International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine
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.
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Iran
The Iranian nuclear bomb: a devastating boomerang
17 March, byIn the aftermath of January 2026’s crackdown, voices within and close to the Islamic Republic renewed calls for Iran to complete a nuclear deterrent, claiming the bomb would have prevented the current existential crisis. Houshang Sepehr, exiled Iranian Marxist and editor of Solidarité Socialiste avec les Travailleurs en Iran, challenges this on structural grounds. Drawing on the cases of India, Pakistan, and North Korea, he argues that nuclear deterrence only functions within security architectures backed by a great power patron --- a guarantee Iran never had. Neither Russia nor China was willing to absorb the risks of a nuclearised Islamic Republic contesting US hegemony. The bomb, he concludes, would have deepened Iran’s isolation rather than protecting it.
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USA
The American People and the U.S.-Israeli War on Iran
16 March, byAs the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran goes into its third week, the people of the United States are still figuring out what they think about the conflict. Since the war began, most polls show a majority of Americans disapprove of the war, something unseen in modern American history. A majority of Americans approved of World War II, the Korean War, and initially of the Vietnam War. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2000—the American government, anxious for revenge—was backed by huge majorities when it made war on Afghanistan in 2001. When in 2003 the George W. Bush administration wanted to make war on Iraq, it fabricated false evidence that Saddam Hussein had nuclear and biological weapons of mass destruction, and, bamboozled by Bush, nearly three-quarters of the American people supported the war.
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France
“A united and militant movement can prevent the RN from winning”
15 March, byThe first round of the French local elections will take place on Sunday 15 March, the second on 22 March. There is a real possibility that the “traditional” right, which is increasingly radicalizing in a far right direction, will win in Paris, under Socialist Party government since 1995, and that the Rassemblement National could win in France’s second, and very multi-racial, city, Marseilles.
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Brazil
The courts convict those who ordered the murder of Marielle Franco
14 March, by“This landmark ruling highlights the links between institutional politics, militias and economic interests in Rio de Janeiro.”
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USA
Growing Convergence of the Anti-Trump movement in the US
13 March, byThe upcoming mass No Kings! demonstrations planned for March 28 and ambitious plans for May Day mobilizations point to the growing convergence of anti-Trump forces. This convergence takes place against the backdrop of Trumps’ destructive assault on democratic rights in the US and the sovereignty of nations abroad, most recently his reckless aerial attack on Iran, and plummeting approval ratings in the polls.
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Recently posted Features
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Women and work
Women and work in Western Europe
12 August 2013, byread article...This article was first published in International Marxist Review Vol 2, No 2 in Spring 1987. It is republished here as part of our effort to build an archive of contributions from within the Fourth International on questions of feminism.
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Obituary
Jean-Michel Krivine (1932-2013): a militant surgeon and an internationalist
23 July 2013, byread article...Jean-Michel had a sense of humour, and his passion was to play the violin. From 1948, when he joined the French Communist Party (PCF), he conducted revolutionary choirs and continued to do so unceasingly, including during the summer universities of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR). Sometimes he lost some of his humour when singers suggested modernizing the repertoire; he remained very much attached to the traditions of the labour movement. He had courage, as evidenced by the periods he spent in the maquis in Vietnam and Thailand. He participated in major events such as the Russell Tribunal against war crimes in Vietnam. He did not grudge taking on the most obscure militant tasks: right to the end, he devoted his attention to correcting the articles published in the magazine Inprecor.
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Marxism
A Marxist Critique of Post-Marxism
9 May 2013, byread article...“Post-Marxism” has become a fashionable intellectual posture, with the triumph of neo-liberalism and the retreat of the working class. The space vacated by the reformist left [in Latin America] has in part been occupied by capitalist politicians and ideologues, technocrats and the traditional and fundamentalist churches (Pentecostals and the Vatican). In the past, this space was occupied by socialist, nationalist and populist politicians and church activists associated with the “theology of liberation”. The centre-left was very influential within the political regimes (at the top) or the less politicised popular classes (at the bottom). The vacant space of the radical left refers to the political intellectuals and politicised sectors of the trade unions and urban and rural social movements. It is among these groups that the conflict between Marxism and “post-Marxism” is most intense today.
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Syria
Sectarianism and the Assad regime in Syria
29 April 2013read article...This article was first published on the English-Arabic blog ”Syria Freedom Forever” on 4 April 2013.
