Last Sunday the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP), the German section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), broadcast its initial election rally in advance of the German federal elections on September 26.
150 years since the Paris Commune
On Saturday, April 3, the WSWS hosted an international online meeting to mark the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871. In the course of a two-hour panel discussion, the speakers reviewed the historical and political background and context of the revolution; the events of the revolution, including the acts taken by the Commune during its existence up until its bloody suppression in the
Semaine sanglante of May 1871; and the impact of the Commune on the international Marxist movement, including the political lessons that were drawn from it by the revolutionaries Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky.
Autoworkers, educators and Amazon workers in US speak on International May Day rally
Workers who attended the International May Day Online Rally held by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) on May 1 told the
World Socialist Web Site that they were most struck by how speakers from many different countries described the common conditions confronting workers around the world and advanced a common international strategy for workers to fight the pandemic, social inequality, and the danger of war and fascism.
Several workers spoke about the opening report by David North, the chairman of the international editorial board of the WSWS and national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party in the US, who reviewed how capitalist governments around the world had refused to take the necessary measures to save lives during the pandemic because this would undermine the private accumulation of wealth by the world’s billionaires. Drawing the comparison to revolutionary
Events since our last May Day rally have starkly shown that the task of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic requires coordinated international action by the working class.
The meaning of the May Day 2021 Online Rally
On Saturday, May 1, the International Committee of the Fourth International held its eighth annual International May Day Online Rally. The rally motivated and concretized the ICFI’s decision to initiate the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees (IWA-RFC).
The May Day rally both reflected and anticipated changes in the world situation produced by the coronavirus pandemic. The ICFI has defined the pandemic as a “trigger event” analogous to World War I, which is accelerating all the underlying contradictions of the world capitalist system. This includes, above all, the growth of the class struggle, of which the ICFI and its May Day rally are the most conscious expression.