By Svenja Spunck IN June, the Russian government announced a far-reaching pension “reform”. The main change is to raise the retirement age for women from 55 to 63 and for men from 60 to 65. What may sound to people in Germany like whingeing actually means working to the death in Russia, because average life […]

ON 4 MARCH 2018, a former Russian spy turned double agent for MI5, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yulia, were poisoned using Novichok, a hitherto obscure nerve agent. The British government has named Russia and its newly re-elected President, Vladimir Putin, as the culprit. The main evidence is the claimed development of Novichok by Russia, […]

THE SYRIAN Observatory for Human Rights reports that Bashar al-Assad’s warplanes, artillery and barrel bombing helicopters have launched a major assault on the last extensive rebel-held region of Idlib, aided by their Russian allies. It is likely that the offensive aims to concentrate the population into a narrow pocket, subject them to final liquidation or […]

IN THE February Revolution of 1917, the workers and soldiers of Petrograd rose in spontaneous revolt against the hardships caused by two and a half years of war. Civilians were verging on starvation, while those fighting suffered horrendous losses – 1.5 million had been killed, five million wounded, with millions more taken prisoner. Demonstrations by […]

Lenin’s April Theses, at 479 words one of the shortest of his major works, represented a qualitative advance in his strategic thinking, effected a transformation of the Bolshevik Party’s programme and formed the blue print for the victorious October Revolution that, in turn, changed the world. Nonetheless, the theses built on the previous achievements of […]

BRITAIN’S DEFENCE Secretary Michael Fallon recently said that NATO “is waking up to the challenge of Kremlin aggression and could confront Vladimir Putin’s forces in a showdown” within two years. Fallon assured MPs that former general Sir Richard Sherriff’s prediction of war with Russia in 2017 was “too extreme”. So that’s alright then. These comments […]

BY crushing the Syrian revolutionaries and leaving only Assad and ISIS standing, Putin hopes to force the West to accept that Assad’s regime (with or without Assad at the top of it) is their least worst option. Putin’s claim to stand for the “unity of the Syrian state” actually means restoring the rule of the […]

A propaganda offensive against ‘Russian aggression’ orchestrated by the United States and its Nato allies aims to trigger a new arms race and shackle Europe into the USA’s strategic confrontation with Russia After 15 years of war in Afghanistan, Nato chiefs have signalled they have no intention of acquiescing to war-weariness and beating their swords […]

By Kady Tait On 16 March, the population of Crimea voted overwhelmingly for federation with Russia. The results of the referendum were immediately rejected by all the major western imperialist powers, which have now barred Russia from G8 meetings and applied sanctions to figures in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s entourage. In response to manoeuvres by […]

The League has received this survey of Russian opinion from a correspondent in Russia. According to the WCIOM (The Russian Public Opinion Service) 73% of Russian citizens are against of any intervention of Russia into the conflict between opposition and state authorities because this is internal problem of the country, that was announced on the […]

The Ukrainian working class has no reason to regret the downfall of the corrupt Viktor Yanukovich or his ministers and police chiefs. His brutal repression on the 30 November of a peaceful occupation of Independence Square, using Berkut special forces, launched a movement which would eventually bring him down. Then, on February 20-21, police snipers […]

By Peter Main The overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych by the Euromaidan movement marks a major strategic advance for the imperialists of the EU, led by Germany. Although their preferred option was a “controlled” transfer of power via early elections and a compromise with opposition leaders, it is a mark of their determination to […]

In 1917 the working class took power in Russia with remarkably little resistance from the bosses. But shortly afterwards the capitalists regrouped and gathered support from the imperialist powers to wage a bloody war on the young communist regime that became known as the Russian Civil War. Ninety years ago in 1919 was a key […]

In celebration of International Women’s Day and as part of an ongoing debate about the principles of women’s organisation and the revolutionary movement, Joy Macready looks at the history of early Soviet Russia and its lessons for today The Marxist position on women’s liberation owes a great debt to a remarkable group of women in […]

As the rival imperialist powers manoeuvre to gain an advantage from the mass uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship, Marcus Halaby examines the regime’s strategy and tactics as it struggles, if not for outright victory, then at least to cling on to some vestiges of its power. One of the historic claims to legitimacy of Ba’athism, […]

Dave Stockton looks back at the aborted coup in the USSR and the counter-coup by Boris Yeltsin