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A local Marxist in the southern Ukrainian city of Pervomaisk, Bogdan Syrotiuk, was arrested by the SBU on 25 April. He is being held in a high security prison in Mykolaiv under poor conditions under charges of treason and aiding the Russian invasion. Some of our comrades have known Bogdan for a number of years, and it is clear that these are made up charges by Ukrainian state security against a known left activist in the area.

Yesterday the world’s media was rocked by the surprise news that the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, is seeking arrest warrants for war crimes, against Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, and Yoav Gallant, the Defence Minister.

New Caledonia has been rocked for several days by riots that have so far claimed six lives. This uprising is the result of repeated provocations by the French imperialist government. In 2022 – after Macron forced through a referendum on independence in spite of his promises to the contrary – we published the article below, in which we wrote: “The French government welcomes the result, but the problem is by no means settled – and is bound to resurface, sooner or later.” Since then, the government has pushed ahead with a process of electoral reform that constitutes a significant provocation for the Kanaks.

Fiona Lali recently shot to prominence, and stunned former British Home Secretary Suella Braverman, when she publicly branded Suella a “war monger” and a “liar” for her support for the genocide in Gaza. Fiona’s words chimed with millions of workers and youth who have seen this clip, and who are sick and tired of this rotten imperialist system, of the hypocrites who run it, and of the commentators, media and ‘opposition’ that do nothing to challenge it.

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.

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

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