The following article by our Italian comrades explores the political debates between the leadership of the Comintern and the leaders of its Italian section. The political errors of these leaders, and the subsequent degeneration of the Comintern, contributed to the historic defeats and tragedies that befell the Italian working class in the 1920s onwards. 

Mass demonstrations were seen in cities across Britain over the weekend, as thousands took to the streets to condemn the crimes of Israeli imperialism, and to show support for the Palestinian liberation struggle. Intifada until victory!

One hundred years ago, on 3 May 1921, the partition of Ireland became law in the British parliament. As the Marxist revolutionary, James Connolly, had predicted, partition created “a carnival of reaction both North and South”. It took years of terror, pogroms and bloodshed to establish what the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James Craig, termed a “Protestant state for a Protestant people”. In the South, the newly established Free State was baptised in the blood of the Republicans who resisted the Treaty and partition.

Draghi’s ‘Recovery Plan’ is being hailed as the saving grace of the beleaguered Italian economy. But this litany of half-measures comes nowhere close to resolving the dire crisis of Italian capitalism. And while ‘Super Mario’s’ plan might provide some short-term relief to the bosses – workers and youth will be left high and dry.

The democratic mandate for a Scottish independence referendum has been renewed, with the Scottish National Party (SNP) hailing their victory in the Scottish Parliament elections as a ‘landslide’.

Keir Starmer is doubling down in the wake of Labour’s dismal election results, accelerating the shift to the right. If we want a real ‘change of direction’, we need an urgent change of leadership. Starmer out! Fight for socialism!

The results of yesterday’s elections are a catastrophe for Labour. The blame for this lies entirely with Starmer and the right wing. We need a new leadership. No confidence in Starmer! Fight the Tories with socialist policies!

The left has suffered a harsh defeat in Madrid. If anyone was singled out these past years by the reaction as public enemy number one of the regime, it was Pablo Iglesias. He has resigned all of the political posts that he held under this pressure. The right will be celebrating in style and its arrogance will be augmented. The rank–and–file of the left must learn the lessons from all this. As the philosopher Spinoza said, ours is not to laugh nor to cry, but to understand.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is in hot water over alleged remarks that he would rather see ‘bodies pile high’ than bring in lockdowns. Real or fabricated, it is clear that the Tories’ priority is profits over lives. Mobilise against this rotten government!

Cracks are opening up in the foundations of Putin's regime, which is forced to rest on increasingly brutal and arbitrary repression. With the regime entering into a period of crisis, and broad masses of the Russian population openly questioning it, the question arises: how will the Communist Party of the Russian Federation respond?

Throughout March, a mass struggle in Greece (led by the youth) has been waged against police violence and the reactionary, authoritarian New Democracy (ND) government. The main left organisations have scandalously distanced themselves from and refused to join forces in support of this militant movement. Nevertheless, the masses have emerged from a period of paralysis willing to fight. The movement against police repression has temporarily subsided for now, due to the emergency conditions imposed by the present spike of the pandemic. But what is clear is that a new chapter of the Greek class struggle has begun. Note: this article was initially drafted in March.

An escalation of tension in the Donbas region raised the spectre of open conflict, which would plunge people on both sides into a nightmare of bloodshed once more. Although troops have now withdrawn from the border, why did this scare take place? And who stands to benefit from continued strife in the region?

The results of the recent Greenlandic election reflect a rejection of the ruthless exploitation of Greenland’s natural resources by multinational corporations. A big drop in turnout, however, also reveals an underlying radicalisation and dissatisfaction with the whole system, the political elite, and Danish colonialism.

The leader of left-wing party Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, (who recently resigned as vice president in the Spanish coalition government to stand as a candidate for the Madrid Regional Assembly) received a letter yesterday containing a death threat against him and his family and four bullets. The Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and the Director of the Civil Guard received similar envelopes with threats and bullets. One of them is signed: "Civil Guard. National Police." These threats should be taken seriously. 

The apparent social peace in Portugal in recent years – without major uprisings or noteworthy social turmoil – hides a much more complex and bitter reality beneath its fragile surface. Whilst the mainstream media, nationally and internationally, hailed the economic recovery after Portugal’s debt crisis as a new dawn, the scars left in society by a decade of austerity, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, have created the potential for future revolutionary developments.