The Politics of the Pseudo-Left
Germany’s Left Party drums up support for coalitions with the Social Democrats and Greens
By Johannes Stern, 6 March 2021
At their first joint press conference, the two new Left Party chairpersons made clear what lies behind the party motto “Awakening in a new era”—a government alliance with the pro-war and pro-austerity Social Democratic Party and Greens also at the federal level.
999 DSA & the PRO Act
6 March 2021
999 DSA & the PRO Act
5 March 2021
Amanda Gorman’s Dutch translator forced to quit because of race—a call for cultural segregation
By James Clayton, 4 March 2021
Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, the winner of the International Booker Prize for The Discomfort of Evening, has been forced to resign as translator of Gorman’s poetry into Dutch.
In first meeting with Biden, Mexico’s AMLO reaffirms allegiance to Washington
By Andrea Lobo, 3 March 2021
Beyond formal statements of mutual respect, the meeting marks a continuation of the AMLO’s subservience to the interests of US imperialism, cemented under Trump.
Sanders provides cover to the Democrats as they refuse to raise the minimum wage
By Genevieve Leigh, 3 March 2021
In response to growing outrage, Senator Bernie Sanders has staged a series of stunts to cover over the Democratic Party’s gutting of its own stimulus bill.
999 Sanders, $15 minimum wage and the pseudo-left
2 March 2021
Socialist Alternative’s Kshama Sawant joins the DSA: The Democratic Party politics of the pseudo-left
By Kayla Costa and Joseph Kishore, 1 March 2021
Socialist Alternative’s efforts to forge a closer alliance with the DSA is aimed at creating a new political trap and blocking the development of a genuine socialist movement of the working class.
999 Socialist Alternative and Sawant join DSA
1 March 2021
Rapper's arrest triggers mass protests over social conditions in Spain
By Alejandro López, 27 February 2021
Young protesters are denouncing the PSOE-Podemos incarceration of Pablo Hasél, which is part of the bourgeoisie’s broader offensive against working and living conditions.
Cashing in on racialist politics: Black Lives Matter foundation raised $90 million in 2020
By Trévon Austin, 27 February 2021
Black Lives Matter organizations have been promoted and financially backed by sections of the ruling class as part of the effort to promote racial division and undermine class unity.
Germany: Left Party congress paving way for government participation and war
By Johannes Stern, 26 February 2021
Germany’s Left Party congress will set an even more direct course towards government participation and support for war.
Anticapitalistas covers for Podemos’ incarceration of Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél
By Alejandro López, 26 February 2021
In its article acknowledging the mass anger against the policies of Podemos, which it helped found, Anticapitalistas warns of mounting opposition on its left among workers and youth.
999 Black Lives Matter $90 million fund
26 February 2021
“Now Scotland”: Pseudo-left groups form new alliance with nationalist hardliners
By Steve James, 25 February 2021
Now Scotland is an adjunct of the most pro-independence faction of the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP).
The $15 minimum wage scam
By Genevieve Leigh, 25 February 2021
Despite the dire conditions facing workers, President Joe Biden has already given numerous indications that the meager minimum wage increase proposal will likely be stripped from the bill.
Spain’s PSOE-Podemos government showers arms dealers with billions in contracts
By Alejandro López, 23 February 2021
The Socialist Party-Podemos government is making sure Spanish arms manufacturers cash in as the imperialist powers rearm and prepare for new wars.
999 Pseudo-left and Chicago school reopenings
23 February 2021
Jacobin magazine downplays Democrats’ impeachment debacle
By Genevieve Leigh, 21 February 2021
Jacobin has had next to nothing to say about the Democrats’ impeachment debacle and even less to say about the January 6 coup attempt and the ongoing threat of right-wing violence.
How the Revolutionary Internationalist Organisation (RIO) is sabotaging the fight against the pandemic in Germany
By Johannes Stern, 21 February 2021
The German pseudo-left group seeks to subordinate workers to the deadly policies of the trade unions and the bourgeois parties.
999 German Morenoites sabotage struggle against the pandemic
20 February 2021
Protests mount against Socialist Party-Podemos persecution of Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél
By Alejandro López, 20 February 2021
The Lleida High Court has provocatively upheld another conviction, adding an additional two-and-a-half years to Hasél’s nine-month prison sentence.
999 (2/16) Pseudo-left on CTU sellout in Chicago
18 February 2021
999 Jacobin ignores the impeachment
17 February 2021
999 NPA covers Stalinist vote for fascistic anti-Muslim law
15 February 2021
Brazilian teachers union and pseudo-left sabotage strike against São Paulo school reopenings
By Gabriel Lemos, 14 February 2021
The APEOESP teachers union has betrayed a week-long strike against the reopening of schools, proposing a deadly return to the classrooms.
Australian pseudo-left group Solidarity running cover for union sell-out at Coles Smeaton Grange
By Oscar Grenfell, 12 February 2021
Solidarity bemoans the union’s attacks on workers as a “tragedy,” as though a misunderstanding is involved, but insists that they remain trapped within the framework of the UWU as it seeks to enforce a sell-out.
French Communist Party and Unsubmissive France back Macron government’s far-right “anti-separatist” law
By Jacques Valentin, 12 February 2021
The law drastically restricts the freedom of association and religious freedoms under the pretext of fighting against Islamic “separatism.”
PSOE-Podemos facilitates fascist attacks on migrants in Canary Islands
By Alice Summers, 11 February 2021
In leaked WhatsApp chats and videos, neo-fascists discussed plans to kill and maim migrant workers interned on Spain’s Canary Islands.
São Paulo municipal teachers join strike against school reopenings
By Tomas Castanheira, 11 February 2021
A referendum on the strike among SINPEEM members was answered by 5,251 educators, and 90 percent declared themselves in favor of the strike.
Spanish Morenoite Izquierda Diario denounces social distancing for COVID-19
By Alice Summers, 4 February 2021
Despite the mounting toll from the coronavirus pandemic, the Morenoites are bitterly hostile to lock-down measures needed to halt the pandemic.
Spanish fascists vote to save Podemos party’s bank and corporate bailouts
By Alejandro López, 1 February 2021
The vote exposes that the EU bailout policy, as well as the health and financial policies of the Podemos-social democrat government, enjoys the full support of the fascists.
International Marxist Tendency on the storming of the US Capitol: “This was not an organized insurrectionary coup”
By Jordan Shilton, 31 January 2021
The IMT has distinguished itself throughout its existence by combining slavish subservience to the trade union bureaucracy and social democratic parties with revolutionary “Marxist” rhetoric designed to disorient and mislead workers and young people entering into struggle.
Opposition mounts to San Francisco school board approval of racialist renaming of schools
By Renae Cassimeda, 31 January 2021
As educators across the US enter into struggle against the ruling class drive to reopen the schools, the renaming of schools based on the racialist falsification of history and attack on revolutionary figures such as Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln serves to divide the working class.
Philippine Stalinists line up behind right-wing Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny
By Peter Symonds, 30 January 2021
The CPP supports Navalny because it is backing sections of the ruling class most closely aligned with US imperialism, represented by Vice-President Leni Robredo and her Liberal Party.
How Jacobin and the Democratic Socialists of America aided the Teamsters’ betrayal of the Hunts Point market strike
By Clara Weiss, 30 January 2021
As millions of workers have been radicalized by the pandemic, the DSA assumes the critical role of providing the efforts of the Democrats and the trade unions to suppress the class struggle—if necessary by brute force—with a “left” cover.
999 SF school renaming
30 January 2021
NPA calls to reopen French universities as COVID-19 deaths mount
By Samuel Tissot and Alex Lantier, 30 January 2021
As deaths mount, the petty-bourgeois New Anti-capitalist Party is aligning itself on the murderous “herd immunity” policy of President Emmanuel Macron.
999 DSA and Hunts Point strike
29 January 2021
999 French pseudo-left hold demonstration for reopening of universities
29 January 2021
YouTube personality Jimmy Dore promotes fascist Boogaloo Boy
By Eric London, 29 January 2021
The effort by YouTube personality and former comedian Jimmy Dore to promote the fascist Boogaloo Boys is a significant political episode that reveals the ignorant and reactionary character of middle class “left” politics in America.
999 Jimmy Dore appeal for unity with neo-Nazis
28 January 2021
999 France covid update/ pseudo left protests
28 January 2021
Jacobin pleads with Biden and Democrats to make a “psychological shift” left
By Genevieve Leigh, 28 January 2021
Jacobin presents the Democratic Party and its political operatives as if they are naive and cowardly figures who wish to do the right thing, if only they had the brains and courage.
999 DSA and Hunts Point strike
27 January 2021
999 Jimmy Dore appeal for unity with neo-Nazis
27 January 2021
999 Jacobin on Biden
27 January 2021
The Biden administration: Illusion and reality
By Niles Niemuth, 22 January 2021
Efforts are underway to chloroform the public about the realities of the procapitalist, imperialist politics of the Biden administration and the catastrophic economic and social conditions under which it begins.
Chicago Teachers Union postures with “strike” vote as schools continue in-person learning
By Alexander Fangmann, 20 January 2021
In response to overwhelming anger from teachers and parents over the continued drive to reopen schools and businesses in the city, the union’s House of Delegates is calling an emergency meeting Wednesday.
Silent on coup attempt, Mexico’s AMLO defends Trump against “censorship”
By Andrea Lobo, 18 January 2021
The Mexican president is signaling that he will enforce the untrammeled exploitation of cheap labor and austerity diktats with his own shift toward dictatorship.
999 Racialist narrative on coup
18 January 2021
Podemos obeys Spanish fascist Vox party’s demand for no shelter-at-home
By Alejandro López, 18 January 2021
The Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government immediately accepted Vox leader Santiago Abascal’s demand that no shelter-at-home be adopted against COVID-19.
What would have happened if Trump’s fascist mob had seized hostages?
By Joseph Kishore and David North, 16 January 2021
The attempts by various left journalists to deny that the events of January 6 were an attempted coup undermines resistance to the danger of fascism.
999 Racialist narrative on coup
16 January 2021
999 Racialist narrative on coup
15 January 2021
How Germany’s Left Party promotes herd immunity
By Peter Schwarz, 15 January 2021
As was the case with the federal government in Berlin and every other state government in the pandemic, profits took precedence over human lives for the Left Party’s only state premier, Bodo Ramelow in Thuringia.
Britain’s Socialist Workers Party and Counterfire apply political chloroform over Trump’s coup
By Chris Marsden, 14 January 2021
Callinicos and the Socialist Workers Party have spent months minimising the threat from Trump, despite mounting evidence that he was planning a coup.
DSA-aligned teachers unions’ “Day of Resistance”: a pathetic appeal to Biden and the Democrats
By Evan Blake, 14 January 2021
Tuesday’s event, organized by an umbrella group of teacher unions led by pseudo-left officials, was a political stunt aimed at channeling opposition to in-person instruction behind dead-end appeals to the Democratic Party.
999 Exposure of NEU, teachers unions' "Day of Resistance"
13 January 2021
Spain’s Morenoite CRT denies Trump’s fascist coup in Washington
By Alejandro López, 13 January 2021
The Workers Revolutionary Current’s complacent response to the coup attempt in America is directly linked to their silence on generals’ calls for a fascist coup in Spain.
Australian pseudo-left dismisses Trump’s fascist coup attempt as a “pathetic farce”
By Oscar Grenfell, 12 January 2021
Socialist Alternative is seeking to chloroform the working class by insisting that there is no fascist threat in the United States, even after last week’s coup attempt.
France’s New Anti-capitalist Party denies Trump’s fascist coup in Washington
By Alex Lantier, 11 January 2021
After the storming of the Capitol by a far-right mob, the middle class NPA denied that a coup was attempted and denounced warnings about a coup as “bourgeois.”
Philippines: Stalinist CPP initiating urban guerrilla squads
9 January 2021
999 NPA downplays fascist coup in Washington
9 January 2021
Jacobin’s Bhaskar Sunkara on Trump’s January 6 coup: “Nothing to see here!”
By Genevieve Leigh, 8 January 2021
In response to the unprecedented events in the nation's capital, leading members of Jacobin magazine responded by downplaying the seriousness of the attack and opposing those calling it a “coup.”
999 Election of Pelosi/ForcetheVote
4 January 2021
Reject the racialist renaming of San Francisco public schools!
By Renae Cassimeda, 4 January 2021
The WSWS calls on workers and youth within SFUSD and beyond to fight against the racialist attacks against Lincoln, Jefferson, Madison and Washington in defense of historical truth and democratic rights.
Sanders’ political stunt over $2,000 stimulus checks fails
By Patrick Martin, 31 December 2020
The Vermont senator has watered down his supposed “political revolution” to a slightly larger pittance for working people.
Jacobin glorifies Dolores Ibárruri, Stalinist executioner of the Spanish Revolution
Part two
By Barry Grey, 24 December 2020
The glorification of Ibárruri by Jacobin and the DSA is by no means an aberration. It is part of a calculated promotion of Stalinism and the American Communist Party as models for radicalizing workers and youth today.
Jacobin publishes whitewash of union sell-out bid at Australian warehouse
By Jack Turner and Peter Symonds, 24 December 2020
Kelly’s article makes no mention of the role of the UWU, or indeed of any trade union, let alone their decades of betrayals.
Spain’s PSOE-Podemos government defends “herd immunity” policy in the Lancet
By Alice Summers, 24 December 2020
Its letter to the Lancet defends a policy that led to around 50,000 COVID-19 deaths in the first five months of 2020 alone.
Jacobin glorifies Dolores Ibárruri, Stalinist executioner of the Spanish Revolution
Part one
By Barry Grey, 23 December 2020
The Stalinist suppression of the Barcelona working class and ensuing blood purge broke the back of the revolution and ensured the victory of Franco’s fascist forces. Ramon Mercader, the GPU operative who murdered Leon Trotsky in Mexico in August of 1940, cut his teeth as a Stalinist killer during the mass repression in Spain. None of this is even mentioned in the Jacobin article.
Brazilian Morenoites join Bolsonaro in promoting hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19
By Gabriel Lemos, 23 December 2020
Esquerda Diário has promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine after countless trials have failed to confirm its efficacy and as Bolsonaro uses it as a pretext to lift the few remaining lockdown measures in Brazil.
Spain’s Podemos deliberately downplayed COVID-19 danger starting in January
By Alejandro López, 23 December 2020
While Podemos officials downplayed the dangers from COVID-19, the Spanish Ministry of Defence was buying up personal protective equipment in anticipation of a pandemic.
Corbyn launches “Peace and Justice” project to block fight against Labour right-wing
By Julie Hyland, 21 December 2020
The former Labour Party leader made clear to Jacobin, “This isn’t a new political party, but a space in which people can come together.”
999 San Francisco schools propose to remove Lincoln from school name
19 December 2020
US teachers union “lefts” pen love letter to Biden
By Renae Cassimeda and Evan Blake, 16 December 2020
The central purpose of the letter is to congratulate Biden, endorse his plan to reopen schools amid the raging COVID-19 pandemic, and lobby for him to appoint a Secretary of Education committed to racialist policies.
Jacobin complains of being frozen out of Biden administration while promoting illusions in the Democrats
By Barry Grey, 14 December 2020
The brazen indifference of Jacobin to the struggles and sufferings of the working class and the onslaught on democratic rights is a function of its class position and its right-wing, pro-capitalist politics.
999 Jacobin ignores pandemic, Trump coup
12 December 2020
Spain’s ruling PSOE, Podemos use “anti-disinformation” tool for internet spying
By Alice Summers, 11 December 2020
The ELISA tool aims to detect “disinformation seeking to generate polarisation” amid mounting social anger at austerity and official handling of the pandemic.
999 Pseudo-left teachers unions letter to Biden
11 December 2020
999 Morenoites silent on Spain coup threats
11 December 2020
999 Izquierda Diario downplays Spanish coup plots
8 December 2020
Australian Greens on Afghan war crimes: Hypocrisy, hand-wringing and support for militarism
By Oscar Grenfell, 7 December 2020
The Greens have promoted the official cover-up as a “justice process,” while advancing proposals aimed at providing future predatory wars with a democratic figleaf.
UK People's Assembly talk “Zero Covid” while doing nothing
By Julie Hyland, 7 December 2020
Silence on the criminal role of the Labour and trade union bureaucracy is fundamental to the purpose of the People's Assembly. Though it presents itself as a “grassroots” movement, it is the construct of pro-capitalist tendencies, hostile to socialism and the working class
999 US academics/Gates argue for distributing vaccine based on race
5 December 2020
Podemos denies mounting danger of fascist military coup in Spain
By Alejandro López and Alex Lantier, 5 December 2020
This is a politically criminal attempt to lull workers and youth to sleep as anger mounts at officers’ calls to support fascism and murder of millions of left-wing voters in Spain.
Medical workers protest across Mexico as President AMLO continues to downplay pandemic
By Andrea Lobo, 5 December 2020
After suffering nearly 150,000 infections and 2,000 deaths, health care workers are demonstrating against unsafe conditions, lack of pay and for other demands.
Introduction to The New York Times’ 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History
By David North, 4 December 2020
This is the introduction by WSWS International Editorial Board Chairman David North to a volume, available for delivery in January 2021, containing the main interviews and essays published by the WSWS exposing the New York Times’ racialist falsification of American history.
The DSA pays tribute to David Dinkins
By Fred Mazelis, 3 December 2020
The DSA’s extraordinary tribute to Dinkins shows exactly why this organization is the bitterest opponent of socialism.
“So that rifles shoot”: Germany’s Green Party leader Baerbock pleads for massive arms spending and new war missions
By Johannes Stern, 3 December 2020
In advance of next year’s federal elections, the Greens are spearheading the campaign for the return of German militarism.
zzz999 Morenoite falsificaton on Trotsky and Zapata
2 December 2020
Podemos silent on Spanish generals’ coup threats
By Alejandro López, 2 December 2020
Podemos is far more afraid of explosive opposition on their left, among workers and youth, than it is about far-right coup plots against its own coalition government with the PSOE.
Spain’s Podemos to oversee distribution of EU bailout funds to the super-rich
By Alejandro López, 30 November 2020
The integration of Podemos in European Union bailout mechanisms testifies to the bankruptcy of its middle-class and anti-Marxist “Left Populist” politics.
German Green Party sets course for government based on promoting militarism and war
By Jan Ritter and Max Linhof, 30 November 2020
The party made clear that a future Green federal government and/or Green chancellor would continue and expand the right-wing militaristic policies espoused by the current CDU-SPD grand coalition.
‘Popoy’ Lagman: A Stalinist rival of the Communist Party of the Philippines
By John Malvar, 27 November 2020
While he rejected the armed struggle in the countryside, Lagman, like Sison, sought to subordinate Filipino workers to their class enemies, the bourgeoisie, in the name of national democracy.
The Democratic Socialists of America pleads with Biden not to appoint Rahm Emanuel
By Kristina Betinis, 26 November 2020
A petition opposing the appointment of Emanuel to President-elect Biden’s administration simultaneously exposes the right-wing record of the Democratic Party and the utter bankruptcy of its DSA faction.
Spain’s PSOE-Podemos government builds migrant concentration camps on Canary Islands
By Alice Summers, 25 November 2020
Like Syriza in Greece, the “left populist” Podemos party is supporting the building of mass internment camps to imprison thousands of refugees.
Jacobin and Democratic Socialists of America promote illusions in a “progressive” Biden administration
By Gabriel Black, 25 November 2020
The central role of Jacobin is to prevent any political break with the Democratic Party as Biden constructs a reactionary administration based on Wall Street and the military.
The “Zero-Covid” campaign by Britain’s pseudo-left: a political cover for Labour and the TUC’s back-to-work drive
By Julie Hyland, 25 November 2020
The Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs around Corbyn finally, in August, announced its support for a Zero-Covid policy, but its statement was careful to make clear that the measures proposed were in the best interests of capital.
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