The internationalists

(Image - Lula may give social democracy a workers’ face, but nothing can erase its bourgeois content) · Papers over the cracks in capitalism · Introduction · Latin America has been teetering on the brink of total barbarism for so long that any new commentary seems unnecessary but in the last few years the world economic crisis and the neo­liberal policies that have been adopted to deal with it have...

The imminent invasion of Iraq is not just a war on the people there. Like all wars in capitalism’s imperialist epoch this war is part of the way the system reproduces itself. The imperialist powers in 1914 started the modern epoch by going to war not only to solve their own economic problems but also to try to prevent the rising working class from ending the system of class privilege and...

Deportations, destruction, massacres of innocent and defenceless citizens: the bloody cycle which recommenced more than a year ago with the Nazi-style provocation of Sharon has tragically accelerated. Yet Israeli mini-imperialism has always had a free hand. Thanks to the US veto in the UN Israel has been allowed the luxury of invading territory which no international law could possibly permit and...

Mounting demonstrations against war have shown that there is massive public resistance and we have to salute all those who are taking part in the movement against it. However we have also to warn against false friends. Those who are campaigning (like the Daily Mirror) for war to take place only after a United Nations resolution are actually preparing us for war.

(Image - Firefighters on education workers’ picket line; but really effective joint action requires going beyond union control) · Spread the strikes! Stop the War Drive! · It’s not so long ago that Tony Blair was crowing about the end of class struggle. The working class, however, is still alive and kicking. The firefighters’ strike is the first for 25 years and comes at a time of growing unrest.