Coronavirus

covid 19 map Image PixabayThe COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic has plunged the capitalist system into a deep crisis. The stock markets are plummeting, a recession seems inevitable, and the ineptitude of the ruling class’ political leaders is being ruthlessly exposed everywhere.

Rather than a concerted, global response to the outbreak, protectionist tendencies in the world market have been accelerated, as governments rush to throw up borders to horde medical supplies and scramble for exclusive rights to vaccines.

The bosses and bourgeois governments have attempted to force the working class to shoulder the burden of this emergency, banning mass gatherings at the same time as sending people to work without adequate safety measures. This has been met with a backlash, with a wave of strikes in badly affected countries like Italy forcing the bosses to backtrack. This is despite the woeful response of the leaders of the workers’ mass organisations, who have mostly fallen in line with their governments rather than fight back.

While this pandemic was the catalyst, it was not the cause of the current social, political and economic crisis. This was already prepared in the last period of capitalist crisis and austerity, which savagely cut health services, brought increasingly degenerate leadership to the fore, and caused huge resentment to accumulate in the fabric of society. COVID-19 was accidental, but the calamity it has provoked was inevitable.

This virus marks the beginning of a new, tumultuous period in world history, one in which the consciousness of the masses will rapidly advance as the totally rotten state of the capitalist system and its leaders are laid bare.

 

The left-wing government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador is attempting to balance between the will and aspirations of the masses who brought it to power, and the demands of bourgeoisie. Despite attempts to placate the ruling class, they don't trust AMLO and want him gone.

On 13 May, the officially declared total number of deaths resulting from COVID-19 in Brazil reached 13,149, with 749 deaths registered in the previous 24 hours. The political crisis in the country is also escalating, as our Brazilian comrades report.

The coronavirus crisis is creating dissent within the ranks of the armed forces. This is a worrying development for the capitalist class, and a harbinger of explosive developments to come.

The pandemic has triggered the deepest crisis in the history of capitalism. There will be no return to ‘normality’. Consciousness will be transformed forever. We must build the forces of Marxism with a sense of urgency. This editorial by our British comrades explains how they are preparing to meet the new situation. 

The COVID-19 crisis is exposing the limitations of global bodies like the UN and the WHO, trapped between the competing interests of US and Chinese imperialism. Like an umbrella full of holes, they're useless precisely when they're most needed.

A string of right-wing protests against enforced social distancing and stay-at-home policies in Texas, Michigan, Virginia, Florida, Louisiana, and other states have received copious media attention in recent weeks. One particularly notable event was “operation gridlock” in Michigan, in which protestors got in their cars and deliberately blocked traffic—making it impossible for even ambulances to get through to respond to medical emergencies. Photographs and videos showed participants flying confederate flags, fascist insignias, and other reactionary symbols. Members of the semi-fascist Proud Boys gang were in attendance. The Michigan Conservative Coalition, which has close ties to

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Watch our interview with comrade Kazeem about the situation in Nigeria, where the coronavirus poses a catastrophic threat, and the perspective is one of explosive class struggle.

With cases of the novel coronavirus continuing to rise and no plateau in sight, nurses in Massachusetts have found themselves fighting more than just the virus to keep themselves and their patients safe and healthy. Between the ineptitude and inaction of the government and the barriers to care created by hospital administrators and shareholders, the nurses are exercising their collective power and using the resources of their union to take control of providing supplies, support, and guidance to healthcare workers. The nurses’ actions clearly demonstrate the timeliness and effectiveness of the ...

The Moroccan regime has detained over 500 political prisoners, according to the president of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, Aziz Ghali. Amongst them are those imprisoned in the Hirak Rif protests and the Gerak Jaradah movement: trade unionists, bloggers, a journalist… pretty much everybody. Not a day goes by without social media reporting the arrest of new militants or ordinary citizens whose only crime, in the majority of cases, is having published a Facebook post critical of living conditions or of the state’s politics.

The bosses are pushing ever harder for workers to return to work. And the Tory government is giving them free rein to restart the economy without the necessary safety measures. The labour movement must organise a fightback.

In a report released on 29 April, the ILO forecast that 1.6 billion workers in the informal sector will lose 60 percent of their income after one month of the crisis. In the worst-affected countries, poverty rates among informal workers will increase to 84 percent. As the crisis bites, workers in insecure work will face disaster.

Watch our interview with Ben Morken, who discusses the situation in South Africa: the impact of COVID-19, the political crisis and the perspectives for class struggle.

The Red Workers’ Front organised an online May Day rally in which workers from all parts of the country expressed their views and condemned government policies, which are leading to more hunger and death for the workers alongside huge bailout packages for the rich and powerful.