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...Speaking at a meeting of his All-Russia People’s Front a couple days ago, Vladimir Putin said, “Trotsky had this [saying]: the movement is everything, the ultimate aim is nothing. We need an ultimate aim.” Eduard Bernstein’s proposition, misquoted and attributed for some reason to Leon Trotsky, is probably the Russian president’s most common rhetorical standby. He has repeated it for many years to audiences of journalists and functionaries while discussing social policy, construction delays at Olympics sites or the dissatisfaction of the so-called creative class. “Democracy is not anarchism and not Trotskyism,” Putin warned almost two years ago.
Mexico seems to exist between terror and horror, always camouflaged by lies, dissimulation and the stage-managed set-ups of the army and the police, as well as of government agencies, which should be responsible for security, investigation and prosecution. From the massacre on June 30 this year at Tlatlaya in the state of Mexico of twenty-two alleged offenders by the army, a massacre falsely presented as a reaction to resistance to the police, to the murder of six people and the forced disappearance of forty-three students of the Normal School perpetrated by officers of the municipality of Iguala in Guerrero during the night of September 26, there has obviously been the same logic at work: abuse of power, arbitrary actions, disregard for human life and the belief that they could do anything, covered by an impunity that is at the heart of the Mexican regime.
Carmen Castillo was born in Chile, and worked for the Allende government before entering the clandestine resistance together with her partner Miguel Enriquez after the Pinochet coup of 11 September 1973. Arrested and then expelled from her homeland (after an international campaign for her release), she recounted her tragic history in two books and then her 2007 film Calle Santa Fe.
The director continues to be haunted by a number of questions. How can we pass on the memory of the defeated without suffocating it with nostalgia or bitterness? What can we do today to keep loyal to the ideas of friends, loved ones and comrades who are no longer of this world – a world that they were so passionate about changing? How can we hope, now that we know that nothing is written in advance (as some of us used to believe)?
Castillo’s next film, We Are Alive, comes to French cinemas on 29 April. Making use of the thought of philosopher Daniel Bensaïd, Castillo portrays the daily struggles of all those across two continents who throw themselves into the ‘joyous passion’ of struggle – despite everything, and however ignored they are by the big media cartels.
One of main icons of the Left movement for over 6 decades, Tahira Mazhar Ali was a shining example to follow. She was active among workers, peasants and also among ordinary citizens to build a left movement.
When few dared to challenge the West Pakistan military atrocities in Bangladesh, she was among the few in Lahore who dared to come out in the streets saying no to the military operation.
She successfully built one of the great women’s organisations called “Women’s Democratic Association”. She was never an independent Left. She was always part of the process of party building. She was senior Vice President of the Workers’ Party before it merged to form the Awami Workers’ Party.
After her funeral, Baji Nasim Shahmim Malik, another long standing women activist, cried contonuously as she was one of the trusted comrades along Tahira Mazhar. Najma Sethi, a former chief minister of Punjab, and one time close associate of Tariq Ali, narrated several incidents about his association with her. As Imtiaz Alam, a radical journalist expressing his deep sorrow over sad demise of Tahira, said “a chapter of left activism is closed”.
Tahira Mazhar, a daughter of a former chief minister of Punjab rebelled against family tradition and married a revolutionary, Mazhar Ali Khan of View Point. Mother of three including Tariq Ali and Mahir Ali, she was always in the forefront of struggle.
I would usually receive an early morning call from her up to 2009, when she fell seriously ill. She would urge me to take up issues relating to the working class, although she was not from our party. However, her respect was beyond party boundaries. I always found her a great comrade and some one who was there to help the Left. She donated bundle of books to our library when it was established in 1998. She donated her clothes for flood victims and gave money for the donation.
We have lost one of the best women activists.
The Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, a member of the International Trade Union Solidarity and Struggle Network, is transmitting this text, signed with other independent organisations in Iran:
- read article...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...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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