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To the relief of the ruling class, Rishi Sunak has been anointed Britain’s latest prime minister. The new Tory leader has promised ‘stability’, on the basis of a programme of harsh austerity. Instead, revolutionary explosions lie ahead.

The midterms used to be a banal affair that received little attention and voter turnout, in which the opposition party would typically retake control of Congress without much uproar. But the traditional dynamics of US bourgeois politics have been entirely upended in the last period, as the systematic crisis of world capitalism wreaks havoc on political stability across the globe. This year’s midterms will provide a partial snapshot of the political mood in American society at the halfway point of Biden’s presidential term.

We publish here a recording of the opening session of our British comrades’ Revolution Festival, in which Alan Woods, editor of marxist.com, discusses the chaotic state of world politics.

With both the UK economy and Conservative Party in meltdown, Liz Truss has been ousted from office – part of an establishment coup to regain control of the Tories. But further explosions lie ahead, as the crisis of British capitalism deepens.

It is over a month now since the outbreak of the youth uprising in Iran, sparked by the regime’s murder of a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini. With near constant clashes between security forces and youth in every major city, in addition to waves of bazaar strikes and a series of industrial strikes, the situation has the potential of turning into a revolutionary mass movement. Since last week, a campaign for a general strike has been spreading, along with calls for the formation of revolutionary resistance committees.

The movement of Iranian revolutionary youth – which began with the murder of Mahsa Amini on 16 September by the regime – has spread to broader layers of the masses, including important sections of workers. The task is now posed of overthrowing the Islamic Republic and the decrepit capitalist system upon which it stands. But to lead the Iranian Revolution to victory, the advanced guard of Iranian workers and youth must absorb the lessons of the past – of Iran’s rich revolutionary history. To that end, the editorial board of In Defence of Marxism would like to bring to our readers’ attention articles that we believe excellently condense the lessons of this history.

After a month of market mayhem, the capitalist class has killed off Liz Truss’ reckless economic agenda and installed a new ‘responsible’ regime. But they and their system can only offer further attacks. We must fight for socialist revolution.

The Marxist Student Federation (MSF) in Britain has now hit all the fresher's fairs at universities where we have established a Marxist Society, spoken to thousands of people about the ideas of Marxism and shown them how to fight against capitalism. This has been a highly inspiring period for us. We have seen the thirst for communist ideas which exists amongst students.

#RevFest2022 – a three-day festival of Marxist ideas – begins this Friday. This year’s event comes at a critical moment, with titanic events shaking society across the world. So get your ticket today, and join the revolution!

On 11 October, the French government decided to use state powers to “requisition” several oil depots where workers had been on strike since 27 September. This has led to a call for a day of national strike action on Tuesday (18 October). Coming off the back of a large demonstration against the cost of living yesterday (16 October), the class struggle in France is roaring back onto the scene.

For almost half a year, the chairman of the Kurier trade union (representing food delivery couriers), Kirill Ukraintsev, has been in custody. He is charged with repeated violations of the law for holding public events. But in fact, he is being persecuted for legitimate trade union activities, and for defending the rights of one of the most disadvantaged and disenfranchised groups of the working class.

The recently awarded 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics has been accompanied by much chatter in popular science columns about how the work of the three awarded scientists has proven that there is no such thing as ‘objective reality’, and the world is not real. Even the Nobel Prize committee itself succeeded in misrepresenting the science. Idealist mysticism has made much headway in the sciences, and is expressed most crudely in popular science journals. Perhaps the worst specimen is the once highly regarded New Scientist magazine, as the following article from issue 37 of In Defence of Marxism magazine explains.