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.
Prime Minister Takaichi announced the dissolution of The House of Representatives and the general election at a press conference on January 19th. The general election is to be held on Sunday, February 8th. This brief essay will examine the current political situation, focusing on what the snap election means and why a new party, the Centrist Reform Coalition, was formed by the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) and the Komeito Party (Komeito).
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“The efforts to defend immigrants from ICE raids have all the markings of an authentic nascent social movement. ”
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“The reduction in the electoral strength of the left is an invitation for activists to reflect on the fragmentation of this camp. In the downward spiral of the last three years, the only time the left has made its mark on the public debate to contest popular opinion was during last December’s general strike, called jointly by the CGTP and UGT against the new labour laws that the government wants to impose.”
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Intensive use of social networks, more than other forms of Internet presence, with the possible exception of games, generates behaviours comparable to other forms of drug addiction, such as excessive consumption and psychological, or even physical, hangovers. This article argues that this is the product sold by this new oligarchy.
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The year 2026 began with devastating Russian shelling of Kyiv’s infrastructure, which, in freezing conditions, brought the population to the brink of survival. The city, home to 3 million people, is experiencing an acute shortage of heat and water, and electricity is being supplied on a short-term basis. It has become clear that the authorities had no plan B in case of a catastrophic deterioration in the security and weather situation.
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.
20 January by Eric Toussaint, CADTM International, Walden Bello, Sushovan Dhar, Jeremy Corbyn, Yanis Varoufakis, Rafael Bernabe, Zoe Konstantopoulou, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Gilbert Achcar, Tithi Bhattacharya, Nancy Fraser, Michael Roberts, Vijay Prashad, Achin Vanaik, Zarah Sultana, Manon Aubry, Annie Ernaux, Ada Colau, Bhaskar Sunkara.
- read article...The International Trade Union Network of Solidarity and Struggles is passing on information received from trade union comrades in Venezuela. With Venezuela, as with Palestine, as with Ukraine, as with Sudan, as everywhere else in the world, nothing can replace direct contact between workers. For our social class, it is the best source of information and the best way to build common struggles.
- read article...The collapse of the national currency and the economy, hyperinflation and wage stagnation are the ingredients of the massive mobilisation that started on Sunday 28 December in the Tehran bazaar and spread to many towns and universities.
- read article...This Joint Political Statement by the Communist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist–Leninist) and Radical Socialist (India) was issued on 25 December 2025.
- 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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