English

Top Stories

Alan Gelfand, whose lawsuit against the US government led to the exposure of high-level agents of the FBI and Soviet secret police in the Socialist Workers Party, died Wednesday, October 29, in Los Angeles. He was 76 years old.

David North

This statement analyses Socialist Workers Party leader Jack Barnes’ 1982 speech to the convention of the Young Socialist Alliance which repudiated Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution.

Political Committee of the Workers League

For 20 years Intercontinental Press, founded by the late Joseph Hansen in the aftermath of the SWP’s break with the International Committee, has functioned as the principal international organ of anti-Trotskyist distortions, misinformation and political provocation.

David North

David Neita, who played a leading role in the Workers League (predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party) during the 1970s, died on October 30 in Los Angeles at the age of 77.

David North

Although not formally involved in the Trotskyist movement in the latter part of his life, Dave always followed the political developments and was keenly aware of and excited by the evolution of the organization from his early days in the 1960’s until today.

Karen Frankel

The SEP warned in May, weeks before the fascist-led mobilisations outside hotels housing asylum seekers began, “Shorn of its name, conjuring images of a long-abandoned connections to reformism, the Labour government is a far-right formation.”

Robert Stevens

Verizon announces 15,000 layoffs in latest jobs bloodbath

This is the latest in a series of mass layoff announcements throughout the US economy, as companies respond to a deepening economic slowdown and the proliferation of AI technology with job cuts and speed-ups.

Andre Damon

Workers Struggles: The Americas

A nationwide blackout triggered mass protests in the Dominican Republic, while on November 13 and 14 teachers across Mexico staged a 48-hour protest strike.

UK Leonardo and BAE Systems workers strike for pay rise

Unite’s failure to end industrial action at Leonardo with a shoddy deal meant it was forced to announce a new round of industrial action. As with the original planned action, this does not consist of a unified strike at all five plants but is being held sporadically involving one or two plants at a time.

Robert Stevens

Brutal Indonesian dictator Suharto declared national hero

The declaration that the mass murderer Suharto is a national hero is a statement of intent by the capitalist class and should be treated by the working class in every country as a serious warning.

Joseph Scalice

This week in history: November 17-23

Fujimori resigns and flees Peru; Spanish dictator Franco dies; US troops reach Yalu River in Korean War; Tutankhamen mummy is opened

50 Years since the Canberra Coup: A Marxist assessment

In Australia, a purportedly stable capitalist parliamentary democracy, this entire democratic facade was thrust aside in 1975 in response to what was a potentially revolutionary upsurge of working-class struggles amid a period of acute crisis of capitalism internationally.

Mike Head

This week in history: November 10-16

Austrian rail disaster kills 158; Canberra Coup in Australia; Missouri court limits segregation in St. Louis; First exhibition of surrealist paintings.

Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi defies Turkish state’s intervention on its program

The Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi, which was officially established in August in Turkey, received a letter from the Supreme Court of Appeals Prosecutor’s Office demanding that it change its program. It categorically rejected this political intervention.

Sosyalist Eşitlik Partisi – Dördüncü Enternasyonal

Right-wing operation forces resignation of BBC head Tim Davie

The reason for Davie falling on his sword, when many in the BBC were arguing for opposition to Prescott’s claims, is suggested by his own appointment to head the BBC in 2020 being central to plans to shift it further right.

Robert Stevens

2025 Summer School. Lecture 9, Part 2

Hansen builds a world network of agents

This lecture examines the international operations of the US Socialist Workers Party under the direction of Joseph Hansen, exposed as an FBI agent by the Security and the Fourth International investigation.

Andrea Lobo

Hansen’s World Network Exposed

These three articles detail the FBI-CIA network of the late Joseph Hansen, double-agent and long-time leader of the revisionist Socialist Workers Party in the US.

International Committee of the Fourth International

2025 Summer School Lecture 9, Part 1

The Carleton Twelve

This lecture addresses the discovery that 12 prominent leaders of the Socialist Workers Party all came from the same small Midwestern college.

Tom Mackaman

After Democrats’ bailout of Trump to end government shutdown

Jacobin calls for union leaders, Democrats to pressure Trump, Republicans

Without a trace of a class analysis and employing the most banal tropes of protest politics, Jacobin seeks to channel the growing revolt of workers and youth against dictatorship, war, genocide and inequality and their interest in socialism back behind the Democratic Party.

Barry Grey

Trump meets with former al-Qaeda leader Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House

US President Donald Trump met at the White House Tuesday with Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former al-Qaeda leader who led the overthrow of the Syrian government last year. The meeting was a milestone in the long-term relationship of the United States with al-Qaeda-linked forces in Syria.

Andre Damon

2 Sri Lankan workers die in industrial accidents in 1 week

A coworker said: “Whether we suffer, whether we get hurt, or die like Vijayakumar after getting caught in a machine—that doesn’t matter to them. What they want is for us to die so they can make money.”

Pani Wijesiriwardena

Capitalism failing on all 45 indicators of climate progress

The United Nations’ “Emissions Gap Report 2025” shows the planet is on course for 2.8 degrees Celsius of warming above the pre-industrial average by the end of this century based on current policies.

Thomas Scripps

The Tennessee munitions factory explosion and deaths at National Steel Car in Hamilton, Ontario: Workers must organize to defend workplace safety and their lives!

For those reading this in Canada thinking this explosion happened in the US and thankfully it cannot happen here, they should look soberly at what our current prime minister is doing without any real pushback, and our experience at the National Steel Car plant in Hamilton, Ontario.

National Steel Car Rank-and-File Committee

Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War

Their testimonies are first-hand accounts of war crimes perpetrated by the self-proclaimed “the most moral army in the world”, flatly contradicting the IDF’s insistence that it operates in accordance with international law and takes measures to minimise civilian harm in its genocidal assault on Gaza.

Jean Shaoul

Middle East leaders agree to police Gaza on behalf of US and Israel

The ceasefire will be monitored by the signatories to the deal—the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey—with the US guaranteeing to enforce it. Ever since, all four signatories have done nothing to stop Israel continuing its daily attacks on Gaza and withholding aid.

Jean Shaoul

Turkish government detains prominent journalists

Political arrests, operations targeting journalists, and growing attacks on press freedom are steps taken by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government to use the judiciary to build an authoritarian regime.

Barış Demir

Kurdish PKK withdraws its forces from Turkey

The negotiations between Ankara and the Kurdish Workers Party have nothing to do with the pursuit of peace and democracy. Turkey’s ruling elites have approached the negotiations from the outset as a security issue.

Barış Demir, Ulaş Sevinç
Socialism against oligarchy, fascism and war

Underlying the interlinked crises of the capitalist system is an oligarchy that subordinates all of society to profit and the accumulation of personal wealth. The fight against the oligarchy is by its very nature a revolutionary task.

Wolfgang Weber (1949-2024): A revolutionary intellectual and fighter for Trotskyism

Wolfgang devoted over 50 years of his life to building the Trotskyist party and fought tirelessly politically and theoretically for the independence of the working class.

The Gaza genocide and the death of Aaron Bushnell: What are the political lessons?

This lecture was given by World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Tuesday, March 12.

84 years since the assassination of Leon Trotsky

Trotsky's assassination was the greatest political crime of the 20th century. Alongside Vladimir Lenin, Trotsky was the leader of the 1917 October revolution in Russia, which led to the establishment of the first workers’ state in history, and the preeminent strategist of world socialist revolution.

One Hundred Years Since the Death of Lenin

January 21 marked 100 years since the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924. This page includes a collection of essays reviewing the life and ideas of the great Marxist theoretician, founder of the Bolshevik Party, and co-leader of the Russian Revolution.

View page

Stop the censorship of anti-fascist meetings at Berlin universities!

While students face ever greater restrictions on their right to freedom of expression, German universities themselves are by no means neutral. They increasingly take sides with German militarism and defend far-right political positions.

International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Germany)

A socialist perspective against genocide, world war and fascism

Students are returning to universities this October under extraordinary conditions. The IYSSE is distributing this statement at the beginning of the semester at universities in Germany and calls on students to join us in building a mass movement against war and capitalism among workers and young people.

International Youth and Students for Social Equality (Germany)

David Neita: January 5, 1948 – October 30, 2025

David Neita, who played a leading role in the Workers League (predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party) during the 1970s, died on October 30 in Los Angeles at the age of 77.

David North

The fight against fascism requires a fight against capitalism and war!

Having twice voted with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in favor of a brutal policy of sealing the borders against refugees, the conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and Free Democratic Party (FDP) parliamentary groups in the Bundestag are prepared to accept the far-right party as a government partner.

Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei
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

Analyzing a World in Chaos from an Island of Tranquility

This speech was given by David North at the second international commemoration of the work of Leon Trotsky on Büyükada (Prinkipo), Turkey, during the first period of his exile from the Soviet Union between 1929 and 1933.

David North

On the anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky

Eighty-four years ago today, 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.

David North
Leon Trotsky and the Struggle for Socialism in the Twenty-First Century

The essays in this book, though written over the span of more than 40 years, are connected by a central argument: Leon Trotsky was the most significant figure in the history of socialism during the first four decades of the twentieth century, and his legacy remains the critical and indispensable theoretical and political foundation of the ongoing contemporary struggle for the victory of world socialism.

Order your print or epub version of the book from Mehring Books today.

Read
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

Trump pardons January 6 coup architects and fake electors

After granting clemency to nearly 1,600 January 6 foot soldiers, Trump has now pardoned his top coup lawyers and fake electors, several of whom still face state charges for their role in the 2020 election conspiracy.

Jacob Crosse
25 years since the death of Vadim Rogovin

Vadim Z. Rogovin (10 May 1937 – 18 September 1998) was a Soviet Marxist sociologist and historian. Working in close collaboration with the International Committee of the Fourth International, Rogovin helped lay the foundations for the Trotskyist movement’s fight against the post-Soviet school of historical falsification, including in his six-volume Was There an Alternative? This page collects major essays and commemorations on Rogovin as well as links to his own writings.

Read

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

Marcus Garvey and the reactionary logic of racialist politics

More than one hundred years after the formation of his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), Marcus Garvey's legacy remains highly relevant in the struggle to overcome efforts to divide the working class along racial lines.

Lawrence Porter
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.

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.

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

Marxism in the academic’s imagination

Two new books on Marx and Marxism

What both books avoid is precisely what Marx insisted upon: that the liberation of humanity requires the political independence of the working class and the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism.

Tom Mackaman
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.

Read more