Socialist strategy has long been split between reformism, the idea that the capitalist state can be taken over and incrementally made better, and revolution, the idea that the state must be smashed to create socialism. Marxists uphold the latter view. The state is not a neutral tool that can be employed for good, but an instrument of class rule.
The Palestinian escape from Gaza and attack on their occupiers on October 7 was a desperate attempt to alter the status quo, and one of the greatest asymmetric warfare victories of our time. The operation galvanized unprecedented levels of support for the Palestinian struggle and brought it to the global forefront. As Marxists, we give unconditional, but critical support to this and all national liberation struggles.
Birth rates are decreasing around the world, and the ruling classes in capitalist countries have begun to see it as a crisis. Socialists should reject this view — falling fertility results from the mounting crises of capitalism itself and is nothing to panic over. Instead we must objectively analyze the causes and take a class-struggle approach to the issue.
Originally published at Puntorojo Magazine Beloved tenured history professor and Socialist Horizon member Tom Alter was summarily fired on September 10th by Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse for expressing his views in a virtual conference unrelated to...
On Saturday, July 5, Socialist Horizon, Firebrand, the International Socialist League and Socialist Alternative (Australia) hosted a meet-up titled “Rebuilding Revolutionary Socialist Organization” at the Socialism 2025 conference in Chicago. The objective of the...
I want to start with the premise that electoral (that is to say, bourgeois electoral) politics are counterposed, in most historical circumstances, with real-world politics, the politics of the working class and oppressed masses. Not just opposed: in times like these,...
“Every capitalist state is a police state,” writes brian bean in his new book, Their End Is Our Beginning: Cops, Capitalism, and Abolition. This statement could serve as both a pithy summary of this excellent new volume on police abolition, and a slogan pointing...
The win by Zohran Mamdani in the New York City Democratic Party mayoral primaries has sent shockwaves across the United States. Many on the left, especially sections of the Palestine solidarity movement, have been jubilant, calling it an electoral vindication of...
The working class in the United States today has hardly anything resembling a real choice when it comes to voting. Practically every election, from the federal level down to the municipal, is just a contest between two openly corporate, pro-capitalist candidates,...
It’s been glorious to see: after months of terror at the hands of Donald Trump’s immigration agents, people have finally started fighting back. Earlier this month, armed thugs from the hated Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) invaded Los Angeles in a...
It is rare to come across a book which covers such hefty topics with both depth and brevity. At just over 300 pages, one such volume is Thinking Systematics: Critical–Dialectical Reasoning for a Perilous Age and a Case for Socialism, by Canadian Marxists Murray E. G....
The ruling ideas of any age are the ideas of the ruling class.— Marx and Engels The consciousness of the working class has always been mixed. Acceptance of the dominant capitalist ideas is combined with resentment for and opposition to oppression and exploitation....
During the postwar boom, from 1945 through the early 70s, the ruling class in the United States was relatively united. “Politics stops at the water’s edge,” as the saying went. Foreign policy stayed the same no matter who was in office, while the US used its position...
Gaza The official number of Gazans killed by the Zionist entity since October 7, 2023 is over 50,000, many thousands of which were children and the elderly. The real number is very likely much higher. The respected British medical journal, Lancet, estimated in July of...
Palestine and Marxism, the latest book by Swiss-Syrian scholar and activist Joseph Daher, is an important intervention into debates around Palestine. With its sharp theorizing of Palestinian liberation and resistance — armed and otherwise — it is a valuable read for...
In a few short weeks, Donald Trump’s second presidential administration has quickly established new lows in reactionary cruelty and chaos compared to his first. With an entrenched far-right nationalist movement behind him in his MAGA minions, and more support from key...
Tackling a topic as big as the current state of the economy is not easy. One could write volumes about it and still only scratch the surface, and indeed many have done just that. In order to avoid trying to boil the ocean, we will instead focus on a few specific...
It is often the case that newly radicalizing Marxists end up confused about our relationship to Maoism. Is it just “Marxism in China” or “socialism with Chinese characteristics”? Is it a newer form of Marxism which we can learn from and engage with? What Maoist ideas,...
What does the election say about current consciousness? Are a majority of Americans now MAGA racists? People approach elections pragmatically. The majority decides how to vote on the basis of lesser-evilism. They estimate which candidate will be better for themselves...
This article is a partisan intervention. Being a communist means taking sides, specifically the side of the international working class and all oppressed peoples. As Marx and Engels wrote, communists “have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat...
Read part one here: Why Socialists Don’t Vote for Our Enemies Won’t it be easier to organize under a Democrat? All else being equal, probably not. The variables at work in determining the prospects for working-class organization go beyond which party is in the White...
As imperialism keeps intensifying through new and expanding military operations around the world in the drive to access new markets for the capitalist class, communists must understand why we should view soldiers as workers. We also need to consider how to persuade...
Is fascism an immediate threat in the US, or anywhere else? A lot of people with different kinds of politics seem to think so. As someone who looks at the leftist corners of the internet quite a bit, I can safely say I see the word “fascism” used to describe things...
Sir,We congratulate the American people upon your re-election by a large majority.If resistance to the slave power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant warcry of your re-election is, Death to Slavery.— Karl Marx to Abraham Lincoln,...