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.
Cesar Chavez, who in the 1960s led the struggles of Mexican Americans for civil rights and of farmworkers for labor unions, was accused in a carefully researched New York Times article of having raped women and sexually abused girls as young as 13. Among those women was Dolores Huerta, herself a founder and leader of the union, who confirmed that he forced himself on her and fathered two of her children, secretly raised by others. Debra Rojas reported that Chavez had had intercourse with her when she was 15, which is rape under state law because she was too young to give legal consent.
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Uniting left-wing forces to counter the rise of the far right. That is the aim of the First International Anti-Fascist Conference, to be held in late March in Porto Alegre, Brazil
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In Italy, prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s government is continuing its authoritarian offensive with a reform of the judiciary that threatens the independence of the judiciary. The referendum on 22 and 23 March is a central political issue. After the “security” decree, the reform of the judiciary is another important link in the authoritarian project promoted by Meloni’s government. By changing the methods of electing members of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary (CSM), the latter threatens the independence of this body and limits its ability to act as a counter-power to the political and economic systems. The victory of the “No” vote in the referendum on 22 and 23 March is an important opportunity to destabilise Meloni’s coalition and to solidify the political and social opposition camp.
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Journalist and activist Avi Lewis is campaigning for the leadership of the NDP in the Canadian state, attracting much attention, dedication, and debate. Voting concludes on 28 March.
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The already unbearable horrors engulfing the peoples of the Middle East exploded into U.S. domestic news on March 12 with the attack in suburban Detroit at Temple Israel, the country’s largest Reform Jewish congregation.
read article...Eighty years ago, in August 1940, Leon Davidovich Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico by Ramon Mercader, a fanatical agent of the Stalinist GPU. This tragic event is widely known today, well beyond the ranks of Trotsky’s supporters, thanks, among other things, to the novel The Man Who Loved Dogs by Cuban writer Leonardo Padura ...
This year we commemorate the deaths of three leading figures of our movement. Daniel Bensaïd Marxist activist and philosopher, emerging from the May 1968 movement in France, who died too early in 2010 after a life as leader of the French section and the Fourth International. Ernest Mandel whose political activity started in resistance to the rise of Nazism, was an outstanding Marxist economist and a central leader of the Fourth International from the postwar period until his death in 1995. Léon Trotsky, leader of the Russian Revolution and of the fight against the counter-revolution, founder of the Fourth International, was assasinated by a Stalinist agent and died on 21 August 1940.
On this sad anniversary we publish an article by Daniel Bensaïd on Trotsky written in 2000.
It was in 2017, so very late in the day, that I truly discovered the extent of the struggles waged by Gisèle Halimi. Having started to campaign on the eve of May 1968, I have always attached a great deal of interest to the leaders of major social movements. I knew that Gisèle Halimi had defended FLN activists during the Algerian war, nothing more. I had followed with enthusiasm the progress of the Bobigny trials in 1972 where young Marie-Claire, accused of having an abortion, was acquitted and that in Aix in 1978 where three rapists of two young Belgian campers, feminists and lesbians, were sentenced by the Court of Assizes of the Bouches du Rhône. For me, Gisèle Halimi, this beautiful “bon chic, bon genre” woman was an excellent advocate for the cause of women, but she was not one of those remarkable feminist activists who inspired me. But after having immersed myself in the book she wrote with Simone de Beauvoir on the case of Djamila Boupacha and the account of the multiple obstacles that she had had to overcome for two years to ensure her defence, I grasped the determination of this woman to denounce torture alongside other intellectuals, in disregard of her safety and that of her family, and more generally the radical nature of her commitment to the fight against all injustices.
Using insights from Belgian Marxist thinker Ernest Mandel, economist George Kerevan argues capitalism will suffer profound breakdown this century.
The first round of the local elections took place against a backdrop of widespread creeping fascism in France and comes after a brutal offensive by the far right, during which the traditional ‘Republican’ right has decisively broken from much of its historical framework and values.
- read article...The majority of the party votes to maintain its autonomy and a commitment to social change.
- read article...After 59 days of unjust imprisonment, Lyes Touati has finally been acquitted - 59 days of waiting, mobilization, solidarity and determination.
- 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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