Against the Stream

A major corruption scandal is rocking Ukraine. Cabinet ministers and one of Volodymyr Zelensky’s own business partners are implicated in a war profiteering scheme worth more than 100 million dollars. Meanwhile, on the front, the situation is getting even worse. Pokrovsk – a key defensive position in the Donbass – is falling to the Russians. Zelensky’s days are numbered. But corruption and crisis a...

Zohran Mamdani is the new Mayor of New York City. By running a campaign that promised to take on the billionaires and better the lives of working class New Yorkers, he tapped into anti-establishment, working class anger that is growing not only in New York but across the world. But the struggle has only just begun. Already, Trump has declared war by cutting off funding to New York. Meanwhile, bill...

Over the last few weeks, Trump has been brazenly ratcheting up tensions with Venezuela. Having declared its president, Maduro, the leader of a drug cartel, he has moved a tenth of America’s navy and B-52 bombers to menace the country. Hot off making ‘peace’ in Gaza, Trump seems to be headed straight towards a new war.  Will the US go to war in Venezuela? What is the Trump administration seeking? A...

This week, the collapse of Tricolour and First Brand sent a ripple of fear through the capitals of the world. From giddy boasts that the ‘bull’ market would never come down, capitalists are now reckoning with the fact that there is a gigantic bubble in the world economy, which threatens to pop. But the bubble – which they are powerless to fix – is symptomatic of a much deeper crisis. Capitalism ha...

📖 RECOMENDED READING 📖 A Federal Critical Mineral Processing Initiative: Securing U.S. Mineral Independence from China 🔗 https://warontherocks.com/2025/04/a-federal-critical-mineral-processing-initiative-securing-u-s-mineral-independence-from-china/ Israel’s two-year Gaza war nears its end, but questions of victory remain 🔗 https://www.jpost.com/defense-and-tech/article-870569#google_vignette...

This week, after two years of the genocide in Gaza, Trump struck a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. But who benefits? And will it last? Meanwhile, the Palestine solidarity movement continues to escalate in Europe. Italy has shown the way forward with a general strike which has inspired activists across the continent. In France, yet another government has collapsed. In this week's episode of...

Yesterday, Israel once again attacked a peaceful flotilla travelling towards Gaza to break the naval blockade and deliver humanitarian aid. In the following hours, millions came pouring onto streets across Europe to protest the assault and demand an end to the genocide. In Italy, a general strike has been called for tomorrow. Meanwhile, Trump and Netanyahu have presented their criminal ‘peace plan...

With his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump has once again caused shock and awe around the world. But what does his apparent change of heart on the war in Ukraine actually signify? And what does it mean for Europe? Meanwhile, Italy has seen half a million on the streets over Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And it’s not only Italy that’s heating up. France, Nepal, Indonesia, Peru, the...

Last week saw hundreds of thousands attend the biggest right wing demonstration in decades. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer’s Labour-government is facing a meltdown after just a year in office. How should the left respond, and what are the reasons for the rise of the right and the political crisis in the first place? In this week on Against the Stream Niklas Albin Svensson and Hamid Alizadeh discuss the b...

Lenin once said that there are weeks where decades happen. This is one of those weeks. The French government collapsed. Revolutions broke out in Indonesia and Nepal. Israel bombed peace negotiations in Qatar. And just yesterday, right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk was shot and killed. It’s easy to be disoriented by the speed of events these days. But revolutionaries most of all must have a clear gr...

Against the Stream is back for another season of weekly Marxist analysis! This week, Hamid Alizadeh and Jorge Martín catch up on all the convulsive developments over the summer: the further decline of western imperialism and the rise of China, the crisis of the regime in France, and the revolutionary explosion in Indonesia. Against the Stream, the current affairs podcast of the Revolutionary Commu...

This week, in a dramatic turn of events, Trump – who campaigned on the promise to end US ‘forever wars’ – decided to get involved in Israel’s war on Iran by dropping bombs on its nuclear facilities. Now, after an attack on a US base and some strong words, Trump has enforced a ceasefire between the warring parties. In the aftermath, Trump has celebrated his ‘12 day’ war as a stunning success, which...

[Read Alan Woods' analysis of Israel's attack on Marxist.com ] This week, the turmoil in the Middle East reached new heights as Israel launched a series of attacks on Iran, targeting its military leadership and striking several of its nuclear facilities. This has since escalated dramatically with further attacks on Iran and Iranian retaliations against Israel. Israel’s latest war represents a dram...

This week, thousands of workers flooded onto the streets of LA in response to ICE agents raiding workplaces and neighbourhoods. Since then, Trump has tried to crush the movement by calling in the Marines and the National Guard. But in so doing, he risks provoking a mass movement similar to Black Lives Matter, which forced him into hiding in the White House bunker five years ago. The democrats have...

2025 marks a turning point in world history. The tectonic plates of international relations are shifting, the globalised world economy is being torn apart, and the entire capitalist order is being shaken to its foundations by political, economic, environmental and social crises. An unstable new epoch – an epoch of war, revolution and counter-revolution – has opened up. In preparation for the first...

Against the Stream, weekly current affairs podcast of the Revolutionary Communist International, at 6pm GMT every Thursday to discuss the latest developments in the world crisis of capitalism.

For a year and a half, the western imperialists have not only been defending Israel's right to massacre, starve and ethnically cleanse the population of Gaza – they have been selling them the weapons to do it. Now, all of a sudden, they’re criticising the “intolerable” suffering that Israel is causing. Does this mean that the imperialists have gained a conscience? Certainly not. At a time when...

War between India and Pakistan. Revolutionary crisis in Serbia. Escalation of the genocide in Gaza. These are just a few of the mighty events piling up on one another at a breathtaking pace. Against the Stream is here to help revolutionaries navigate these tumultuous events. In Kashmir, India and Pakistan – both nuclear powers – once again briefly went to war. The countries have been in conflict s...

Last week's byelections in the UK were an earthquake in British politics. For the first time since the rise of the Labour Party 100 years ago, the two-party system has been upended. Now, a new contender for power has decisively entered the race: Reform. It has been less than a year since the last general election in Britain. Since then, the Labour party has collapsed in popularity as a result...

Since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine three years ago, a flood of lies has gushed forth from western governments and the billionaire press alike to obscure the real nature of this war. [Click here for a comprehensive reading list on the background to the Ukraine war: https://marxist.com/top-reads-on-the-ukraine-conflict-war-and-imperialism.htm] Painting it as a simple battle between good and evi...

For the last century, the USA has been the undisputed master of the capitalist world. Now, all that is changing. Today, America is in decline and facing a new contender: China. Over the last 30 years, China has exploded from an underdeveloped country, exploited by western capitalists for its cheap labour, to a cutting-edge capitalist power in its own right. Today, it accounts for 18 percent of the...

Articles mentioned: “I’ve seen many phoney trade wars come and go. This is the real thing” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/09/trade-war-donald-trump-us-china “‘The Tsunami Is Coming’: China’s Global Exports Are Just Getting Started” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/07/business/china-manufacturing-exports-trump-tariffs.html “On the Question of Free Trade” https://www.marxists.org/...

Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff announcements have set the cat amongst the pigeons in the world market. In France, the hypocritical establishment is celebrating the sentencing of right-wing demagogue Marine Le Pen in court on flimsy charges. Meanwhile in the Middle East, the leader of the PKK has called on its Kurdish guerilla fighters to lay down their arms. Globalisation is now rapidly unravellin...

Articles mentioned: https://meduza.io/feature/2025/03/17/otsyuda-vyhod-odin-trista-ili-dvesti https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-resumes-gaza-bombing-one-most-terrifying-nights-war https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/03/23/starmer-ukraine-peacekeeping-plan-political-theatre/ https://marxist.com/netanyahu-resumes-genocide-to-cling-to-power-2.htm ______ In Gaza, Netanyahu has restarted...

Trump’s dramatic return to the White House has thrown the liberals into complete panic and confusion. They have been accusing Trump of being responsible for every ill in the world, and have flung whatever insults they can at him: from semi-fascist, to fascist, to neo-fascist. Shamefully, the perennially alarmed so-called 'Lefts' are dragging like a tail behind the liberals, spreading the s...