Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

A New Generation Rises Up

From the youth movement in France, to youth protests in Baltimore to the Sanders phenomena, it is undeniable that there is a new generation rising up. In the first edition of Left Voice Magazine we explore some of today’s most relevant political phenomena – the rise of the new generation, the right wing turn in Latin America and Obama’s visit to Cuba, among others. The following is the opening editorial to the magazine.

Left Voice

May 10, 2016
Facebook Twitter Share

Photo: María Paula Avila/Enfoque Rojo

World capitalism is knee-deep in mud since 2008, with no prospects of exiting the swamp any time soon. Despite hefty economic stimulus and billionaire bailouts, global markets cannot escape their fragile instability. Everywhere, the ruling class is attempting to make us pay for their crisis, through austerity, cutbacks, layoffs, repression, deportations, and imperialist wars.

Neither neoliberal nor social democratic governments have been able to offer a way out of the crisis at hand. In both the U.S. and Europe, the establishment parties who governed for decades are being undermined by their roles in the expanding crisis, while new political phenomena on the left and right have quickly gained ground. The extreme right has made serious inroads in Austria, Germany, France, the U.S. and elsewhere by channeling class anger away from the ruling class and toward most precarious sectors of the working class—refugees and immigrants.

But despite all obstacles, a new generation is rising up and resisting their attacks. Massive mobilizations and occupations led by an increasingly radicalized youth have shaken Paris and other cities across France demanding an end to Hollande’s labor reforms. In Brazil, over 100 high schools have been occupied by students who are fighting cutbacks and protesting dire conditions. In the U.S., a new generation of Black youth has taken to the streets to fight for their lives and their own vision of liberation and radical change.

Left Voice aims to amplify the struggles of these and other heroic youth and working class fighters and to tell the truth about the capitalist system— it is rotten to the core. In these pages, we present an account from the frontlines of the fight against labor precaritization in France and discuss the strategy needed to win. We consider the tasks of the left amidst a generalized right turn in South America and a new soft coup in Brazil. We attempt a balance sheet on the uprisings in Baltimore, a year after the killing of Freddie Gray. We look at the roots behind Bernie Sanders’s meteoric rise and debate with the left organizations which today find hope in Sanders. We examine the new reformist phenomena of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain and their prospects for achieving reform. These are just a few of the questions we take up in our first printed issue of Left Voice.

This magazine and our ongoing Left Voice website are part of the La Izquierda Diario international news network, launched first in 2014 in Argentina, and now with editions in Chile, Mexico, Spain, Germany, France, Brazil, Uruguay and Bolivia. Together, the network has over 200,000 weekly readers. Our outlets in Argentina, Brazil, and France are the most widely read left news sites in their respective countries. A project of the Trotskyist Fraction – Fourth International, we are supported by revolutionary socialists in 13 countries.

We invite you to join us in this project and we welcome discussion on the ideas presented in this magazine. Opportunities for a new anticapitalist left in the U.S. and around the world are emerging. It is our duty to seize these opportunities. History is ours.

Pre Order Your Copy of Left Voice Magazine here: https://www.leftvoice.org/Edition-1-A-New-Generation-Rises-Up

Facebook Twitter Share

Left Voice

Militant journalism, revolutionary politics.

Ideas & Debates

Neither NATO Nor Putin: An Anti-war Program for an Anti-war Protest

The following is a flier that Left Voice distributed at the March 18 rally in DC with the anti-war program we believe we must all take up.

Left Voice

March 19, 2023

Understanding the Global Context of the Ukrainian Conflict: A Response to Our Critics

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the massive rearmament of Europe that followed mark a new stage in a growing conflict that has become a proxy war between the imperialist states of the US and NATO on one side, and an emerging alliance between Russia and China on the other. While some on the Left see this new pole of Russia and China as a check against US imperialism, neither country is anti-imperialist, and neither has anything progressive to offer working people.

Jimena Vergara

March 16, 2023

Pro-NATO Positions Split a Trotskyist Tendency

The war in Ukraine has led to intense debates on the international socialist Left. In November, the Socialist Labor Party (SEP) of Turkey announced it was breaking with the Socialist Workers Movement (MST) of Argentina, in a serious blow to their common project, the International Socialist League (ISL-LIS). What can we learn from this split?

Nathaniel Flakin

March 10, 2023

Dossier: One Year of a Reactionary War in Ukraine

With the aim of developing an international perspective for working class intervention against the reactionary war in Ukraine, we publish this dossier. These articles engage with some of the key debates the war has opened on the Left, analysis on how the geopolitical crisis is developing, and the positions of our international tendency: the Trotskyist Fraction - Fourth International.

Left Voice

March 5, 2023

MOST RECENT

At Least 39 Migrants Die in Fire at Detention Center in Mexico. The State Is Responsible.

The events of March 27 marked one of the darkest chapters in the Mexican State’s anti-immigrant policy, a policy that is increasingly subordinated to the interests of U.S. imperialism.

The French Union Bureaucracy Walks Back Demand for Complete Withdrawal of Pension Reform

After calling to put the pension reform “on hold,” the Inter-Union has requested “mediation,” even though the French government has rejected outright the proposal, showing that compromise is impossible. This proposition symbolizes the Inter-Union’s strategy of defeat. We urgently need to organize the rank and file to broaden our demands and generalize the strike.

Damien Bernard

March 30, 2023

“Lesser Evil” Biden Wants More Border Patrol Than MAGA Republicans

Over the weekend, Biden bragged about his support for even more resources than “MAGA Republicans.” to “secure the border” on Twitter. This is “lesser evilism” in action.

Molly Rosenzweig

March 28, 2023
Customers clear shelves of water Sunday at Fresh Grocer in West Philadelphia.

A Chemical Plant Just Poisoned Philadelphia’s Water: A First-Hand Account of the Crisis

A company dumped thousands of gallons of poisonous chemicals into Philadelphia’s drinking water. This is an on-the-ground account by a Philadelphia worker and socialist.

Jason Koslowski

March 27, 2023