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...It seems to me that within the debate about gender difference a lot of confusion has arisen through the meanings given to the terms used in the discussion and the views behind the various definitions. Some years ago I was rather clear on where I agreed and disagreed with the comrades who identified with Irigaray’s ideas.
I really don’t know why the debate in “Rifondazione” has ended up putting my mind in a bit of a muddle. But the muddle has not gone so far as to prevent me realising (…)
The philosophy of difference as it is theorized by Luce Irigaray today stems in part from the discussions within the French women’s movement at the beginning of the 1970s. The discussion has re-emerged today with publication of Luce Irigaray’s book Le temps de la différence in 1989, and her subsequent publications which, particularly the latest J’aime à toi (1992) she reformulates her project of a society based on the recognition of a gendered civil law. The discussion has become richer with other contributions, particularly from Italy.
The term postmodernism has entered into common currency with a rapidity that modernism, “after” which it is named, never achieved: it has a trendy contemporaneity but is little understood. Partly through its description of reality as a series of images, or “simulacra” in Baudrillard’s word, it has attained popular cultural status in the media, especially television, as well as modish respectability in the academy, across Europe and North America.
The Occupy Movement, the first such broad, national, multi-issue, mass movement in forty years, represented a test for the revolutionary socialist left in several senses. First, would the left recognize its important and immediately move to become an active part of it and work within it to help provide leadership? Second, would the left during Occupy be able to both appreciate its strengths and develop a critique of its weaknesses and limitations? Would it as the same time be able to conduct socialist propaganda and recruit to the socialist movement? Third, would the left in retrospect be able to analyze and learn from the Occupy experience in order to prepare itself for future movements?
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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