On 13 September, Norway held its parliamentary elections. These elections came at a very significant period in Norwegian politics: They are the first elections since the outbreak of the pandemic in March last year. The pandemic revealed the contradictions hidden under the surface.

The latest title from Wellred Books, The History of Philosophy: A Marxist Perspective by Alan Woods will be out in only a few days. We publish below an excerpt from the Introduction to the book, explaining why revolutionary Marxists should study the history of philosophy, and the enormous debt that Marxism owes to earlier thinkers, and in particular to the giants of philosophy that lived in the revolutionary, youthful phase of the bourgeois epoch.

Young people around the world are “losing the generation game” because of the global capitalist crisis. Such is the conclusion drawn in a recent article published in the Financial Times, the mouthpiece of big business in Britain. To the ruling class’ horror, the crisis is leading to increasing radicalisation of the youth.

The US Supreme Court has voted to uphold a new Texas state law that drastically limits access to legal abortions. This scandalous attack on reproductive rights must be met with working-class resistance in defence of fundamental democratic freedoms, which are under threat from the rotten US capitalist system.

In the face of the pandemic, the environmental crisis has been somewhat overshadowed. Its impact, however, rages on. We are now reaping the consequences of climate change with extreme weather conditions becoming increasingly common. This year, in particular, ominous droughts have impacted regions spread all over the world.

With a tsunami of austerity and attacks looming, the TUC [Trades Union Congress] is meeting this weekend to discuss the way forward for workers in Britain. The trade unions need a fighting programme, and a militant, unified resistance to the Tories and bosses.

Twenty years ago today, the United States witnessed the biggest and bloodiest attack on its soil in modern history. At least 2,977 men and women died and at least 25,000 were injured after a gang of terrorists crashed a series of commercial aircraft into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, leaving the American people in a state of shock and disbelief. Across the world, millions of people looked on in horror at devastating scenes of desperate people trapped in the upper floors of the towers, some of whom jumped to their deaths rather than face being burnt alive, shortly before the towers collapsed, leaving thousands buried under the rubble.

On Friday 3 September, Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced that he would not be running in the leadership contest of his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) scheduled for later this month. This effectively means that he will be stepping down as Prime Minister after barely a year in office. However, given the general crisis of Japanese capitalism, what we are seeing here isn’t just the end of Suga’s own political career, but the end of relative political stability that the ruling class has managed to maintain for the past decade. In Japan, a new, turbulent epoch of political instability is being ushered in.

World music and the class struggle for democratic rights have both lost an important figure, Mikis Theodorakis, the much-loved composer of the Greek people. Mikis Theodorakis dedicated his life to the musical rebirth of post-war Greece. His musical compositions combined an incredible artistic prowess with a remarkable expression of the Greek working class’ mood, aspirations and struggles against poverty and oppression.

The latest title from Wellred Books, The History of Philosophy: A Marxist Perspective, is out soon. This book explains the development of philosophical thought over more than 2,000 years. It is vital reading for any revolutionary who wishes to arm themselves with clear philosophical ideas that can change the world. Read more here about why you should get your copy today.

Under pressure from the big landlords, the Supreme Court has nullified an extended moratorium on evictions, implemented in the interest of slowing the spread of COVID. Some seven million Americans are behind on rent and millions of working-class families now face

Turmoil has engulfed the impoverished west African country of Guinea since an army special operations unit announced that it had captured president Alpha Condé and dissolved his government on Sunday. The coup leader and head of the country’s special forces, Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, announced on the state broadcaster on Sunday that the country’s constitution had been suspended and the borders closed. He also announced a 24-hour curfew in all areas except the mining areas.

Our US website received the following letter from one of our comrades in New Orleans who is experiencing first-hand the devastation in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida. Ida’s fury once again exposed the lack of preparedness and planning that is inherent in private ownership of the means of production.

The 2008 crash and coronavirus crisis have revived interest in the theories of J.M. Keynes, the liberal English economist. But a look at Keynes’ life and ideas show that he was no friend of the working class. We need socialism, not Keynesianism.

For years the massive mobilisation of the Venezuelan masses cast aside the repression of the state apparatus. However, the failure to complete the socialist revolution has created economic chaos. As the Maduro government has attempted to make workers pay for the crisis and the bureaucracy has become bolder in asserting its own interests, it has met the resistance of working-class activists with increasing state repression, arrests, and victimisation.