At the time of writing this article, the Ever Given container ship, owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha and operated by Evergreen Marine, has finally been freed after running aground on the banks of the Suez Canal. The blockage had a major impact on the international economy: the price of crude oil rose, and there was a significant impact on the cost of transporting goods and their final prices. This event could have longer-term consequences, with a chain of effect that is difficult to calculate.

Saturday 31 March, 1990, one day before the introduction of the poll tax in England and Wales, and one year after its introduction in Scotland, 250,000 people took to the streets to demonstrate in London and Glasgow organised by the All Britain Anti Poll Tax Federation (in which the Militant Tendency was playing a leading role).This was just the culminating act of a mass campaign organising millions of people's non-payment and active resistance against the implementation of the tax. This massive movement of civil disobedience eventually succeeded in bringing down the hated Thatcher government, despite being lamentably opposed by the TUC and Labour Party leaders. We reproduce here the

100 years ago, the ultra-left leaders of the German Communist Party prematurely launched a revolutionary offensive. This proved to be a fiasco, wrecking the authority of the party. The 1921 ‘March Action’ contains important lessons for today.

We republish this article, originally written in November 2018 by the Italian Marxists of Rivoluzione, to expose the hypocrisy of the official celebrations for the centenary of the end of the First World War. The pageantry of so-called National Unity and Armed Forces Day on 4 November is intended to distort the real reasons Italy entered the imperialist slaughterhouse, which had everything to do with the imperialist interests of Italian capitalism.

In the midst of the COVID-19 catastrophe, some parts of the economy are booming. Speculative investments are continuing in a frenzied fashion. The latest celebrity-driven fads, NFTs and SPACs, are among the insane expressions of this whirlpool of speculation.

I have just received the sad news of the death of my old comrade and friend, Hans-Gerd Öfinger. It was a great shock and the last thing I expected to hear. Only a couple of weeks ago I had sent him an email when I discovered that both he and his daughter Rosa had contracted COVID-19. He wrote back to say that he was recovering well and was impatient to get back to his revolutionary work.

As the COVID-19 pandemic drags into its second year, it continues to expose and intensify the contradictions of world capitalism. The madness of vaccine nationalism clearly demonstrates that a system based on private property, and the division of the world into antagonistic nation-states, is not equipped to deal with a viral threat that has no respect for borders, profit margins, or narrow nationalist interests.

The first national strike of Amazon workers in Italy took place on Monday 22 March, after Amazon's management walked away from the negotiating table. Although it is difficult to measure the exact level of participation, the strike was a resounding success.

In this talk from Revolution Festival 2019, Hamid Alizadeh – editor of In Defence of Marxism – discusses the fight against imperialism and colonialism. The post-war period saw a wave of revolutions in the colonial world, bringing down many imperialist regimes. Liberals would have us believe that ended ‘imperialism’ and the oppression of the so-called ‘Third World’. But the legacy of colonialism lives on today, with just as great a chasm between a handful of powerful capitalist states, and the impoverished ex-colonial countries.

During Britain’s first national builders’ strike in the 1970s, trade union activists spread the strike by travelling from sites in North Wales and Chester to Shrewsbury, in so-called flying pickets. 24 workers were later arrested and convicted on spurious counts of intimidation, violence and conspiracy, following a crooked trial, at the urging of construction bosses and the Tory-led government of Edward Heath. Several of these workers served jail time. Following a decades-long campaign, the Shrewsbury 24 have had their convictions overturned. Though this provides some vindication, it is not true justice. We must honour the sacrifices of these class fighters by continuing their legacy of

Today is the birthday of Julio Antonio Mella: a Cuban revolutionary and founder of the Cuban Communist Party, who was assassinated in 1929. We celebrate the legacy of this outstanding young Marxist, who embodied the best traditions of the communist movement, and gave his life in service of the working-class of Latin America and the whole world. The following text was first presented at the first International Seminar on the Life and Ideas of Leon Trotsky in Havana, Cuba, in May 2019.

On Tuesday, March 16, eight people, including six women of East Asian descent, were shot and killed at three separate spas in the Atlanta, Georgia area. The suspect, Robert Aaron Long, is a white man who had a history of frequenting Asian massage parlors, including the site of his first attack, to obtain sexual services. Although Georgia law enforcement and the FBI are reluctant to label this atrocity as a hate crime, these attacks highlight how racism, sexism, and all the ills of capitalism have intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Wednesday 17 March, the Netherlands went to the polls. The sitting prime minister, Mark Rutte, and his right-wing liberal party, VVD, won by a large margin. Together with the other liberal party, D66, he will now begin the process of forming his fourth government. The resounding defeat of the ‘left’ parties shows an urgent need for a class alternative to Rutte.

Today marks the one-year anniversary since Britain first entered into lockdown. One year on, and tens-of-thousands of lives have been lost because of the Tories’ crimes. To gain justice, workers must organise to kick out this rotten government.

A new law being proposed by the Tories – that would give police unprecedented repressive powers – has led to a wave of anger and demonstrations. In Bristol last weekend, police provoked a peaceful protest of 5,000 into a furious riot. This anger towards the police came on the back of their brutal suppression of a peaceful vigil in London, in memory of Sarah Everard, allegedly killed by a police officer two weeks ago.