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Latin America
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Golpe in Peru: Castillo under arrest, people demand a constituent assembly

It finally occurred. On December 7th 2022 Peru’s ruling parliamentary dictatorship managed to bring to fruition their top priority, to oust democratically elected president Pedro Castillo Terrones. Castillo, a rural primary teacher, elected to Peru’s highest office in July 2021, from day one faced the Peruvian oligarchy’s relentless hostility. Peru’s elite is strongly entrenched in Congress and controls all key state institutions (the judiciary, army, police), the highly influential business organizations (notably the Confederación de Empresarios Privados – CONFIEP), and crucially, the totality of the mainstream media. Regardless of Castillo presidency’s evident shortcomings and mistakes, his ouster represents a grave…

Politics
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Cliff Slaughter, 1928-2021: a life for revolution and its challenging legacy

Terry Brotherstone writes: Cliff Slaughter, whose life was dedicated to revolutionary, working-class internationalism and Marxist critique, died at the home in Leeds where he lived with Vivien Mitchell, his comrade and wife of 55 years, on 3 May 2021, aged 92. His last published article – an appeal for the radical rethinking of how Marx’s materialism should be practised today – appeared in Critique at the end of 2020. That essay now looks like a Parthian shot, a posthumous challenge to serious socialists to shed shibboleths and engage without prejudice in theoretical work as an indispensable part of revolutionary practice.…

Politics
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The crisis in the Labour Party and building an alternative

Thelma Walker writes: When did the destruction of the Labour Party I supported for nearly 40 years really begin? Could it be the ‘New Management’ of the current Labour front bench? They certainly believe their shift to the right will save us all from the ‘Trots’, the ‘Tankies’ and the ‘Corbyn cultists’. Yes, I’ve been labelled all those things – socialists who remain in Labour are seen as ‘barnacles on the boat’. Starmer and co are of course present at Labour’s deathbed, but those who know history realise that Labour has rarely offered true democratic socialism in its over 100…

Politics
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The March of Folly Resumed: Russia, Ukraine and the West

Richard Sakwa writes: In his speech of 24 February 2022 justifying the invasion of Ukraine, Russian president Vladimir Putin singled out two key aims – the ‘demilitarisation’ of Ukraine and its ‘denazification’.1 These goals have been the subject of much ridicule, some of it deserved, yet the formulation of Russian war aims in these terms represents the culmination of a long period of conflict-gestation, which finally spilled over into a reckless and brutal conflict. The struggle quickly turned into a proxy war between Russia and the West, with the Ukrainian people suffering the brutal effects of the assault. The war…

China
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Europe should avoid being drawn into the US’s cold war on China

Fiona Edwards writes: The U.S. administration is attempting to draw Europe into its cold war policy against China, which so far the European Union, in particular, has refused to participate in. This makes the region a key focal point in world politics today. This threatening U.S agenda, which is completely against the interests of the people of Europe, China and the U.S., is unfortunately and persistently being advanced by the U.S. administration. But significant opposition to this dangerous cold war approach is also growing across the world, including in Europe. The opposing interest of the U.S. proponents of the new…

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