As the horrors of Israel’s war on Gaza continue to escalate, a wave of student protests has erupted in solidarity with the Palestinians: drawing comparisons with the anti-Vietnam War movement. Starting in the USA, the encampments quickly spread internationally, meeting with press slander and brutal police repression. In this special episode, we speak with four student communists from Canada, the UK, Austria and the USA, who have been active in encampments at various universities, to hear about their experiences of this inspiring struggle.

Yesterday, outside the House of Culture in the town of Handlová, Slovakian Prime Minister Róbert Fico was shot three times in the abdomen and arm. While the assassination attempt left him in a “life-threatening condition”, following emergency surgery, he is expected to survive. The attack was met with a flood of crocodile tears from the opposition parties and European bourgeois political elite, who for months have whipped up hysteria that Fico is a ‘Russian agent’. Cutting through all the hypocritical moralising, what does this dramatic event signify?

This year's May School, an annual theoretical school organized by the Polish section of IMT, Czerwony Front, was held under the slogan ‘In Defence of Lenin’, and proved to be a great success! It gathered more than 40 people, and was full of lively discussions, both during the sessions and in the breaks between them.

Last week saw the official foundation of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Britain, amidst one of the most turbulent periods in history. Explosive events show the need for bold Marxist leadership. Join the RCP and help us build such a force.

Fred Weston, a leading member of the International Marxist Tendency (soon to be the Revolutionary Communist International) recently appeared as a guest on the popular Alexei Sayle Podcast. In a far-ranging discussion, Fred and Alexei cover the Russian Revolution, the history of SYRIZA in Greece, the reasons for launching the RCI… and what sort of living quarters comedy/political podcasters can expect after the revolution. Listen below!

On 13 May, more than 500,000 people gathered in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-controlled, so-called ‘Azad’ (‘Free’) Kashmir, to demand cheaper electricity and wheat flour. The ruling class of ‘Azad’ Kashmir and Pakistan, despite having brutally attacked the protestors previously, have now partially accepted the masses’ demands. This is a huge victory for the masses in this part of Kashmir, where people have been protesting for more than a year for these demands. This victory has sent shockwaves through the halls of power.

The Eurovision Song Contest kicked off on 7 May in Malmö, Sweden, at the same time as Israel launched its assault on Rafah, where more than 1.5 million Palestinian refugees are now living. In a powerful show of solidarity, Malmö responded with one of the biggest demonstrations Sweden has seen in decades.

Here, we publish two eyewitness reports from our comrades who were involved in the encampments in Alberta when the police violently broke them up. Videos of police brutality from these campuses went viral on social media over the weekend, fueling outrage at the violation of the right to protest. These occupations are the first demonstrations in Alberta to be broken up physically by the police in a very long time.

I wrote this article in early 1977, (it was published in the Militant, issue 349, 1 April 1977) when the leaders of the PCI, the Italian Communist Party, were supporting a minority Christian Democrat government, which was carrying out austerity measures. In October 1976, that government announced its programme, immediately unleashing a wave of spontaneous strikes across Italy. The PCI leaders used their huge authority among workers to pull them back and accept the “sacrifices” as necessary measures to “get the economy back on its feet”. This moment represented a major betrayal of the Italian working class, which was to mark the beginning of the end of the wave of class struggle

Inspired by the Palestine solidarity encampments in the US, students across Britain have begun to take action. The newly-founded Revolutionary Communist Party has thrown itself into the struggle, fighting to escalate the movement and to bring down the imperialists.

2023 saw the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister, and the man at the heart of the state today. The anniversary was marked by a torrent of remembrances of the figure once described by Henry Kissinger as “one of the asymmetries of history.” Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (Lee Kuan Yew’s son) is stepping down on 15 May and passing the baton to a new generation of leadership unrelated to the Lee family. The continuation of Lee’s People’s Action Party and the entire edifice of the Singaporean state hangs in the balance.

We publish here a contribution by Alan Woods to the pre-congress debate of the Brazilian Communist Party – Revolutionary Refoundation. The PCB-RR gathers the comrades who were bureaucratically expelled from the PCB in July – August 2023, after they raised a whole number of political differences, including regarding the question of the character of the war in Ukraine. We would like to thank the Provisional Political Committee of the PCB-RR for the opportunity for this exchange of ideas amongst Communists and we wish them success in their congress, which is taking place at the end of the month.

This week marks the 200th anniversary of the public premier of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, one of the most astoundingly brilliant musical compositions in history. Despite being functionally deaf by 1824, Beethoven personally conducted the premiere in Vienna, continuing his wild gesticulations after the final note had faded, amidst rapturous applause. The performance and the piece itself, often called the ‘Marseilles of Humanity’, were a defiant rallying cry for freedom and brotherhood in a period of counterrevolutionary reaction. To mark the occasion, we republish ‘Beethoven: man, composer and revolutionary’ by our editor-in-chief, Alan Woods.

Last weekend, from 3-6 May, saw 600 workers and youth gathering in London for the launch of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Britain. This landmark congress represents a historic milestone. Join us today, get organised, and help build the RCP.

In April 1917, Lenin returned to Russia, arriving into Petrograd’s famous Finland Station. This was the beginning of his one-man struggle to politically reorient the Bolshevik Party – a vital stepping stone towards the October Revolution.