International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow.
Dave Kellaway assesses the political situation where creeping fascism is advancing, the Labour centre is not holding but radicalisation to the left is also significant.
read article...President Donald Trump has taken advantage of the current budget crisis, which has lasted more than a month, shutting down the federal government, to stop funding food programs that affect tens of million. Trump said the shutdown provided an opportunity to close “Democrat programs that we want to close up or we never wanted to happen.” By “Democrat programs” he means social welfare programs that provide food and education to low-income people.
read article...When more than 50 Indonesian labour unions gathered in Jakarta on 5 October 2021 to establish the Partai Buruh (Labour Party), it appeared to mark a historic moment: workers organising their own political vehicle to challenge an oligarchic system that had stripped away their rights. Yet from its inception, the party embodied a contradiction. Led by union bureaucrats with histories of elite collaboration, the Labour Party promised working-class independence whilst its president courted the very politicians who had passed anti-worker legislation. It claimed to represent the marginalised whilst maintaining "deafening silence" on human rights abuses and democratic backsliding.
read article...Since Venezuela’s disputed 2024 elections, Nicolás Maduro’s government has escalated its authoritarian turn. More than 2,000 people were detained in the days following the vote, and targeted persecution has widened to include journalists, trade unionists, academics, and human rights defenders. Human rights activist Marta Lía Grajales was disappeared for two days after denouncing the brutal beating of mothers demanding freedom for their imprisoned children. María Alejandra Díaz, a Chavista lawyer and former Constituent Assembly member, was stripped of her license and harassed after calling for transparency in the vote count. These cases illustrate a broader strategy of intimidation and criminalization.
read article...For a year now, young people in Serbia have been continuing their fight for a democratic society in the face of Aleksandar Vučić’s authoritarian regime. On both sides of Serbia, student marches are criss-crossing the country in the direction of Novi Sad to commemorate the collapse of the railway station, responsible for the deaths of 16 people on 1 November 2024. This tragic event triggered a political protest on an unprecedented scale.
read article...The United States cancelled the debts of some of its allies. The most obvious instance of this kind was the way the German debt was largely cancelled by the 1953 London Agreement. In order to make sure that the economy of West Germany would thrive and thus become a key element of stability in the Atlantic bloc, the creditor allies led by the United States made major concessions to German authorities and corporations - concessions that went beyond debt relief. A comparison between the way West Germany was treated after WWII and the current attitude to developing countries or to Greece today is a telling story.
As its initial name indicates (International Bank for reconstruction and development), the World Bank (WB) had two main objectives:
1. bring financial support to the reconstruction of the countries that had been devastated by the Second World War;
2. grant loans to contribute to the development of backward countries (as developing countries were then called). The US, that call the music at the WB and on the international scene, decided that they would do without the WB for their reconstruction mission in Europe and unilaterally set up a large financial programme intended to restore the European productive apparatus in the countries within their orbit.
This February, the Solidarity Labor Commission held a two-day retreat at which we reflected on Solidarity’s labor work and the rank-and-file union perspective that has guided it for decades. This outline of a renewed strategic perspective is what emerged from our discussions. Although there is much here that is new, this perspective reflects our attempt to interpret the trajectory of union reform work since the 1980s and the political dynamics of the current period through the lens of Solidarity’s long-standing commitment to a politics of “socialism from below.”
“If women’s liberation is unthinkable without communism, then communism is unthinkable without women’s liberation.”
—Russian revolutionary Inessa Armand
On the night of October 13th to 14th, at 2 a.m., by order of the Dean of the National Technical University of Athens, heavily armed special police forces, unprovoked and provocatively, invaded the historic site of the Polytechnic and arrested 15 students.
- read article...Dear Sisters and Brothers,
The Russian Federation continues its brutal, full-scale war on Ukraine. Every day, Russia launches missiles and drones at Ukrainian cities, destroying workplaces, homes, and entire communities, while imposing its criminal regime on the temporarily occupied territories.
- read article...On Saturday 11 October 2025, at the Buchenwald memorial and on the initiative of the association Les amis d’Arbeiter und Soldat, a tribute was paid to the internationalist communists deported to Buchenwald.
- read article...Lecornu 2 is a pure Macronist government, made up of technocrats, former Macron advisors, and also those under criminal investigation: Rachida Dati from the Culture Ministry soon to be tried for corruption and influence peddling; Vincent Jeanbrun, Minister of Housing, accused of favoritism in the allocation of housing to relatives.
- read article...Statement by the NPA on 6 October. After the extre 48 hours Macron gave Sébastien Lecornu there is still no government. Left forces are meeting but without a result so far. The NPA-l’Anticapitaliste has addressed the forces of the NFP calling for unity. This was the first statement on 6 October.
- read article...International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.
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