The majority of the socialist left opted to abstain in the second round of elections on Sunday 19 November in Argentina, arguing that Javier Milei is not an expression of a fascist movement. But that is no reason to shirk the task of confronting the far right.
This lecture provides a political and historical analysis of the genocidal war now being conducted by the Zionist regime in Israel against the Palestinians. It draws the connection between the contemporary war in Gaza, as well as the war in Ukraine, with the historical struggle for an international socialist program by the Left Opposition, founded by Leon Trotsky 100 years ago in October 1923.
Workers, who are today confronted with the unfolding maelstrom of a new imperialist redivision of the world, the buildup of fascist forces, social counterrevolution and an ongoing pandemic and climate catastrophe, have a tremendous amount to learn from the heroic but also tragic experience of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Holocaust.
Eighty-five years since the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War
Eighty-five years ago, on July 17, 1936, the Spanish army led by General Francisco Franco launched a fascist coup aimed at toppling the elected government of Spain’s Second Republic. Workers and peasants across Spain responded with an armed insurrection, setting up factory committees and forming militias to fight the fascist troops. The Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939 had begun.
The Spanish Civil War was one of the great battles between the international working class and European fascism in the 20th century. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sent tens of thousands of soldiers to join Franco. While the British, French and US ruling classes maintained a policy of non-intervention, blocking military aid to the Republic, there was mass sympathy in the international working class for the workers’ uprising against fascism. Tens of thousands travelled to Spain to fight Franco. The anti-fascist International Brigades numbered