The US is standing on a precipice overlooking an abyss of hitherto unimagined proportions. Since March, over 56 million workers have filed unemployment claims, and as of this writing, roughly half of them are currently receiving unemployment benefits.

Swathes of the USA have been hit with devastating wildfires: a tragic consequence of climate change and capitalist negligence. With people on the West Coast having already faced COVID-19, multiple disasters are being piled one on top of another.

For weeks on end, the George Floyd protests against racism and police violence shook America. Support for the movement overflowed all demographic boundaries as an estimated 10% of all American adults—some 25 million people—participated in at least one protest. However, although mass gatherings have continued unabated in some cities, in most of the country the torrential river has inevitably receded into its banks as it was deprived of a revolutionary outlet—for now.

The US is a country with a rich history of class struggle, which is not well known by most due to conscious efforts by the ruling class to bury the traditions of the labor movement. It is important for socialists in this country to study the history and lessons of the past in order to learn and prepare for events in the future. The following article was written before the coronavirus pandemic broke out, but it is even more relevant now in light of the unprecedented wave of wildcat strikes and labor unrest among frontline workers across the country.

On June 19, the International Longshore and Warehouse Workers Union (ILWU), a militant union of 42,000 members, shut down 29 ports along the West Coast of the United States and Canada, as workers withheld their labor for 8 hours. The strike was organized to demonstrate the labor movement’s solidarity with black lives after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, and held on the Juneteenth anniversary of the emancipation of the last chattel slaves in the US in 1865.

Watch this livestream by John Peterson, editor of Socialist Revolution. The racist murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police has ignited a movement of enormous proportions, unleashing decades of accumulated discontent, and even reaching insurrectionary levels in many cities. As the conditions for revolution rapidly mature in the US, there is an urgent need for the movement to grapple with some serious questions: What role do police play under capitalism? What will it take to abolish this institution?

In recent weeks, the US has come closer to an outright revolutionary upheaval than at any time in living memory. The racist murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police has ignited a movement of enormous proportions, unleashing decades of accumulated discontent, and even reaching insurrectionary levels in many cities. The wave of protests has multiplied exponentially over the last two weeks, with nearly 1,400 cities, towns, and suburban areas seeing rallies and demonstrations.

Hundreds of thousands marched in hundreds of cities across the US on the weekend in the largest demonstrations since the racist police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May. Worldwide, there were also protests in hundreds of cities involving hundreds of thousands of youth and workers, demonstrating against racism and police violence, both locally and in solidarity with the mass movement in the US.

Over the last two years, more Americans were killed by police than Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan over the last 18 years. ‬More Americans were killed by police in the last three years than people were killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. ‪Combine this with a devastating economic crisis and pandemic, and it is easy to understand why a tipping point has been reached, as the accumulated rage and humiliation of centuries spills over onto the streets.

Black Lives Matter protests have broken out across all 50 states in the USA following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The comrades of Socialist Revolution, the US section of the International Marxist Tendency, have been intervening in many of these protests, fighting on the frontlines alongside workers and youth of all races against the oppressive capitalist system and its murderous state. Only socialist revolution can end racism for good! We will continue to publish reports of our comrades’ activities around this movement in the coming days.

Watch Alan Woods (editor of marxist.com) discussing the explosive events in the USA. The appalling murder of George Floyd has unleashed a mighty wave of pent-up fury across the cities of the USA. A wave of indignation has brought thousands of people onto the streets.

The cold-blooded murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police is yet another horrific act of racist violence against an unarmed black man in broad daylight. This has yet again sparked protests across the country, showing that people are fed up with the systemic racism of the capitalist system. When the great revolutionary martyr Malcolm X said, “You can’t have capitalism without racism,” he summed up a profound truth about the world we live in. This racist brutality is hardwired into the capitalist system. This Saturday at 7PM ET, Antonio Balmer (Socialist Revolution editor) will speak on racism, police violence, and the need for revolution.

The police murder of George Floyd—an unarmed black man, who was handcuffed by four police officers in Minneapolis before being choked to death—has unleashed a wave of protests across the country, escalating out of control in several cities. Following the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, this latest in an endless string of police killings was the straw that broke the camel’s back, unleashing a tsunami of pent-up fury at all the injustices in American society. Necessity has been expressed through accident – although Floyd’s murder was no accident.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions tried to prepare for social isolation like they would for a blizzard—stocking up not just on toilet paper and sanitizer, but also on pantry basics like milk, eggs, flour, and beans. Faced with this sudden surge in demand, grocery stores across the country were completely overwhelmed. Not just shelves but entire stores were cleared out, so “one-per-customer” rules were established on select items and notices were posted detailing which were out of stock. As we have written elsewhere, the capitalists can’t efficiently sustain supply

Watch John Peterson, editor of Socialist Revolution – newspaper of the International Marxist Tendency in the USA – discussing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the States, which has rapidly become a focal point of the global outbreak, with nearly half-a-million confirmed cases and 13,000 deaths across the country.