This week marks the 200th anniversary of the public premier of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, one of the most astoundingly brilliant musical compositions in history. Despite being functionally deaf by 1824, Beethoven personally conducted the premiere in Vienna, continuing his wild gesticulations after the final note had faded, amidst rapturous applause. The performance and the piece itself, often called the ‘Marseilles of Humanity’, were a defiant rallying cry for freedom and brotherhood in a period of counterrevolutionary reaction. To mark the occasion, we republish ‘Beethoven: man, composer and revolutionary’ by our editor-in-chief, Alan Woods.

Last year saw the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister, and the man at the heart of the state today. The anniversary was marked by a torrent of remembrances of the figure once described by Richard Nixon as “a big man on a small stage who in other times and other places, might have attained the world stature of a Churchill, Disraeli or a Gladstone”.

Last weekend, from 3-6 May, saw 600 workers and youth gathering in London for the launch of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Britain. This landmark congress represents a historic milestone. Join us today, get organised, and help build the RCP.

In April 1917, Lenin returned to Russia, arriving into Petrograd’s famous Finland Station. This was the beginning of his one-man struggle to politically reorient the Bolshevik Party – a vital stepping stone towards the October Revolution.

The long-planned attack on Rafah has begun. On Monday 6 May, the IDF launched airstrikes on the city and issued calls for the evacuation of around 100,000 Palestinians from its eastern neighbourhoods to the so-called ‘humanitarian zones’ of al-Mawasi towards the coast, and an area west of Khan Younis.

Like workers all over the world, the working class of Pakistan also celebrated May Day 2024 in a period of unprecedented crisis of global capitalism. Already weak and backward, capitalism in Pakistan is in a deepening crisis. The ruling class and the state are becoming ever-more vicious and are conducting an economic massacre of the Pakistani working masses at the behest of global imperialist lending institutions like the IMF.

Across the world, hundreds of communists from the International Marxist Tendency were on the streets for International Workers’ Day, 1 May. In most countries, the experience was the same: a tepid offering from the ‘official’ reformist leaders, but also something else. Communist ideas are connecting, and generating enthusiasm in a way we haven’t seen for a generation.

Last month saw parliamentary elections in Croatia. They were held in the context of devouring inflation, corruption and scandals. Opposition parties from both the left and right of the political spectrum stormed into the campaign calling for anti-corruption measures and slogans against the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). But no one offered a programme that could mobilise and unite the working class to fight against the shackles of capitalist wage slavery and worsening conditions.

The following letter was written by an editor of marxist.com, Jorge Martín. Every day, the capitalists’ own media outlets show the horrors of this system. From the deaths of child refugees in Europe, to the victims of the western-backed genocidal war on Gaza. Who are the killers? Our own callous politicians.

Across Australia, tens of thousands have demonstrated over the last week against a significant rise in violence against women, with one woman being killed by an intimate partner every four days so far this year. These sickening crimes have evoked a righteous anger against the daily oppression and violence suffered by women across the country, yet the ruling class and the system they represent have offered nothing but hypocrisy, hollow consolation and barefaced arrogance in return.

We are very proud to announce the publication of Lenin’s masterpiece ‘Left-Wing’ Communism: An Infantile Disorder, by Wellred Books – the publishing house of the International Marxist Tendency. This rich text addresses the central questions of the building of a revolutionary party with Lenin’s characteristic clarity and depth. This edition contains a new introduction, written by Francesco Merli, which we publish below. Get your copy of ‘Left Wing’ Communism now!

On Tuesday night, police stood by as a mob of Zionist extremists were allowed to violently assault the Palestine solidarity encampment at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The peaceful pro-Palestine protests breaking out across the USA have been smeared as violent, racist and antisemitic by the media a politicians of all stripes. But there has been a conspiracy of silence around the real overt racism and extreme violence of the Zionists attacking campuses these past few days.

The British section of the International Marxist Tendency is celebrating this year’s May Day, International Workers’ Day, by launching the Revolutionary Communist Party. Explosive events, upheavals, and class battles are coming in Britain. We must prepare by building the forces of genuine communism.

The outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 left Lenin practically isolated politically, and in exile with very few contacts with the party in Russia. The Second International had solemnly voted at several congresses to oppose the imperialist war, and in the case of its outbreak to use all means at their disposal to accelerate the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. Instead, all the major parties collapsed into social-chauvinism, each defending the interests of their own ruling class in the war.

Freedom of expression is supposed to be a cornerstone of democracy. All views, even the most disagreeable, must be allowed to compete in an open marketplace of ideas. Capitalism, we are told, is the only system capable of facilitating such tolerance; communism would crush dissent beneath the iron heel of conformity and the ‘party line’. Yet, as we write these words, students and academics are being beaten and arrested on dozens of campuses across capitalist America for their ‘unacceptable’ views. Communists, meanwhile, are the only ones mounting a consistent defence of free speech – from our own class perspective.