Since the Pakistani general elections on 11 May this year, the forces of reaction have been manoeuvring to try to deny a democratically elected candidate his rightful place as an elected representative of the people of Pakistan. Tomorrow is an important day in this process as it will witness these reactionary forces doing everything they can to steal the victory of the Marxists.
The PML-N government will find itself in quicksand with so many adversaries fighting in so many directions on so many fronts
Fred Weston, Editor of the 'In Defence of Marxism' website, talks about Karl Marx and the attempt of building the first international Workers' Party. This talk about the early days of the ideas of scientific Socialism highlights invaluable lessons for revolutionaries today.
This year’s presidential race in Iran was dramatically shaken this week by the news that Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had announced his candidacy. Although Rafsanjani has fallen out of favour with the regime in recent years, it is quite possible that his bid could be successful.
In 1989 new negotiations between the USSR and US imperialism (culminating in a Reagan-Gorbachev summit) were heralded as opening a phase of world peace. Ted Grant analysed the extremely fragile nature of these deals and warned that “the underlying reality is of two fundamentally opposed social systems which cannot tolerate indefinitely the existence of the other.”
“We are running a race with Bolshevism, and the world is on fire.” President Woodrow Wilson, Paris, March 1919
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Pakistan is a country that is literally falling apart in every sense of these words. Its already weak infrastructure is in a state of decay, with power shortages, water shortages, a transport system in a state of collapse, unemployment ever rising and with widespread poverty. This generalised state of decay is now eating away at the state itself, with national and religious conflicts widespread. The ruling elite see no other way of holding on to power than to provoke division after division among the people in the hope of weakening the impoverished masses. It is within this nightmare situation that the Pakistani Marxists are building a force that can offer the masses a way out.
“The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question”. (Marx, Second Thesis on Feuerbach.)
Beethoven was a revolutionary in both music and politics. Inspired by the French Revolution, he expressed its very heart and soul in his music, and remained a revolutionary all his life. We are republishing today the article written by Alan Woods several years ago, which has been updated to include the musical illustrations that had been lost because of technical issues. We are sure that this article will arouse great interest in our readers, casting light on an important stage in the development of European and world culture, and underlining the vital link between music and revolution.
"El problema de si al pensamiento humano se le puede atribuir una verdad objetiva, no es un problema teórico, sino un problema práctico. Es en la práctica donde el hombre tiene que demostrar la verdad, es decir, la realidad y el poderío, la terrenalidad de su pensamiento. La disputa sobre la realidad o irrealidad de un pensamiento que se aísla de la práctica, es un problema puramente escolástico. (Marx, Segunda Tesis sobre Feuerbach.)
Repudiar la deuda pública, repartir el trabajo, ningún despido, nacionalizar la banca bajo control obrero!