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.
The policies pursued since 2022 have been among the most reactionary, racist, and repressive in modern Swedish history. Examples include restrictions on the right to asylum, attempts to retroactively revoke residence permits, significantly stricter requirements for obtaining Swedish citizenship, stop-and-search zones in working-class suburbs, repressive legislation that allows 14-year-olds to be imprisoned, deportations of young people separated from their families, legislative changes that threaten democracy, and welfare reforms that severely worsen conditions for the poorest and for those without citizenship.
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The Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL) and the anti-capitalist left have two gigantic challenges to face simultaneously in the coming Brazilian elections: to contribute to the broader struggle against the main Brazilian expression of global neo-fascism, and to build a radical and independent left pole.
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On Wednesday, 23 September, the police evicted Maricarmen in Madrid. Maricarmen is an 87-year-old woman whose rent was gradually increased by a vulture fund, until the fund decided it wanted the flat for new business ventures. In that sense, her case is not so unusual: in Spain, there are thousands of evictions every year. The housing movement fights against them every day, often in the face of a media blackout that looks the other way when it comes to a tragedy that is part of everyday life in working-class neighbourhoods.
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Hundreds marched in three separate demonstrations to protest the mass murderers—President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian—speaking at the United Nations General Assembly held in New York last week. The event became a kind of macabre circus with these monsters in the big ring as some delegates walked out while others protested outside.
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IN AUSTIN, TEXAS an ICE agent shoots a food delivery driver after he was rammed and pulled over by an unmarked van. Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, from Venezuela, entered the United States legally and is seeking asylum. He is now in ICE detention with his serious gunshot wounds inadequately treated.
read article...The debate on the left over how to respond to the debt crisis is fundamental for defining socialist policies. That is what this text is about. In the first part, I look at the crisis of the euro. I will argue, as many others have, that this crisis is structural and permanent, contrary to the claims of both social democracy and the right. In the second part, I look at the two options that have been put forward as alternatives to the strategy of left-wing europeanism : first the nationalist exit strategy and second the leap towards a European State. I aim to show that both these alternatives have three problems: they are profoundly contradictory, they depend on concealing their real economic and social effects, and they ignore the balance of forces in which choices have to be made. In the third part, I take a fresh look at left-wing europeanism and seek to show that an economic alternative demands a strategy of class struggle. For that, we need to go back to basics.
The rise of China has been of enormous significance for the Australian capitalist class. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Ross Gittins outlines three major reasons why the East Asian giant now matters for Australian capitalism. First is its sheer size. With a population of 1.35 billion, it has 20 per cent of the world’s population and is 11 times larger than Australia’s second largest trading partner, Japan. Second, the Chinese economy has grown by 10 per cent a year for three decades, roughly doubling in size every eight years.
Movements always arrive unexpectedly. And those who have worked hardest in previous years and months to push towards an escalation of struggles and mobilizations are usually the most surprised by a movement’s arrival. In spite of the many surprises — Who would have imagined that the occupation of Tahrir Square was possible? Who would have imagined the Spanish acampadas? — Leftist activists tend to insist in thinking that movements and the specific forms the movements take can be predicted. The reality is that one can predict that there will be a struggle, for class conflict is inscribed in the capitalist relations of production. But when, where, and which form this struggle will take is impossible to predict. The impossibility of predicting the specific constellation in which those who are below decide that the situation is simply not acceptable any longer does not mean that movements explode like lightening in the sky.
The political dynamics of contemporary South Africa are rife with contradiction. On one hand, it is among the most consistently contentious places on earth, with insurgent communities capable of mounting disruptive protest on a nearly constant basis, rooted in the poor areas of the half-dozen major cities as well as neglected and multiply-oppressed black residential areas of declining towns. On the other hand, even the best-known contemporary South African social movements, for all their sound, lack a certain measure of fury.
Secondary school pupils are taking action; the government is cracking down. The situation in the national education system has been deteriorating for years. Successive governments and various ministers, led by Blanquer [Minister of Education 2017-2022], have accelerated the destruction. The lack of resources is becoming increasingly unbearable.
- read article...The parliamentary elections held in early 2026 in Slovenia resulted in a narrow majority for the right, thereby enabling the formation of a radical conservative government. This government wasted no time in taking steps to undermine the welfare state.
- read article...The Pakistani military establishment had launched an attack on the online Jeddojehad. Its editor, Farooq Suhleria’s, home was raided. He could not be arrested as he was not in the country. But it means he cannot return to his job. Another member of the Editorial Board was also raided. The website has been shut down.
- read article...“Ortega has abolished elections. Do not deny Nicaragua the right to choose freely—the same right that could make you president of Brazil for a fourth time.”
- read article...Once again, we face a summer plagued by fire. Tens of thousands of hectares, earlier than in any other year, have already burned, and a devastating season is expected in terms of forest loss, fertile soil destruction, and above all, loss of life.
- 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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