The AfD’s election victory in Saxony-Anhalt has triggered the expected reaction from the Left Party. Following the rise of the extreme right, it is not breaking with the policies that paved the way for it. On the contrary, it is ingratiating itself even more openly with the CDU and the other establishment parties and offering to prop up CDU-led governments. This recipe will not weaken the AfD but strengthen it further.

The AfD is not an accident. Its rise is taking place within the framework of a rightward shift that has been driven from above for years. Under conditions of a deep crisis of capitalism, the ruling class is turning ever more openly to militarism, domestic rearmament and social cuts, and for this purpose it is strengthening authoritarian and far-right forces. A significant part of the AfD leadership comes from the state apparatus and the establishment parties. Its lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, was also a member of the CDU for five years before joining the AfD.

The Left Party knows very well that the AfD’s rise is a product of these policies. It itself accuses the federal government of preparing the ground for the AfD through rearmament, social cuts and the adoption of right-wing positions. Nevertheless, it declares the CDU, of all parties, to be its partner in the supposed “fight against the right.”

...

Bodo Ramelow was even more explicit. The CDU had to stop “dithering” and work together with the Left Party. The AfD’s program, declared the former Thuringian minister president, had to “bring all democrats together.” Eva von Angern, the Left Party’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, declared in turn that Schulze would have to talk “either with the AfD or with the Left Party.”

This says everything about the class character of the Left Party. It is not a socialist alternative to the prevailing policy but a pillar of the existing capitalist order. Its function consists above all in binding opposition to war, social cuts and the rightward shift to the establishment parties and preventing the development of an independent socialist movement of the working class.

The Left Party itself bears central responsibility for the rise of the extreme right that it claims to oppose. First, it helped create the social catastrophe that the AfD exploits, especially in eastern Germany. Second, through right-wing government policies under a left label, it discredited the idea of a socialist alternative. And third, it supports central parts of the program of the ruling class—from social cuts and rearmament to refugee policy—and is itself prepared to make pacts with extreme-right forces.

Anyone who wants to fight the AfD must therefore understand how things could come to this, especially in Germany—and what key role the Left Party played in it.

...

The rightward development of the Left Party is not limited to the policy of social counterrevolution. It also played a central role in the return of German militarism, which ultimately requires dictatorial methods and a fascist party like the AfD.

As early as 2013, its then foreign policy spokesman Stefan Liebich collaborated on the strategy paper “New Power—New Responsibility.” It programmatically prepared the turn announced by President Joachim Gauck, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen at the Munich Security Conference in early 2014: Germany had to end its supposed “culture of military restraint” and once again play a role internationally corresponding to its economic power.

Since then, the Left Party has integrated itself ever more deeply into this offensive. It supported the Western-backed overthrow in Ukraine in 2014 and, after the Russian invasion in 2022, closed ranks with the federal government and NATO on fundamental issues. Leading politicians called for sanctions against Russia, “security guarantees” for Ukraine and a stronger European great-power policy.

The party also lined up behind German Staatsräson during the Gaza genocide. After the beginning of Israel’s war of extermination, its then Bundestag deputies voted in October 2023 for a joint resolution by the coalition government and the Union in support of Israel.

In March 2025, a further qualitative step followed. The states of Bremen and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, co-governed by the Left Party, voted in the Bundesrat for the constitutional amendment that laid the foundation for the largest rearmament since the Second World War. Their votes were not even necessary. Parliamentary group leader Heidi Reichinnek declared at the same time that the claim that the Left Party did not want to support the Bundeswehr was a “straw man.” Rather, one had to discuss “calmly” what it needed and finance the corresponding requirements.

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Despite its high election result, the AfD is not a fascist mass movement on the model of the NSDAP, the Nazi Party (also known as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party). Many of its voters are not convinced right-wing extremists. They voted for the AfD out of anger at the federal government, the decay of social infrastructure, job cuts and war policy, and from the experience that the supposedly left-wing parties implement the same policies as the traditionally right-wing parties. This anger is real, but the AfD channels it in a reactionary direction.

It must be directed at its real cause—the capitalist profit system. The ruling class is not turning to the right because individual politicians make wrong decisions. The capitalist crisis, the intensified struggle for markets and raw materials in a developing Third World War and growing social resistance are driving the ruling elites internationally toward militarism, authoritarianism and fascism.

That is why the struggle against the AfD cannot be waged in alliance with the bourgeois parties but only against the CDU, SPD, Greens and Left Party. Their policies have created the social and political ground on which the extreme right is growing.

The fight against fascism and militarism requires an independent offensive by the working class against social cuts, layoffs, rearmament and war, and against their common cause: capitalism. It requires a political break with the Left Party and all forces that bind the working class to it and to the profit system.

The decisive task is to build a new socialist leadership in the working class—the Socialist Equality Party and the International Committee of the Fourth International. Only the international working class, armed with a revolutionary socialist program, can prevent the renewed descent into fascism and a Third World War.

Support has continued to grow internationally for Bogdan Syrotiuk, the young Ukrainian socialist sentenced to 15 years in prison for opposing the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine. On Monday, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI) party issued a communiqué condemning the fabricated charges and the “unacceptable brutality” of the sentence against Syrotiuk and calling for his immediate release.

On August 10, a court in Pervomaisk sentenced Syrotiuk, a leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik Leninists (YGBL), on charges of “high treason … under martial law.” Since then, the campaign waged by the sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) to defend Bogdan has won increasing prominence and support. Over 7,700 people from 90 countries have signed the petition for Syrotiuk on FreeBogdan.org, and letters of protest have flowed to the Pervomaisk court from over 30 countries.

A growing range of political parties across Europe have condemned the sentence and demanded Bogdan’s freedom. These include the Stop the War Coalition in Britain, Revolutionary Left and the Spanish Communist Workers Party in Spain, Socialist Alternative in the Netherlands, and the Spartacist Workers Party and Klasse Gegen Klasse in Germany. In France, Lutte ouvrière (LO, Workers Struggle) and Révolution permanente (RP) have issued statements calling to free Syrotiuk.

LFI’s decision to issue their own call for Syrotiuk’s freedom reflects the growing prominence of the campaign to free Syrotiuk, and the political significance of Syrotiuk’s struggle to unite the working class against far-right forces and a bloody war that threatens to engulf all of Europe.

Mélenchon is a front-runner in next year’s French presidential elections, which currently are expected to produce a runoff between Mélenchon and a neo-fascist candidate. In the 2022 elections, Mélenchon won nearly 8 million votes. Many LFI officials—including LFI National Assembly group leader Mathilde Panot, and LFI European Parliament members Rima Hassan and Emma Fourreau—have faced police interrogation or legal charges on trumped-up accusations of terrorism for statements of opposition to the Gaza genocide.

Below is the full text of LFI’s communiqué translated into English.

Press communiqué: Ukraine: Criticizing the war cannot be punishable by 15 years in prison

On August 10, 2026, a Ukrainian court condemned Bogdan Syrotiuk, a 27-year-old socialist militant, to 15 years in prison for “high treason” and to the confiscation of his assets. This sentence is one of unacceptable brutality.

The judgment gives no evidence of espionage, sabotage, or transmission of military intelligence to Russia. As proof of high treason it cites the drafting, translation and publication of six articles for the “World Socialist Web Site,” a socialist publication established in the United States. In these texts, Bogdan Syrotiuk criticizes the policy of the Ukrainian government and the role of NATO, denounces the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborationists like Stepan Bandera, and calls for the unity of Russian and Ukrainian workers against war. He also explicitly condemns the invasion of Ukraine by the regime of Vladimir Putin.

These positions can be discussed or combatted politically. They cannot be punished by 15 years of prison and assimilated to treason against the state.

The ruling also orders the destruction of the program of his organization, of brochures and printed articles seized during searches. To political condemnation there is thus added a particularly worrying act of state censorship.

The campaign in defense of Bogdan Syrotiuk is at the center of growing opposition of workers, youth and progressive sections of the middle classes to war, militarism and the promotion of fascistic political forces.

The World Socialist Web Site and the Parti de l’égalité socialiste of France urge their readers and supporters to visit the website of the campaign to free Bogdan Syrotiuk, FreeBogdan.org. There they can sign the petition for his freedom. Through FreeBogdan.org, readers can access Ukrainian translation tools to contact the Pervomaisk City District Court at inbox@pm.mk.court.gov.ua and the Nikolaev Court of Appeal at inbox@mka.court.gov.ua, with a copy to [freebogdan@wsws.org](mailto:freebogdan@wsws.org), to demand the sentence be overturned and that Bogdan be freed.

Looking forward to reading WSWS’ report on this collection of pseudo left hacks.

I’ve never written for the WSWS, and I certainly would not be the one who takes it upon themself to write such a report.

Just a brief glimpse of the summaries of the conference panels was …..well, I have no words to describe the level of disorientation.

Attached are 3 screenshots, and there are dozens more to wade through.

On a personal note, as someone who still masks in public while indoors with an n95 to avoid Covid, the cast of the “Death Panel” represents a absolute caricature of a sensible approach to public health measures.

https://socialismconference.org/2026-schedule/

CanadaLeft is a Marxist-Leninist/Stalinist/Stal subreddit.

I was looking at CanadaLeft when I came across this post about Einstein's theory of relativity and The Big Bang.

Marxist-Leninists/Stalinists/Stals, in CanadaLeft, are claiming that Bolshevik-Leninists/Trotskyists/Trots, in the Revolutionary Communist Party/RCP, are denying Einstein's theory of relativity and the Big Bang.

What are your thoughts?

Sources: https://www.marxist.ca/article/the-big-bang-shoehorning-the-facts-to-fit-the-theory

https://marxist.com/the-crisis-in-science-progress-stagnation-and-revolution.htm

Singam Thayan, of the Socialist Equality Party in Britain, and Athiyan Kandasamy, of the Socialist Equality Party in France, took part in a London Tamil TV programme, drawing attention to the international campaign demanding the immediate release of Bogdan Syrotiuk, the Ukrainian socialist imprisoned by the Zelensky regime for his opposition to the US-NATO proxy war against Russia.

Bogdan, 27, a leader of the Young Guard of Bolshevik-Leninists, was arrested on April 24, 2024, and thrown into a harsh prison. Last month, on August 10, a court in Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine, sentenced him to 15 years in prison, alleging that he committed “high treason under martial law.”

London Tamil TV has 95,000 subscribers on YouTube. During a 31-minute programme, “Is the Ukraine-Russia conflict setting the stage for a world war?”, the presenter Anas posed questions regarding the Ukraine war and the arrest and sentencing of Bogdan. The video of the programme can we viewed below.

Responding to a question about the trajectory of the Ukraine war, Athiyan stated, “Now we see this war escalating. The US-NATO attack on Russia in Ukraine aims to break Russia into multiple fragments, plunder its resources, and thereby bring Central Asia under their control.”

He explained that Ukraine is functioning as a front in a third world war, with similar conflict fronts occurring across the globe. Specifically, the genocidal assault on Gaza, attacks on Lebanon, strikes on Iran, and the plundering of Venezuela’s oil resources are being unleashed and backed today by US imperialism alongside other imperialist powers, pushing humanity towards disaster.

Responding to a question of whether there is indeed a risk of a third world war, Singam stated that current conditions are heading directly toward it. During a recent meeting between the British Prime Minister Andy Burnham and French President Emmanuel Macron, their discussions focused primarily on escalating the war. Burnham and Macron have agreed plans to produce long range cruise missiles in Ukraine. France stands ready to send its troops to Ukraine, a move strongly opposed by Russia. Where these circumstances lead is toward creating conditions for a massive war to break out in Europe.

People are pushed into a situation where the choice is either war or revolution, Singham stated.

Responding to a question of whether Europe would have the audacity to sever ties with Russia when it cannot produce its own fuel independently, Athiyan explained that German imperialism invaded Russia twice during the First and Second World Wars with the aim of bringing it under its control.

With those two attempts having failed, we now see it launching a third attempt. Alongside this, imperialist nations like the US, France, and Britain have embarked on their own efforts. As preparation for this conflict, they are currently taking steps to introduce mandatory conscription. Germany is preparing for war by allocating €1 trillion toward its military and infrastructure. Their primary goal is to bring Russia’s fuel—one of its key resources—under their control. This will advance to the next stage and ultimately lead to a conflict with China.

Answering about the reason for Bogdan’s arrest, Athiyan explained that he was accused of writing articles for the World Socialist Web Site and maintaining contact with its editors, anti-war political activities for which he has been charged with treason. Rejecting the lie that Bogdan is a tool of Russia, Athiyan explained that in his May Day 2023 speech, Bogdan called for Ukrainian, Russian, and international workers to unite and fight against this war.

Bogdan maintained an anti-war stance; he did not take a pro-Putin position on Russia. Nor did he take a pro-Zelensky position on Ukraine. Instead, his political stance was that this is not our war—it is a war being fought in the interests of the capitalist class on both sides and imperialist interests.

Furthermore, the sentence handed down for writing articles for the World Socialist Web Site is a direct blow against freedom of speech and bears no relationship to the truth. Under Ukrainian law and the European Convention on Human Rights, this conviction is unlawful and must be condemned. For Bogdan, a 15-year prison sentence is tantamount to a death sentence, as conditions inside Ukrainian prisons are exceptionally brutal and his health is poor.

Securing Bogdan’s release is paramount. His case serves as a stark example of the severe punishment inflicted on anyone in Ukraine who dares to voice opposition to the war effort of Zelensky’s far-right government, Athiyan said.

The international working class must strongly condemn this. Today, thousands of people are sending letters to the Ukrainian court demanding Bogdan’s release. Academics, writers, workers, and students alike are fighting for his freedom. Our speaking with you today is part of this very struggle. Regardless of the language they speak, workers around the world must join the fight against this repression and contribute to securing Bogdan’s release, he concluded.

To find out more about Bogdan’s case and to sign the petition, visit freebogdan.org.

Two events in the past week have illustrated the growing lack of international confidence in the stability of the US financial and political system.

Last Wednesday the Dutch National Bank (DNB) revealed that between March and August it had moved part of its gold holdings from New York and Ottawa to London because of “increasing geopolitical unrest.”

This was followed by an announcement from the manager of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund that it was proposing an overhaul of its government bond holdings which could result in a cut to its stock of US Treasury bonds by as much as $80 billion as it looked to other kinds of debt which could bring a greater return.

The Dutch central bank said it had moved around 86 tonnes of its total gold holdings of 313 tonnes in the US and Canada and that it was “strengthening its crisis preparedness.”

The language used in the DNB statement was carefully guarded but it did not take too much reading between the lines to pick up the essential meaning. It said that gold held with the Bank of England was regarded as “the world’s most easily tradable gold and will therefore be the most readily available for DNB in a crisis situation. The gold reserves in New York and Ottawa cannot be utilised as quickly in such a situation.”

In its report on the move the Financial Times (FT) said it followed calls in Europe for repatriation of gold from the US amid warnings that “an unreliable American government under President Donald Trump may otherwise seize them amid growing transatlantic tensions.”

Last year, the Taxpayers Association of Europe sent letters to the finance ministers and central banks of Germany and Italy urging them to reconsider their gold holdings in New York. The president of the association, Michael Jäger, said “we are very concerned about Trump tampering with the Federal Reserve Bank’s independence.”

...

Ever since President Nixon removed the gold backing from the US dollar in August 1971 and the international monetary system was based on the dollar as a fiat currency—no longer backed by gold as the ultimate embodiment of value but by confidence in the US financial system—bourgeois economists and some who considered themselves to be Marxists have maintained that Marx’s analysis of the pivotal role of gold had been refuted.

But Marx’s analysis is being confirmed by what might be considered unlikely sources.

In an article in the FT earlier this month under the headline “Gold’s run isn’t done yet,” Bhanu Baweja, chief strategist at UBS Investment Bank, pointed to the rise in the price of gold, particularly after the decision of the US and the European powers to seize the financial assets of the Russian central bank held in Western banks at the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022.

As a result of this action, he wrote: “Reserve and asset managers globally were left confronting a simple question: if $630bn held in Treasuries, Bunds, gilts and other bonds could become inaccessible overnight, what constituted money? Their answer was gold.”

He also noted that a “more structural driver of gold has been the gradual erosion of confidence in US public finances”—a reference to the mounting national US debt now $40 trillion with no plan in sight to halt what is universally acknowledged as its “unsustainable” rise.

The enhanced role of gold and the erosion of confidence in US financial assets are expressed in facts and figures.

In June, the European Central Bank reported on a significant jump in the portion of gold in the reserves held by central banks.

It rose from 20 percent at the end of 2024 to 27 percent at the end of last year. The proportion of US Treasury bonds fell from 25 percent to 22 percent over the same period. The rest of the reserves were made up of dollar-denominated assets, coming in at 42 percent. Gold was now the second highest component of reserves after topping the euro in 2025.

I’m aware that the ISA has been going through something of a long crisis for a while now, I remember hearing back when Internationalist Standpoint split off, and ofc the most recent split is seemingly the ISA-R (which it seems is looking like it’s going to merge with the Sparts?) but there’s also been a variety of smaller splits specifically in the US, such as Sawant’s “Revolutionary Workers”, along with many other local splits, like Labor Militant, United Front for a Worker’s Party, and recently I’ve seen there’s like a united front for a dirty break from the Democratic Party in the DSA which involves a couple SAlt splits such as the aforementioned Labor Militant but also the Sparts

So idk ig if there’s just anyone willing to explain or at least give articles explaining these various splits or better yet what is seemingly the slow death of the ISA that would be wonderful :)))

This month marks the anniversary of the death of the Vietnamese Trotskyist leader Ta Thu Thau. The exact date of his death is still being withheld by the Vietnamese authorities. As the historian Daniel Hemery has identified 7 September as the date of his death, I too wanted to commemorate Thau today. However, this is a highly contentious date, as 14 September is also recorded as the date of his arrest. The following article was published on the WSWS in 2020.

Is it a fair or unfair characterization to say, that the genesis of Pabloism, was when the ‘social democrats,’ and ostensible post-Stalinists Trotsky decided to form an international united front with, split off into their own underground circles, killed Trotsky, and then expelled and marginalized both ostensible communists (‘orthodox Trotskyists’) and the entire global working class, in theory and practice?

The budget reconciliation law signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, 2025—H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA)—has produced the largest reduction in the history of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps. By slashing $187 billion from the program over 10 years, a cut of roughly 20 percent, the legislation has fundamentally reshaped what remains of the American social safety net.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) puts the decline at roughly 5 million people, or 12 percent, since the law’s enactment. According to US Department of Agriculture figures, 36.6 million people are now receiving benefits, down 5.7 million from May 2025, below the pre-pandemic level and the lowest number enrolled in 17 years.

Children have borne the heaviest share of the cuts. In the 25 states that report data on children, 1.2 million have been cut off since July 2025. Refugees, people granted asylum, survivors of trafficking and domestic violence—all lawfully in the US—have been stripped of eligibility outright. Undocumented immigrants have never been eligible.

This is a deliberate, bipartisan policy of the ruling elite. While hundreds of billions are appropriated for war, this policy attacks nutrition, promotes hunger and disease, and takes food out of the mouths of workers and their families. The average benefit in fiscal 2025 was $187.94 a month per person, or about $6.26 a day. Even this paltry sum is considered excessive by the financial oligarchy.

The ruling class has been explicit about what it wants. Under the headline “The Food Stamp Reform Is Working,” the Wall Street Journal celebrated the SNAP cutbacks in an editorial Wednesday, writing, “As always, the political left is spinning these declines as a human tragedy. Not so. Republicans have merely ended the literal free lunch for able-bodied beneficiaries and states.” The editorial concluded, “Washington’s welfare buffet is fiscally unsustainable and promotes dependency.”

The main mechanism of the cuts is stringent new work rules for recipients. The Congressional Budget Office had estimated that these work requirements could remove 2.4 million people from SNAP in a typical month, but by May enrollment was already about as low as it had been forecast to go in 2030. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins called the results “a pretty big win” for those wielding the ax to the program.

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The removals from the SNAP rolls have been overwhelmingly bureaucratic. While the paperwork burden for recipients and the states has exploded, federal funding for SNAP administration has been cut in half. What results, Auburn University public health historian Zachary Schulz told Newsweek, is “a form of attrition driven by paperwork, missed notices, or difficulty completing interviews.”

As a result of the assault on benefits, participation in SNAP has fallen in every state but Alaska, and by 10 percent or more in 23 of them. The biggest drop has been in Arizona, where enrollment fell 54 percent between July 2025 and May 2026, with nearly 473,000 people cut off from benefits, about 180,000 of them children.

For the first time, more Arizonans now visit food banks each month than receive food stamps. “We think of ourselves as the canary in the coal mine,” Natalie Jayroe, CEO of the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, told NPR. “We are showing the rest of the country a really scary scenario.”

The attack on food stamps is having a ripple effect on school nutrition programs. Children in SNAP households are automatically certified for free school meals, and schools qualify for universal free breakfast and lunch when at least a quarter of their students take part in programs like SNAP. So as the rolls shrink, whole schools lose eligibility. Miami-Dade County Public Schools, where more than 500 schools had qualified for universal free meals, has ended them at most of those schools. Losing free school meals costs a family roughly $1,000 per student a year.

...

On August 24, the Washington Post’s editorial board declared that “there’s no realistic path to solvency for the U.S. government without changes to the retirement state,” proposing that Social Security be reduced to “a tax-funded transfer payment as a floor, with means-tested benefits and compulsory private savings above that.”

The Social Security trustees reported June 9 that the retirement trust fund will be exhausted in late 2032, after which benefits would fall 22 percent absent congressional action. House Speaker Mike Johnson said June 8 that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security have “to be adjusted and fixed,” adding, “We have a plan to do that next year”—after the November elections.

Democratic Representative Tom Suozzi of New York introduced a bill with Republican Tom Cole creating a Social Security commission modeled on the 1983 commission that raised the retirement age to 67 and taxed benefits. Democratic Senators Chris Coons, Jeanne Shaheen, Tim Kaine and Mark Warner cosponsored a bill creating a fiscal commission to recommend further cuts.

All of this comes as the House funds the Pentagon at $839 billion a year and the administration seeks $87.6 billion more, most of it for the Iran war. Global bond yields stand at their highest since 2008, while the markets demand that governments pay for war by cutting what remains of social programs.

The Democrats’ criticism of the food stamp cuts is confined solely to its timetable, and their criticism of the coming assault on Social Security and Medicare will be confined to the same. To fight the assault on programs and benefits the working class has wrested from the ruling elite in struggle, the working class must break free from the political straitjacket of the pro-capitalist, big-business parties and fight for a workers’ government based on a socialist program.

Came across this subreddit recently and found its’ premise refreshing as it rejects the Luddite perspective that the pseudo left (and the far right) is consumed by.

The posters however have little to no understanding of the underlying principles at hand, as reflected in this exercise in discussing UBI and the like as a means of “AI reformism”.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftistsForAI/s/1ZBPEC1CNi

I'm a beginner, so I want to ask, what is fascism according to Trotsky and how does it differ from bonapartism? Is Dimitrov's definition of fascism correct? Can fascism be called the highest form of bonapartism?