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.
The blackout of April 28 shook the Iberian Peninsula and southern France for several hours. Everyone who lives there was affected in some way. It has been a topic of conversation that, to avoid remaining an anecdote, requires some in-depth analysis, given the systemic risks of a repeat. We must draw lessons for the future.
read article...At least five million people participated in 2,000 “No Kings Day” protests in big cities and small towns in all 50 states, the largest yet in a series of national demonstrations. In a festive but defiant spirit, with bands and drummers, the marchers chanted, sang songs, and waved their signs with slogans like “No Kings since 1776” or signs opposing President Donald Trump’s attacks on health care, food programs for children and the elderly, or his attacks on education and science. Some banners read “Fight Oligarchy.”
read article...The results of the Portuguese parliamentary elections on 18 May 2025 mark a turning point in the country’s politics. The traditional right was comfortably in the lead and the Socialist Party has fewer deputies than the far right (after counting the votes of the emigrant constituencies). The right-wing parties as a whole won two-thirds of the seats in the Assembly, while the left obtained the lowest result in its history.
All the parties to the left of the PS recorded their lowest results. (…)
As "No Kings" protests take place across the US - and in other cities worldwide such as Mexico DF, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam - challenging Trump’s authoritarian rule, we publish this on the spot account of last weekend in Los Angeles.
read article...Resistance to the Russian invasion has not erased class divisions within Ukrainian society. The inequalities of our capitalist societies and the brutal neoliberalism applied by the Zelensky government are significantly affecting the population of Ukraine. The popular classes thus fight on a "double front", against anti-social policies and imperialist aggression.
read article...It has been two years since the explosive surge of the Democratic Socialists of America, now the largest socialist organization in the United States and the largest since the 1940s. And DSA has had some remarkable successes. Today as the country turns its attention to the presidential election of 2020, we ask: How DSA is doing? What is it accomplishing? And where is it going? What do the various caucuses and political tendencies within DSA propose as a future direction for the group? Is there a genuine left wing of DSA, and if not, what is the alternative?
From Detroit and Flint, Michigan to Gaza and the West Bank in Palestine, those struggling against institutionalized racism and apartheid are no strangers to water struggles.
Bernie Sanders has so far received little attention for his internationalist positions, even though he spoke out and voted against the war in Iraq, proposed a drastic reduction in US military spending, strongly criticised the coups d’état organised in Latin America by the CIA and opposed US support for the Saudi offensive in Yemen. The US left generally considers that in foreign policy he has not deviated from the consensus between Democrats and Republicans, criticizes him for his lack of involvement in the BDS movement (boycott, disinvestment, sanctions) and recalls that during the decades he has been in the Senate he has sometimes voted in favour of military intervention or spoken of the need to preserve US power. Even if in his youth he applied to be a conscientious objector during the war in Vietnam, he went to Cuba after the revolution and organized diplomatic meetings with the Sandinist revolutionaries, since he has been in the Senate his dissent in the Democratic Party has been limited to domestic political issues, with few exceptions.
It is also true that since the end of the Vietnam war, there has not been a strong left-wing internationalist current in the United States and that many of those who, on the margins, within the radical left, identify as such, are at the same time bogged down in an alignment with so-called "socialist states" or at least with the "enemies" of American imperialism. Bernie Sanders was therefore not isolated by not promoting internationalist solidarity.
Since his campaign for the Democratic primaries two years ago - during which he also abstained taking any notable internationalist positions - and with the resurgence of a new left, however, the construction of mass internationalism in the United States seems necessary. Especially since Donald Trump is taking a caricatural chauvinism forward at a great rate. And that on a global scale the dangerous resident of the White House serves as an example for the resurgence of state authoritarianism and a kind of neo-fascism. Bolsonaro’s victory in Brazil is only the most recent example of this danger.
It was precisely in the aftermath of the neo-fascist candidate’s success in the first round of the Brazilian presidential election that Bernie Sanders delivered a speech in Washington calling for "building a global democratic movement against authoritarianism". He picked up and built on what he wrote on 13 September 2018 in an editorial published by the Guardian, where he stated that "It should be clear by now that Donald Trump and the rightwing movement that supports him is not a phenomenon unique to the United States," and that "All around the world, in Europe, in Russia, in the Middle East, in Asia and elsewhere we are seeing movements led by demagogues who exploit people’s fears, prejudices and grievances to achieve and hold on to power."
Sanders’ proposal to the global left deserves to be taken seriously. Today, internationalism is not on the rise and the fact that a world-renowned personality is calling for the reconstruction of bonds of solidarity to fight authoritarianism together can have an impact. Faced with the multiplication of authoritarian regimes and the rise of extreme right-wing movements, the resurgence of an internationalist movement is the task of the moment. As Bernie Sanders says in his speech "We need a movement that unites people all over the world who don’t just seek to return to a romanticized past, a past that did not work for so many, but who strive for something better,"; that it is not enough to defend what has been achieved but that we must "reconceptualize a genuinely progressive global order based on human solidarity," and "reach out to those in every corner of the world who share these values, and who are fighting for a better world." It is a good basis for opening the discussion on how to build an international movement. Jan Malewski
The violent repression against demonstrators protesting brutal neoliberal policies, which has resulted in more than 300 people being killed by regime forces since April 2018, is just one of the reasons why different leftist social movements have condemned the Nicaraguan regime led by President Daniel Ortega and Vice-president Rosario Murillo. The Left has many more reasons to denounce the policies of the regime. To understand this, we must go back to 1979.
Radical Socialist endorses the statement of the Fourth International issued on 13th June on the current Israeli war of aggression against Iran. Hence, we are reproducing the statement below. At the same time, we want our readers, especially in India, to note strongly certain concerns, some briefly mentioned in the FI statement, others specific to the Indian context.
- read article...UPDATE - Paul has been released and passport returned.
People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy among a group detained by Egyptian authorities while travelling to Rafah. Contact embassy now.
“In response to the resistance of the Latinx-American community to this ICE terrorism, the Trump government has mobilized the California National Guard against the protesters, while Peter Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, has threatened to call in the Marines.”
- read article...“A massive worldwide mobilization to put an end to this genocide.”
- read article...Call for protests outside Panamanian consulates on 9 June.
- 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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