeline of thirty years of war: The historical background to the US-NATO conflict with Russia

This interactive timeline presents some of the most important events that have brought humanity to the brink of World War III. It includes links to critical articles and statements produced by the International Committee of the Fourth International over the past 30 years.

View the Timeline

SEP (UK) 2022 Congress Resolution

Build the Assange defence campaign in the working class!

The Socialist Equality Party (UK) Congress resolution states, “The international working class must take the lead in the fight to free Assange. It is the sole constituency for the defence of democratic rights, and it alone has the power to wrest the WikiLeaks founder from his captors.”

SEP (UK) 2022 Congress Resolution

The COVID-19 pandemic and the fight for socialism

The Socialist Equality Party (UK) Congress resolution explains: "The two alternatives posed before mankind are either unending mass infection, debilitation and death, or the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and implementation of a policy of global elimination, to end all human-to-human transmission of COVID-19."

NOW AVAILABLE
COVID, Capitalism, and Class War: A Social and Political Chronology of the Pandemic

Mehring Books, the publishing arm of the Socialist Equality Party (US), is proud to announce the publication of Volume 1 of COVID, Capitalism, and Class War: A Social and Political Chronology of the Pandemic, a compilation of the World Socialist Web Site's coverage of this global crisis.

Read the introduction
Forty-five years since the assassination of Tom Henehan (1951-1977): A Revolutionary Life

October 16 marked the 45th anniversary of the assassination of Tom Henehan, a member of the Political Committee of the Workers League—the predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party in the US. We are republishing here a tribute delivered by David North at a meeting in 1997.

On the 82nd anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky

Eighty-two years ago, on August 20, 1940, Leon Trotsky was assassinated by an agent of the Stalinist secret police, the GPU, in his villa in Coyoacan, Mexico, where he spent the final three years of his life as a political exile.

Report to Seventh Congress of Socialist Equality Party (US)

Build rank-and-file committees, the organs of 21st century working class struggle!

This report was given by Eric London to the Seventh Congress of the Socialist Equality Party (US) in support of the resolution titled “Build the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees! For a global counteroffensive of the working class!”

Eric London
Wije Dias: A fighter for Trotskyism (1941-2022)

Comrade Wije Dias, the longtime general secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka), died in Colombo on July 27, 2022. This exhibit includes two tributes to Wije by WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North as well as a selection of Wije’s most significant articles and speeches.

Global Workers’ Inquest into the COVID-19 Pandemic
Family of Detroit autoworker who died of COVID-19 demands answers

Autoworker and grandmother Catherine Pace died on March 27, 2020 after contracting COVID-19 in the paint department at the Warren Truck Plant outside Detroit, then operated by Fiat-Chrysler, now Stellantis.

Watch video testimony

Musk continues to ban from Twitter journalists who criticize him

Twitter owner and fascistic billionaire Elon Musk acknowledged late Thursday that he had shut down the accounts of numerous prominent journalists earlier in the day, claiming falsely that they had violated a new policy on the platform against “doxxing."

Kevin Reed
A video presentation by Evan Blake
What must be done to end the pandemic
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A historic advance in the fight for Trotskyism
The International Committee of the Fourth International accepts application of the Sosyalist Eşitlik Grubu to become its section in Turkey

The June 19 decision followed extensive discussions with representatives of the International Committee in Istanbul on the development of the fight for Trotskyism in Turkey and the Aegean and Black Sea regions.

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May Day 2022: The NATO-Russia war and the tasks of the international working class

In his introduction to the International May Day Online Rally, WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North reviews the historical origins of the US-NATO war drive against Russia and outlines the political strategy of the working class to oppose the danger of World War III.

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The fight for Trotskyism and the political foundations of the World Socialist Web Site

The WSWS is publishing the report delivered by David North 25 years ago, on February 1, 1997, motivating the proposal to end publication of the SEP’s printed newspaper and replace it with an international website; as well as North’s reply to the National Committee ‘s discussion of the proposal.

WSWS Review
Thirty years since the dissolution of the USSR

Review the most critical essays, lectures and letters produced by the ICFI in the course of its intervention in response to the crisis of Stalinism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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Pentagon national strategy document targets China

The US military published a series of documents Thursday outlining US plans for war with Russia and China, and asserting the central role of nuclear weapons in US warfighting.

Andre Damon

German President Steinmeier delivers war speech to the nation

Steinmeier's remarks to invited soldiers, journalists, think tank representatives and leading politicians can only be described as a “war speech to the nation.” The focus was de facto a declaration of war on Russia and the Russian population.

Johannes Stern, Christoph Vandreier

One year since the US military's withdrawal from Afghanistan

The Afghan withdrawal represented a debacle for US imperialism, which based its policy throughout thirty years of uninterrupted wars, beginning with the first Gulf War in 1990-91, on the conviction that military force could overcome Washington’s precipitous economic decline.

Jordan Shilton
Eighty years since the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union

The WSWS has published a feature page incorporating a selection of essential essays from its own archives, and other documents produced contemporaneously by the Fourth International.

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100 years since the birth of Jean Brust

August 31, 2021 marks 100 years since the birth of Jean Brust, a leading figure in the Trotskyist movement. Comrade Jean, who died November 24, 1997 at the age of 76, joined the Trotskyist-led Young Peoples Socialist League as a teenager in 1937.

Bring down the Macron government!

This week’s tumultuous events in France have torn the “democratic” mask off the capitalist state, exposing it as a dictatorship of the financial oligarchy.

Parti de l’égalité socialiste (France)
Twenty years since the September 11 terror attacks

The horrific massacre of civilians was immediately exploited by the imperialist powers, led by the United States government itself, to justify far-reaching attacks on the democratic rights of their own populations, and the launching of decades-long wars in the Middle East and Africa.

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Cliff Slaughter: A political biography (1928-1963)
By David North

Cliff Slaughter died on May 3, 2021, in Leeds, England, at the age of 92. His enduring contribution in the 1960s to the defense of Trotskyism stands in tragic contrast with his subsequent political opportunism and repudiation of revolutionary Marxism.

New Zealand: Court action over Pike River mine disaster

The fathers of two of the 29 workers killed in the 2010 Pike River mine disaster are campaigning for the release of documents and correspondence relating to a 2013 decision to drop charges against Pike River CEO Peter Whittall.

Tom Peters
Sylvia Ageloff and the assassination of Leon Trotsky
With David North and Eric London

North and London discussed the significance of the latest revelations of the the Security and the Fourth International investigation into Trotsky’s assassination.

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The Best American Short Stories 2022

With a couple of exceptions, the editor has chosen stories that in their form, language and examination of thematic ideas are highly accomplished, even if the collection as a whole bumps its head against certain objective limits.

James McDonald
150 years since the birth of Rosa Luxemburg

The meeting examined Luxemburg’s role as a Marxist theoretician and political leader, and discussed the significance of her legacy to the contemporary struggle to build a Marxist leadership.

Watch the video