This essay is based on the transcript of the remarks made by David North, the chairman of the international editorial board of the World Socialist Web Site and national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party (US), in opening an online discussion held January 17 on the significance of the fascist assault on the Capitol in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021.
Top Stories
Perspective
Facebook escalates attack on socialist left
Facebook is engaged in an escalating campaign of state-backed internet censorship targeting socialist organizations, including the International Youth and Students for Social Equality.
The New York Times has reported new details of Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which were blocked only by the threat of mass resignations by top officials at the Justice Department.
Far-right politicians who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the election received millions in donations from the billionaire-backed organization.
The decisive lesson from the Egyptian revolution is that a revolutionary leadership in the working class must be built, in opposition to the pseudo left, prior to the eruption of mass struggles.
After teachers overwhelmingly approved a union resolution to continue teaching remotely, CPS CEO Janice Jackson announced the return of K-8 educators would be delayed to Wednesday.
The Western press, which has proclaimed Navalny an “international hero” and “democratic opponent” of Putin, has deliberately kept its readers in the dark about his political orientation and history.
President Biden says there is nothing to be done to change the pandemic’s trajectory. However, material published in the New York Times repudiates this assertion.
A year of the coronavirus pandemic, in Germany and globally, has shown that curbing the virus cannot be left to the capitalist governments.
A letter signed by 100 faculty members at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calls for the defense of Professor Gang Chen, whom the US government is prosecuting on charges of wire fraud and tax violations as part of its witchhunt against academics who collaborate with Chinese institutions.
It is an absolute indictment of the for-profit healthcare system and the financial oligarchs that benefit from it that hospitals should be shut down in the middle of a pandemic, let alone when 83 million already lack sufficient access to primary healthcare, in the richest country in the world.
To mark the anniversary of the 2011 revolution in Egypt, we present a selection of key statements and analyses produced by the WSWS in the course of the events of that year and their aftermath.
Growing warnings of a Wall Street bubble
The rise and rise in the shares of the “barely profitable” electric car company Tesla “seemingly beyond all reason” is an expression of the “market craziness” resulting from the injection of trillions of dollars into the financial system by the Fed.
Trudeau and Biden to strengthen Canada-US military alliance and trade-war bloc
Readouts of Biden’s conversation with Trudeau, the first he had with a foreign leader as president, and a flurry of press commentary make clear Ottawa and Washington plan to expand their strategic partnership to more aggressively challenge their great-power rivals, above all Russia and China.
For a full, immediate investigation into death threats against Kshama Sawant!
The threats to assassinate Socialist Alternative leader and Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant came from a city government email address. The city must take all necessary measures to protect Sawant, her family and her aides.
The Biden administration: Illusion and reality
Efforts are underway to chloroform the public about the realities of the procapitalist, imperialist politics of the Biden administration and the catastrophic economic and social conditions under which it begins.
The pandemic is a “trigger event” that manifests in a highly concentrated form the contradictions of the global capitalist system and is unleashing long-suppressed forces of social transformation.
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Engels, the WSWS is presenting some of his most important works, as well as essays and tributes to Engels by other leading Marxists.
Mehring Books imprints are 40 percent off; other publishers 20 percent off. Pre-order The New York Times’ 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History for $19.95.
The Crisis Elections: 1860 & 2020
An online meeting with historians James Oakes, Richard Carwardine and Tom Mackaman. Moderated by WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North.
Socialist Equality Party (UK) meeting discussion addresses critical issues on the failure of Corbynism
SEP National Secretary Chris Marsden told the meeting, “Jeremy Corbyn describes politics as some sort of cricket match. He encourages us to say, ‘Well, this isn’t fair’. Well, politics isn’t a cricket match, politics is war.”
On the eve of the civil war election
This was the final election meeting organised by the Socialist Equality Party as part of its campaign in the 2020 US elections.
Introductory remarks to “What is Left of American Democracy on the Eve of the 2020 Election?”
These remarks were delivered October 28 to an online forum sponsored by the San Diego State University Department of Political Science.
The relaunch of the World Socialist Web Site and the future of socialism
The relaunch of the WSWS and the growth of its influence reflect a process of mass political radicalization under conditions of the greatest crisis since the 1930s.
Closing remarks from SEP national secretary Joseph Kishore
The WSWS has exhaustively documented and analyzed the political crisis and historical decay of American democracy.
The approach of the World Socialist Web Site to science
The WSWS was the only publication to warn very early on the dangers the working class faced if the coronavirus became a pandemic.
“The WSWS has not only commented on the struggles of the working class it has been an active participant in them”
In the vast archive of the WSWS, the working class will find the most critical lessons from the history of the global class struggle and an international socialist perspective needed to conduct its fight against world capitalism today.
The WSWS has been relaunched with an entirely new design and with vastly enhanced functionality.
The Political Origins and Consequences of the 1982–86 Split in the International Committee of the Fourth International
This lecture was delivered by David North, chairman of the International Editorial Board of the WSWS, at the opening of the Socialist Equality Party (US) Summer School on July 21, 2019.
Drawing the lessons of the ICFI split—International Strategy and National Tactics: The change in the ICFI’s approach to national liberation movements
This lecture was delivered to the Socialist Equality Party (US) Summer School on July 25, 2019 by Deepal Jayasekera, Assistant Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party in Sri Lanka
The World Capitalist Crisis and the Tasks of the Fourth International: An analysis of the ICFI Perspectives resolution of 1988
This lecture was delivered to the Socialist Equality Party (US) Summer School on July 23, 2019 by Andre Damon, regular writer for the World Socialist Web Site and leading member of the Socialist Equality Party in the US.
The ICFI and the Crisis of Stalinism
This lecture was delivered to the Socialist Equality Party (US) Summer School on July 24, 2019 by Barry Grey, US national editor of the World Socialist Web Site and leading member of the Socialist Equality Party in the US.