Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Editorial – The Comeback

Strike. It is an idea no longer confined to leftist politics, these days appearing occasionally on the CNN news ticker, winking at us unexpectedly from Teen Vogue.

Left Voice

April 7, 2017
Facebook Twitter Share

Striking worker in France during the CGT National Strike in June, 2016

Our new print issue “Women on the Front Lines” is out! You can subscribe or buy it online. We are offering free shipping for a limited time. For every magazine we are donating $1 to worker controlled factories Zanon and MadyGraf in Argentina.

Shops fell silent and bosses scrambled to fill the void led by immigrant workers who stopped work on the “Day Without An Immigrant.” The flag of International Women’s Strike was flown high on March 8, by those who took cues from #NiUnaMenos. In Spain, Uruguay and Brazil, women workers struck.

Millions are taking to the streets to demand democracy, equality, and justice from within a neoliberal world order that has worn through its progressive guise, still stuck in the productive inertia from the crisis opened in 2008.

Debates that seemed old and forgotten are making a comeback: tactics and strategy, reform or revolution, the need for a political party. In the movements of women, people of color, and immigrants, we see a growing rejection of capitalism and capitalists’ laws for humanity. This radicalization takes place alongside the rise of nationalism, protectionism, and xenophobia represented by Trump, Le Pen, and the UKIP.

When we set out to publish the first print edition of Left Voice, we focused on trends of social and political polarization, the revival of the labor movement in France, and the crisis of the traditional capitalist parties. We discussed the end of Pink Tide governments in South America, the limits to neo-reformism á la Syriza and Podemos, and strategic questions for Black liberation in the United States.

This time around, we fixed our sights much closer. Trump’s first months have sharpened divisions within the warring factions of the ruling class, split over how to manage the economic crisis–some for the continuation of globalization and others for economic nationalism and protectionism.

Though the US has for a long time boasted a reactionary right, Trump’s election has completely shifted the terms of battle, emboldening racism, imperialist protectionism and immigrant scapegoating, as well as sparking mass resistance the likes of which haven’t been seen in decades.

It is no surprise that women are on the front lines of the struggle. One hundred years ago, around the time of International Women’s Day, women workers in Petrograd went on strike, beginning the February Revolution in Russia that toppled the czar.

In these pages, we tackle what we believe are the most pressing strategic questions for the left. We discuss the need for the women’s movement to connect the struggle for women’s emancipation with the struggle to overcome capitalism.

The anti-Trump resistance in the US is already being claimed by the Democratic Party, a party of imperialist war and neoliberal cuts, responsible for the conditions that led to Trump’s rise to power.

Trump’s “America First” ​​can only mean greater subjugation of oppressed people around the world to US imperialism. It is necessary that the left takes up the fight against xenophobia, racism, and the yoke of imperialism.

We must fight against the wall, deportations, and for immigrants’ rights, as well as the structural basis that enables imperialist control. We must fight against financial policies that hyper exploit workers in semi-colonies and against the US military that imposes the economic and political will of the US government by force.

Left Voice is part of the La Izquierda Diario news network, with outlets in 11 countries published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German. Our writers are factory workers, students, immigrants, teachers, and healthcare workers.

We want to be a voice of the most exploited and oppressed sectors of society and a site of strategic debate where we can arm ourselves to fight not only Trump, but the entire capitalist system.

Note: Outside the US and Canada, only digital subscription is available for now.

Subscriptions

(Once you make the payment, click “Return to merchant.” This will take you to the link with the PDF. Click the PDF icon. Remember to save!)


 

Subscription options



Only US and Canada:

Buy this issue (Print)


 

Select



US and Canada and rest of the World:

Digital Issue




cover_small.jpg
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

On Monday, Germany Will Experience a “Mega-Strike”

On March 27, German railway workers and public sector employees will shut down the whole country. All trains are being canceled. Airports, freeways, hospitals, and daycare centers will all be affected.

Nathaniel Flakin

March 25, 2023

France: On the Frontlines of the War Against Austerity

The French masses have raised the banner of class struggle in what is becoming the first major battle against austerity after the pandemic. Working people across the world should pay attention.

James Dennis Hoff

March 25, 2023

Despite Threats of Arrest, Refinery Workers in France Refuse to Break Strike

As energy strikes continue, France is faced with a kerosene shortage that’s creating an urgent situation at the country’s airports. With capitalist profits on the line, the government has attempted to force Normandy refinery workers back to work through an anti-strike legal weapon called requisitions. In their first victory, refinery workers forced the police to withdraw in an incredible demonstration of solidarity.

Nathan Erderof

March 24, 2023

“We Need Action Committees Everywhere”: Building the General Strike in France

Workers across France are organizing action committees to build a general strike to take down the Macron government and the Fifth Republic.

Arthur Nicola

March 24, 2023