The collapse of the concrete canopy at the train station in Novi Sad on 1 November, in which 15 people were killed, was the straw that broke the camel’s back for many in Serbia. Among the victims, a large number of them young people and children, two are still in critical condition.

After evading authorities for five days, Brian Thompson’s alleged assassin was finally caught at a McDonald’s in Altoona, PA. Dubbed “The Adjuster” on social media, Luigi Mangione has been received as a modern-day folk hero. The following is an update and supplement to our original article, written before his capture.

We publish below the short, 262-word, hand-written manifesto which was allegedly in Luigi Mangione’s possession at the time of his arrest. We publish it in full here on account of the fact that the capitalist press has refused to do so, although they sparingly quote from it.

Protests have rocked the Georgian capital of Tbilisi for eight days straight, with angry crowds surrounding the parliament building, bearing Jersualem Cross and EU flags and hurling fireworks at police lines. The opposition at the head of the movement denies the legitimacy of the ‘pro-Russian’ Georgian Dream regime. Meanwhile, western politicians lavish praise on the protestors and threaten sanctions, seeing an opportunity to drag Georgia firmly under their sphere of influence – all (naturally) in the name of upholding ‘democracy’.

Wednesday morning, Americans woke up to the news that UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, Brian Thompson, had been shot to death in a targeted attack outside a Manhattan hotel. The country’s capitalists and their representatives shed collective tears for the death of one of their own. One of the first to react was Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, Kamala Harris’s running-mate in the last election, who described Thompson’s death as “a terrible loss for the business and health care community.”

We are living through an epoch of war and revolution. In Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and countless other countries, wars and civil wars are raging, all with the backing and complicity of various imperialist powers. In these turbulent times, the ideas and methods of Lenin – who fought a relentless struggle against warmongering chauvinism during the First World War – provide the clarity that is so desperately needed in the world today.

This is a transcript of the introduction to a discussion on ‘Perspectives for France’ held at the Founding Congress of the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR) on 30 November and 1 December 2024.

The Syrian regime has collapsed. Bashar al-Assad has fled the country. His army has disarmed, and his government has capitulated. The prisons have been overrun, and thousands have been released. Meanwhile, thousands of Syrians have taken to the streets in celebration. 

In yet another sudden and sharp event, highly characteristic of the period of history we are living through, a surprise offensive by Syrian Islamist militants is fast unravelling Syria. Israel’s western-backed wars against Gaza and Lebanon have upended the fragile equilibrium in the Middle East and pulled a thread that has begun unwinding the fabric of the region.

"The body remains on the ground, but the ideas remain standing" (Victor Hugo)

After four years of relative stasis, the Syrian civil war was reignited this week by a sudden rebel offensive on Aleppo. In order to answer the questions this raises from a Marxist perspective, we are republishing this reading guide.

This week has been full of sharp and sudden turns. The Syrian civil war has suddenly reignited due to the shock advance of a Turkey-backed rebel group. The French president was forced to resign after trying to force through an austerity budget. Joe Biden has used his last few weeks in power to pardon his corrupt son. And, to top things off, the president of South Korea declared martial law, only to be quickly defeated by opposition from the whole of parliament and mass mobilisations. 

On 30 November and 1 December, over 160 activists took part in the founding congress of the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR), held in Ivry-sur-Seine. Comrades came from the Paris region, Toulouse, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Montpellier, Grenoble, Reims, Gap, Lyon, Rennes, Morlaix, Brest, Nantes, Lille, Bourges, Dax, Cherbourg and Val d'Ajol.

The Irish general election has returned the two main capitalist parties to the Dáil with enough seats to form the core of a new coalition. The establishment is forcing a weak smile and trying to celebrate. “The choice of the Irish people is clear,” The Irish Times attempted to convince itself, “they want more of the same”.

A spectacular political whirlwind has taken place in South Korea, where the President suddenly declared martial law in the name of “defending the country from pro-North Korean forces,” only to be forced to roll it back in a matter of hours. Why did this extraordinary move turn into a farce so quickly, and what forces has this unleashed in the crisis-ridden country?