While the Covid-19 crisis has persisted for almost two years with its heavy health, social, political and economic impact on most of the world's states, this has in no way moderated their imperialist appetites. The rise in tensions has been particularly marked in recent months by a clear exacerbation of the opposition between the USA and China, highlighted most recently by the so-called “Aukus” agreement between the US, Britain and Australia, and explicitly aimed at China.

In the face of the looming ecological catastrophe, disquiet and indignation are immense, as shown by the “marches for the climate” in 2019, which mobilised millions of young people from many countries. New protests are now taking place in many countries. At the time, we showed that these marches were situated on a totally bourgeois terrain. This is why we invite our readers to read or re-read the international leaflet we distributed at the first marches of 2019, which remains fully valid.

The first of two articles analysing the fact that USA’s rise to world dominance also coincides with the course of a world system in decline. In particular, it became a global superpower through imperialist war becoming the “way of life” of decadent capitalism.

The strike at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) clearly shows that the proletariat has kept intact its capacity to fight for the defence of its living and working conditions, despite the many difficulties and obstacles in the current situation.

The exasperation expressed in “anti-compulsory vaccine” demonstrations around the world rails against being subjected to the diktats of arrogant government which has piled up inconsistencies in the face of the pandemic, imposing repeated lock-down confinements after continually opening up too soon or boasting of a scientific approach while what is in fact foremost is bourgeois negligence. But protests of this kind can in no way lead to a development of consciousness in the proletariat of the irremediable impasse of the capitalist system.

To mark the 20th ‘anniversary’ of the September 11 attacks in New York, we draw our readers’ attention to our lead article from International Review 107, “New York and the world over: Capitalism sows death”. The article denounces the massacre of thousands of civilians, the majority of them proletarians, as an act of imperialist war, but at the same time exposes the hypocritical tears shed by the ruling class. As the article says, “The attack on New York was not an ‘attack on civilisation’, it was itself the expression of bourgeois ‘civilisation’”.

Preamble

We are publishing an article written by our comrades in Spain about the surge in lay-offs following in the wake of the pandemic. But as the article insists, “Lay-offs are not limited to Spain, they are happening all over the world”. Workers everywhere will not emerge from lockdowns to enjoy a “better world” but will be faced with increasing attacks on their living standards at all levels, demanding, as the article also insists, a unified response from the working class.

The focus of this report is on the general perspective: where is the world economy heading after the great cataclysm that erupted with the Covid pandemic?

The hasty retreat of US and other western forces from Afghanistan is a stark manifestation of capitalism’s inability to offer anything but increasing barbarism. But as marxists we can’t just comment on events, we have to analyse their historic roots, which we aim to do in the following article.

We continue publishing the main reports on the world situation from the 24th ICC Congress. This report examines some of the main issues facing the international class struggle in the phase of capitalist decomposition: the problem of the politicisation of the class movement, the dangers posed by interclassism, the subterranean maturation of consciousness, and the meaning of defeats in this period.

US and Cuban flags symbolise the weight of nationalism in the recent demonstrations

Despite the real misery that sparked them off, the protests in Cuba were marked by an absence of working class autonomy

Mass killings and ethnic cleansing in Ethiopia, stirred up by the bigger imperialist powers, show up the false promises of a new economic prosperity in the Horn of Africa. A contribution from a close sympathiser.

The conclusions of the draft report of the International Panel on Climate Change which was “leaked” to the press are chilling: “Life on Earth could recover from major climate change by evolving towards new species and creating new ecosystems. Humanity cannot”. For decades, scientists have been warning of the dangers of climate disturbances. We are right there now! It’s not just a matter of some species disappearing or of localised disasters. Cataclysm has now become permanent, and there is worse to come.

This article is a response to two letters published recently on the phenomenon of "uberisation” Are “uberised” employees part of the working class? It endeavours to place the issues in a historical framework by drawing on the foundations of marxism and the experience of the workers' movement.

We publish here a letter from a close sympathiser expressing solidarity with the ICC’s struggle against parasitism and adventurism and for the defence of the Communist Left. The most important thing about this letter is that it points to the historical materialist method for approaching questions of behaviour, of slanders and maneuvres, which do such damage to the proletarian political milieu.

In a way, "the communist left finds itself in a similar situation today to that of Bilan in the 1930s, in the sense that it is obliged to understand a new and unprecedented historical situation" (Resolution on the international situation of the 13th ICC Congress, 1999)

There is an immortal line from the 1965 film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines, whose scenario is an international flying tournament in the year 1910. Robert Morley, playing the pompous newspaper magnate Lord Rawnsley, tells us that “the problem with these international affairs is that they attract foreigners”. As communists, who reject any idea of loyalty to the nation, we would express it differently: the problem with international competitions is that they promote patriotism.

The British bourgeoisie is increasingly isolated internationally, and at odds within itself. But the working class has its own interests to fight for.