International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

• Japan
  

  The Political Landscape Surrounding the Snap General Election

  23 January, by Toshizo Omori

  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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• USA
  

  Resisting Trump’s Assault on Democratic Rights and the Sovereignty of Nations

  22 January, by Kay Mann

  “The efforts to defend immigrants from ICE raids have all the markings of an authentic nascent social movement. ”

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• Portugal
  

  New neofascist advance in presidential elections

  21 January, by Jorge Costa

  “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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• Big Tech
  

  Techno-feudal lords or oligarchy of data traffickers?

  20 January, by Françisco Louçã

  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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• Ukraine
  

  Kyiv in crisis: how wild capitalism is exacerbating the devastation

  19 January, by Vitaliy Dudin

  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.

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...and the rest of the current issue

• USA

  Trump’s Occupation of Minnesota and the Resistance

• Europe

  Europe in 2025

• Burkina Faso

  The proper use of conspiracies

• Far right and academic freedom

  Academic freedom under attack

• Arab Spring

  From the Ashes of the Arab Spring

Recently posted Features

• Obituary

  "It is the Henri Weber who sang the Internationale with Higelin that we mourn, not the one at the service of the political apparatus of the PS"

  2 May 2020, by Philippe Cyroulnik

  Henri Weber was born in Leninabad (now Khujand), Tajikistan, Soviet Union on 23 June 1944. His Polish-Jewish parents had left Poland at the time of the German-Soviet pact but, refusing to become Soviet citizens, were sent to labour camp where he was born. They returned to Poland after the war but four years later left because of prevailing anti-semitism and moved to France. As a student in Paris Weber was recruited by Alain Krivine and became a leading member of the Jeunesse Communiste Révolutionnaire (JCR) and of the Ligue Communiste (subsequently Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire LCR), French section of the Fourth International. In the early 1980s he ceased political activity and in 1986 joined the Socialist Party. A member of the leadership of the Socialist Party, he held elected positions as a senator (1995-2004) and then as a member of the European Parliament (2004-2014). He died in Avignon on 26 April 2020 from coronavirus.[IVP]

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• Historical events

  1918 flu pandemic killed 12 million Indians, and British overlords’ indifference strengthened the anti-colonial movement

  2 May 2020

  In India, during the 1918 influenza pandemic, a staggering 12 to 13 million people died, the vast majority between the months of September and December. According to an eyewitness, “There was none to remove the dead bodies and the jackals made a feast.”

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• Pandemics

  Social contagion - Microbiological class war in China

  2 May 2020

  Wuhan is known colloquially as one of the “four furnaces” (四大火炉) of China for its oppressively hot humid summer, shared with Chongqing, Nanjing and alternately Nanchang or Changsha, all bustling cities with long histories along or near the Yangtze river valley. Of the four, Wuhan, however, is also sprinkled with literal furnaces: the massive urban complex acts as a sort of nucleus for the steel, concrete and other construction-related industries of China, its landscape dotted with the slowly-cooling blast furnaces of the remnant state-owned iron and steel foundries, now plagued by overproduction and forced into a contentious new round of downsizing, privatization and general restructuring—itself resulting in several large strikes and protests in the last five years. The city is essentially the construction capital of China, which means it has played a particularly important role in the period after the global economic crisis, since these were the years in which Chinese growth was buoyed by the funneling of investment funds into infrastructure and real estate projects. Wuhan not only fed this bubble with its oversupply of building materials and civil engineers but also, in so doing, became a real estate boomtown of its own. According to our own calculations, in 2018-2019 the total area dedicated to construction sites in Wuhan was equivalent to the size of Hong Kong island as a whole.

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• Obituary

  Luis Sepulveda, revolutionary activist and Chilean writer, has died from Covid-19

  23 April 2020, by Sylvain Chardon

  Luis Sepulveda died on Thursday 16 April in Oviedo (Asturias, in the Spanish state) of Covid-19, which he had contracted at the end of February during a congress of writers in Portugal. Sepulveda was a great writer and his works, translated into more than 60 languages, have enjoyed worldwide success.

  Luis Sepulveda was also an activist. Member of the Chilean Communist Party from the age of 12, he quickly moved towards a more revolutionary commitment. In recent years, he had moved away from the debates on the socialist and revolutionary left. Nevertheless he was also very close to us because he had participated, in practice and with arms, in all the debates of the revolutionary movement from the beginning of the 1970s to the mid-1980s.

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