The retreats of the Syriza leadership have not forestalled German ultimatums - The solution lies in radical policies; not in diplomacy. Denounce the debt - nationalise the banks - expropriate the oligarchy!

On the December 3, 1944, British snipers, the Athens police, and fascist paramilitaries opened fire on a demonstration of communist sympathisers in Athens’ Syntagma Square, leaving 28 dead. They were protesting against the provocations of the Greek bourgeois parties and the British imperialists, who were trying to derail and crush the mass revolutionary movement that had defeated the Nazis. Thus began the Battle of Athens.

Hundreds of thousands marched in Madrid on 31 January, in a demonstration called by Podemos to mark the beginning of their campaign to win the general election this year in Spain. The huge march came just after Syriza’s victory in Greece and reflected the deep anger of millions of working people against capitalist austerity, as well as the hope that it can be ended.

1.5 million workers went on strike yesterday in the biggest political strike in Norwegian history. Trade unions struck against the right-wing government’s attempts to reform labour laws.

What could SYRIZA's leadership have done to achieve a Left government that doesn’t have to lean on a right-wing party? Read the position of the Communist Tendency of SYRIZA as to what the leadership should have done to achieve an independent Left government.

It is a grave mistake on the part of SYRIZA to cooperate with the Independent Greeks! Do not waste this historic opportunity! There must be a coalition between SYRIZA - KKE!

Read here the initial analysis of the Communist Tendency on the outcome of today's election results and this historic victory of the Left.

On Saturday 14 February delegates from all over Britain will be joined in London by international visitors for the 2nd Marxist Student Federation conference at SOAS. As well as discussing the international student movement across the world, students will be discussing on the perspectives and tasks for the Marxist students in Britain (See below the agenda).

On January 25th Greece will vote in a general election. Syriza is likely to be the party voted to power. This poses a dilemma for the European capitalists as one part of their machine, bourgeois democracy, risks colliding with another, their programme of austerity, which has been visited upon the Greek people for the past five years. This is seen as a serious threat to the plans of the rulers of Europe to solve the economic crisis by an all-out attack on the living standards of the working class.

Read a short account of the position of the Communist Tendency of SYRIZA at the recent SYRIZA CC meeting, along with the speech by our comrade, Stamatis Karayannopoulos.

The scandal enveloping Prince Andrew - following allegations in a US law court that he may have been gifted an underage girl for sex by his paedophile friend, Jeffrey Epstein - has shone an unwelcome spotlight on the festering corners of Britain’s rotten Establishment.

96 years ago, on January 15, 1919, the famous German revolutionaries and Marxists Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were murdered by reactionary "Freikorps" forces who had formed a counter-revolutionary conspiracy with right-wing social democratic (SPD) leaders to drown the revolution in blood. (See the book Germany from Revolution to Counter-Revolution by Rob Sewell, available here)

Over the weekend several million people took part in demonstrations in Paris and many provincial cities of France. The government and the whole official establishment had called for the demonstrations and announced their participation. On Sunday evening, Prime Minister Manuel Valls, declared that the people had rallied “behind President” François Hollande.

As I write these lines the drama in France has just been brought to a bloody climax ending in the death of the two men who killed the staff of Charlie Hebdo. This denouement was as inevitable as the ending of a Greek tragedy. There was no realistic prospect of any other. Three days of high drama that captured the attention of the world have ended with twenty dead, a further unknown number of wounded and a nation in a state of trauma.

The terrorist attack against the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo has caused a huge wave of anger and indignation throughout the country. In the evening after the attack over a hundred thousand people took to the streets of many cities. The revulsion aroused amongst the masses by this brutal terrorist act has been exacerbated by the fact that many of the victims were very popular and held in high regard.