On 3 February 1962, US president Kennedy signed proclamation 3447, decreeing an embargo on all trade with Cuba, which was to enter into effect on 7 February. This marked the official beginning of a 60-year blockade (though the imperialist assault had started earlier), which has progressively been strengthened and tightened.

A recent report by UNICEF found that 160 million children — a staggering one-in-ten worldwide — are involved in labour considered to be mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful.

On 23 January, soldiers led by lieutenant-colonel Paul-Henri Damiba seized control of a military base in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Shortly afterwards, gunfire erupted in front of the presidential residence and several military barracks. Several hours later, President Roch Kaboré was reported to have been detained by the soldiers.

We are starting this perspective document with an excerpt from Leon Trotsky’s The “Third Period” of the Comintern’s Errors, written in January 1930. In this work, Trotsky explains the importance of perspectives for a revolutionary Marxist organisation to correctly orient itself towards the working class.

The Sudanese Revolution is at a critical crossroads. The security forces are killing, raping and brutalising the masses with impunity. The revolution has responded by launching new protests, locking down neighbourhoods, and holding a two-day general strike – although the latter was undermined by a lack of organisation. We must be clear: time is short.

The International Marxist Tendency is proud to present the Winter 2022 edition of the in Defence of Marxism theoretical journal. The feature article in this issue takes on the Austrian School of economists who attempted to ‘disprove’ Marx’s economic theory and the very possibility of socialist planning. We publish the editorial by editor-in-chief Alan Woods below.

We are delighted to announce the release of a brand new title from Wellred Books: The Revolutionary Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg. Since her death at the hands of the fascist Freikorps, the truth about Rosa Luxemburg’s life and ideas has been systematically distorted. This book, which will be launched alongside an exclusive online Q&A with the author at 6pm (GMT) on 15 January, will tell the real story of this great revolutionary, on the 103rd anniversary of her murder.

The Sudanese Revolution has taken a new turn. 28 days after the coup that removed him from power, Abdalla Hamdock was reinstated as Prime Minister by the military junta. The streets, which have fought and shed blood for a month to win civilian rule, have met this news, not with jubilation – but rage.

The strategists of the bourgeoisie had imagined that the Covid-19 shutdowns had merely put an already fragile world economy on pause. Once the economy reopened, it would merely be ‘unpaused’ and would proceed to stagger on as before. This is far from how things have turned out in reality. The world economy is now in the grip of chaos.

The heroic masses of Sudan are still taking to the streets to resist the military coup, in defiance of bullets, beatings and arrests at the hands of the security forces.

One year after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a war against the rebellious Tigray region, his army is on the verge of defeat and the Tigrayan forces are marching on the capital Addis Ababa. The federal government declared a national state of emergency on Tuesday.