The Politics of the Pseudo-Left
COVID-19: French NPA’s Révolution Permanente web site lines up with Macron’s school re-opening
By Anthony Torres, 22 September 2020
Factions of France’s New Anti-capitalist Party linked to Argentina’s Socialist Workers Party (PTS) tacitly back a return to school endangering millions.
Jacobin magazine embraces Trump administration’s murderous “herd immunity” policy
By Andre Damon, 21 September 2020
On Saturday, Jacobin magazine published an extended interview with anti-lockdown activist Martin Kulldorff, who demanded that “schools and universities should reopen” because “young, healthy people contribute to…herd immunity.”
SEP (Sri Lanka) condemns Philippines Maoist party’s slanders against historian Joseph Scalice
Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (Sri Lanka), 18 September 2020
Sri Lanka is one of the countries, like the Philippines, where groups following Maoism brought one disaster after another to workers, young people and rural poor.
Letters from Australia, the US and New Zealand defending Philippine historian Dr. Joseph Scalice
By our reporters, 17 September 2020
The Communist Party of the Philippines “is scapegoating an historian for having the principles and courage to tell the truth to the whole world about the anti-democratic and anti-working class role of the Stalinists.”
Wisconsin Supreme Court blocks Green Party presidential campaign from 2020 ballot
By Kevin Reed, 16 September 2020
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to reject a lawsuit by the Green Party candidates seeking an injunction against the distribution of ballots to voters without their names on them.
Dr. Joseph Scalice responds to Jose Maria Sison’s Stalinist lies and slanders
By our reporter, 14 September 2020
Sison hails “Stalin’s great achievements,” and Anakbayan prints this statement without any attempt to distance itself from such an assertion.
World Socialist Web Site interviews historian Dr. Joseph Scalice
10 September 2020
In a detailed and engaging interview, Dr. Scalice answers the slanders of the Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison.
DSA member in Spokane, Washington detained by unidentified officers before police violence protest
By Kayla Costa, 7 September 2020
Jeremy Logan was snatched by five plainclothes police officers, and held in jail for over a day, where federal agents attempted to interrogate him, before being released.
The Movement for a People’s Party: No program, no principles, no future
By Jacob Crosse and Joseph Kishore, 7 September 2020
The eclectic combination of individuals brought together to form a new “People’s Party” lacked a common conception, outside of a general orientation to the Democratic Party and bourgeois politics.
New Zealand Greens in crisis over private school funding
By Tom Peters, 5 September 2020
The Green co-leader’s decision to approve nearly $12 million in funding for an elite private school is in keeping with the pro-business politics of the party.
#Trotsky2020: A Morenoite slander against the legacy of Leon Trotsky
Statement of the Brazilian Socialist Equality Group (In solidarity with the International Committee of the Fourth International), 1 September 2020
Far from an objective presentation of the political legacy of Leon Trotsky, the FT’s video is, in essence, an attempted second assassination directed against Trotsky’s entire revolutionary historical legacy.
French NPA’s Révolution permanente site hails pro-imperialist coup in Mali
By Alex Lantier, 25 August 2020
This web site, linked to the Socialist Workers Party (PTS) of Argentina, hailed a putsch led by a junta of colonels that has proclaimed its loyalty to the French occupation of Mali.
220 Pseudo-left and the Commitee of Essential workers
19 August 2020
The cancellation of professor Adolph Reed, Jr.’s speech and the DSA’s promotion of race politics
By Niles Niemuth, 18 August 2020
The effective ban on criticism of identity politics within the DSA and vicious denunciations of Marxism as “class reductionism” are in line with the Democratic Party’s broader goals of promoting racialist divisions.
Jacobin Magazine on the selection of Kamala Harris: Stick with the Democrats!
By Genevieve Leigh, 15 August 2020
There is truly nothing too foul the Democratic Party could do that would lead Jacobin and the DSA to conclude that the party cannot be reformed.
From Medicare-for-All to “Masks-for-All”: Bernie Sanders and the incredible shrinking “political revolution”
By Genevieve Leigh, 5 August 2020
Under conditions of the greatest political, economic, social, and health catastrophe in US history, Sanders’ proposal amounts to less than a Band-Aid for a bullet wound.
Quebec Solidaire joins with the hard-right in promoting economic nationalism
By Louis Girard and Richard Dufour, 31 July 2020
Quebec Solidaire’s exhortations to "buy local" and its promotion of a “Quebec vaccine" are part of a pronounced shift by ruling elites in Canada, the US and globally toward the promotion of national protectionism and chauvinism.
Six arrested at banned Australian protest against police violence
By Martin Scott, 29 July 2020
COVID-19 public health orders were used to suppress the demonstration in a blatant attack on democratic rights.
What led Argentina’s Left Workers Front (FIT) to vote for banning criticism of Israel under the guise of combatting anti-Semitism?
By Andrea Lobo, 29 July 2020
The FIT legislators voted for a bill introduced by the right-wing Macristas to adopt a definition of anti-Semitism aimed at criminalizing opposition to Israel.
999 Racialist attack on Portland protests
29 July 2020
Spain’s Podemos hails €750 billion EU bank bailout for COVID-19 crisis
By Alejandro López, 28 July 2020
The EU bailout Iglesias calls a “breath of fresh air” is the roll-out across Europe of the model of Greek bailouts after the 2008 crash, to repay trillions of euros given to the rich.
The “Strike for Black Lives” protest stunt
By Tom Hall, 22 July 2020
The “strike” was a union-organized stunt endorsed by business, the corporate media and the Democratic Party to divert anger over police violence and unsafe working conditions along racial lines.
210 Bogus strike for black lives
21 July 2020
Unsubmissive France leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon calls for massive French military build-up
By Will Morrow, 18 July 2020
Mélenchon’s criticism of the Macron administration is from the right: that it is not sufficiently aggressive in its pursuit of French imperialist interests.
“NTEU Fightback” aims to block revolt against Australian university trade union
By Jack Turner, 17 July 2020
Various pseudo-left organisations are desperately seeking to defend the National Tertiary Education Union after a revolt against its pay- and job-cutting COVID-19 “national framework.”
Haymarket Books “Abolitionist Teaching” forum: A call to promote racial division among teachers
By Renae Cassimeda and Norissa Santa Cruz, 13 July 2020
As workers in every industry unite across racial lines to fight against the Trump administration’s back-to-work campaign, Haymarket is promoting racial divisions and blaming teachers’ supposed “white privilege” for the crisis facing public education.
Sanders-Biden task forces and the debacle of Sanders’ “political revolution”
By Genevieve Leigh, 11 July 2020
The Biden-Sanders collaboration has produced a total repudiation of all of the central pillars of Sanders’ campaign, in the midst of an unprecedented social and political crisis of world capitalism.
After multiple shootings and two deaths
Seattle police forcibly end Capitol Hill Occupied Protest
By Kayla Costa, 2 July 2020
The protest tent site was overrun by more than one hundred local police and FBI officers armed with heavy riot gear and military-grade vehicles.
Ireland’s Greens agree to join austerity coalition government
By Dermot Quinn, 1 July 2020
Almost five months after Ireland’s February 8 general election, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have formed a coalition government after the Green Party voted to come on board.
YDSA develops ties with SYRIZA youth, Greek party of austerity and police repression
By Sam Wayne, 27 June 2020
Members of the Young Democratic Socialists of America have published a joint statement with the youth section of SYRIZA, the “Coalition of the Radical Left.”
New York City mayor de Blasio threatens 22,000 municipal worker layoffs
By Fred Mazelis, 26 June 2020
The city faces a June 30 deadline for a budget at a time when revenues show a $9 billion fall due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Veteran curator at New York’s Metropolitan Museum latest to come under racialist attack
Institution accused of “white supremacy and culture of systemic racism”
By David Walsh, 26 June 2020
The attack launched against Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Keith Christiansen for his remarks concerning the danger of valuable art works being destroyed in the course of upheavals is without any merit whatsoever.
Socialist Alternative’s Kshama Sawant promotes local police reform, Democratic Party politics
By Julio Patron and Kayla Costa, 19 June 2020
Insisting that the police can be drastically reformed within the framework of capitalism, Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant conceals the fundamental character of the police as an arm of the capitalist state.
999 Quebec Solidaire and pandemic
19 June 2020
Australian pseudo-left groups protect university union from revolt against pay-cutting plans
By a correspondent, 18 June 2020
University workers, in partnership with students, need to construct new rank-and-file organisations that are totally independent of the NTEU apparatus.
Striking Spanish Nissan workers boo unions and Podemos mayor of Barcelona
By Alejandro López, 15 June 2020
This points to the explosive conflict emerging between the working class and the pseudo-left and the unions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and an upsurge of class struggle.
Social class, capitalism and the murder of George Floyd
By Niles Niemuth, 11 June 2020
As has happened so often in the past, the political establishment and media are promoting a racial narrative to conceal the social and economic basis of police brutality and deflect popular anger away from the capitalist system.
999 Identity politicians criticize multi-racial protests
5 June 2020
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio defends police violence against protesters
By Sam Dalton, 2 June 2020
In a news conference Saturday night, de Blasio defended police who drove their cruisers into a crowd of peaceful protesters earlier that evening in Brooklyn.
AFL-CIO, pseudo-left groups seek to derail opposition of Mexican workers to COVID-19 pandemic
By Andrea Lobo, 1 June 2020
The American union bureaucracy and its partners in Mexico are scrambling to prevent the growing rebellion by workers from breaking free from the AMLO government, the trade unions and their nationalist program.
Howie Hawkins and the Green Party: Capitalist politics in the guise of “ecosocialism”
By Evan Blake, 29 May 2020
Following Bernie Sanders’s endorsement of Biden, the Green Party and its presumptive presidential nominee Hawkins are presenting themselves as the continuation of Sanders’s “political revolution.”
As Brazil leads world in new COVID-19 deaths, Workers Party and pseudo-lefts rally behind capitalist state
By Miguel Andrade, 28 May 2020
The so-called opposition has brought impeachment articles against Bolsonaro for harming “internal security” in his handling of the pandemic.
Germany’s Left Party spearheading deadly back-to-work drive
By Johannes Stern, 26 May 2020
After voting for the multi-billion-euro coronavirus bailout package in the federal parliament, the Left Party is now supporting the grand coalition’s reopening of the economy.
After the New York Times’ critique: Former NBC “Today” show host Matt Lauer takes Ronan Farrow to task
By David Walsh, 22 May 2020
Lauer was abruptly fired in late 2017 following complaints by an NBC employee, with whom he was having an affair, about his alleged sexual misbehavior.
COVID-19 pandemic exposes France’s New Anti-capitalist Party
By Alex Lantier, 21 May 2020
The pandemic places workers in every country in irreconcilable conflict with pro-imperialist, middle class parties that the ruling class has long falsely presented as the left.
COVID-19: Mélenchon offers national unity with France’s banks
By Anthony Torres and Alexandre Lantier, 14 May 2020
Mélenchon hails the Sacred Union between the far-right and social democracy in World War I as a model to keep social cohesion despite mass COVID-19 deaths.
Sri Lanka’s pseudo-left FSP and its phony defence of democracy
By K. Ratnayake, 14 May 2020
The working class can combat threat of a dictatorship only by the independent mobilisation of its political strength, not by pleading for “reconvening parliament.”
Australian pseudo-left groups try to rescue university union from outrage over sellout deal
By Carolyn Kennett and Mike Head, 14 May 2020
The NTEU’s deal with the employers exposes the desperate efforts of pseudo-left groups to prevent a revolt by university workers and students against the union.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joins Biden-Sanders “unity task force” ahead of 2020 elections
By Genevieve Leigh, 14 May 2020
The announcement of the membership of the task forces is an effort on the part of Sanders to provide the right-wing Biden campaign with a “progressive” gloss amidst growing social unrest.
New York City education department, backed by teachers union, downplayed virus threat
By Sandy English, 13 May 2020
An exposé in the journal the City demonstrates that New York City officials systematically downplayed the threat of the coronavirus to New York City students and educators
Jeremy Corbyn discovers the class struggle—and opposes it
By Thomas Scripps, 13 May 2020
The Socialist Campaign Group acknowledge the “class war” only in order to complain that Johnson is waging it rather than acting in the “national interest.”
Bernie Sanders’ interview with the Washington Post: The thin gruel of Democratic Party politics
By Genevieve Leigh, 12 May 2020
Sanders glossed over the reality of the health and economic catastrophe facing millions of workers and made no mention of the corporate bailouts for which he has voted in the Senate.
“The Fight for Our Lives” online rally
British pseudo-left and Stalinists unite in defence of Labour and the unions
By Thomas Scripps, 9 May 2020
What is meant by “unity” and “solidarity” is in fact an effort to subordinate workers to Labour and the unions by concealing their rotten dealings with employers and the government.
Pseudo-left groups block fight by London bus drivers against COVID-19
By Laura Tiernan, 7 May 2020
The pseudo-left are seeking to prevent workers from making a break with Labour and the unions and turning to a socialist perspective.
The tragedy at Quebec City’s Jeffery Hale Hospital: How Québec Solidaire tried to hide capitalism’s responsibility
By our reporters, 5 May 2020
The calamity at Quebec City’s Jeffery Hale Hospital is a product of decades of federal and provincial government austerity.
“Progressive” Tennessee Democratic mayor uses COVID-19 crisis to push budget cuts
By Patrick Smith, 30 April 2020
In early April, Lee Harris, Democratic mayor of Shelby County, released a budget resolution that would slash essential services.
As states plan billions in budget cuts to schools
Pseudo-lefts ask: “What is the least we can accept?”
By Alexander Fangmann and Nancy Hanover, 29 April 2020
As the ruling class prepares to use the ongoing pandemic as an excuse to carry out long-planned attacks on public education, pseudo-lefts promote Biden.
Spain’s Podemos party acquiesces to legal persecution of its member Isabel Serra
By Alejandro López, 28 April 2020
Serra was sentenced to a draconian 18 months in prison and a €2000 fine for attending a protest against the eviction of a disabled person in a working class area of Madrid.
999 Haymarket Books event on "Remaking Schools"
27 April 2020
Spain: Podemos Labour Ministry accepts that hundreds of thousands will die from COVID-19
By Alejandro López, 25 April 2020
Podemos bases its policy of forcing nonessential workers back to work in Spain on its willingness to accept millions of infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Former leaders of Students for a Democratic Society try to drum up support for Biden
By Genevieve Leigh, 25 April 2020
Last week the Nation magazine published an open letter, signed by 60 former leaders of the Students for a Democratic Society, which calls on Bernie Sanders supporters to vote for Joe Biden.
999 Haymarket Books event on "Remaking Schools"
25 April 2020
220 Old Left / New Left
24 April 2020
Sanders tells supporters: It is “irresponsible” not to campaign for Biden
By Joseph Kishore—SEP candidate for US president, 17 April 2020
As in 2016, but now under much more explosive social and political conditions, Sanders is exchanging his “political revolution against the establishment” for the thin gruel of “lesser evil” politics.
Ocasio-Cortez offers her services to the Biden campaign
By Genevieve Leigh, 16 April 2020
In an interview with the New York Times, Ocasio-Cortez did not articulate a single demand as a condition for her support for the Biden campaign.
Ocasio-Cortez offers her services to the Biden campaign
By Genevieve Leigh, 15 April 2020
In an interview with the New York Times, Ocasio-Cortez did not articulate a single demand as a condition for her support for the Biden campaign.
Sanders endorses Biden: The “political revolution” that never was!
By Joseph Kishore—SEP candidate for US president, 14 April 2020
Sanders’ endorsement of Biden is the shabby outcome of his campaign, the entire purpose of which was to prevent social and political opposition from breaking free of the Democratic Party.
999 Jacobin/DSA
11 April 2020
Spanish government to force workers in non-essential industries back to work
By Alejandro López, 11 April 2020
Podemos and the Spanish social democrats are needlessly sacrificing thousands of workers’ lives in order to boost corporate profits amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The end of Sanders’ campaign deepens crisis in Democratic Socialists of America
By Eric London, 11 April 2020
The main purpose of a recent forum hosted by Jacobin magazine was to answer the question “Where to go next?” with a definitive: “Nowhere, stay in the Democratic Party.”
As social struggles mount over coronavirus pandemic
Bernie Sanders ends campaign, calls on supporters to back Biden
By Joseph Kishore—Socialist Equality Party candidate for US president, 9 April 2020
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders formally ended his campaign for president on Wednesday and called on his supporters to back former Vice President Joe Biden.
At IYSSE (Australia) online lecture, Nick Beams exposes Socialist Alternative and the pseudo-left
By Oscar Grenfell, 9 April 2020
The event was attended by an appreciative audience of more than 190 workers, students and young people.
Who is the new UK Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer?
By Thomas Scripps, 7 April 2020
The election of Sir Keir Starmer marks the return to a business-as-usual Blairism shorn of any socialist pretensions.
Bernie Sanders’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic: A lifeline for the ruling class
By Genevieve Leigh, 7 April 2020
Sanders presented his proposal for a new bill in Congress to address the coronavirus pandemic this past Saturday.
As COVID-19 pandemic exposes failure of capitalism, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shifts to the right
By Genevieve Leigh, 2 April 2020
Ocasio-Cortez is increasingly lining up behind the Democratic Party establishment at the very point that the coronavirus catastrophe is demonstrating the failure of the capitalist system and discrediting all of its political parties and representatives.
Democratic Socialists of America, Haymarket Books hold online event to boost Democratic Party amid coronavirus crisis
By Eric London, 28 March 2020
The event was called to paper over the role of the Democratic Party in creating conditions for the coronavirus to wreak havoc on the population of the US.
What the coronavirus calamity means for intellectual and cultural life
By David Walsh, 27 March 2020
A Rubicon has been crossed. The existing order, in the eyes of tens of millions, will be seen from now on as illegitimate and an immediate threat to their continued existence.
Socialist Alternative town hall injects racial politics into COVID-19 pandemic
By Genevieve Leigh, 25 March 2020
The event was an attempt to cover over the conventional Democratic Party politics of Socialist Alternative and the DSA with anti-capitalist rhetoric and empty slogans. This was combined with the foul injection of racial politics, a hallmark of the Democratic Party.
Bernie Sanders draws his campaign to an end: The political lessons
Joseph Kishore—Socialist Equality Party candidate for US president, 19 March 2020
For the second time in four years, Sanders has diverted popular hostility to the capitalist system back within the framework of the corporate-controlled two-party system.
Sanders begins campaign to drag his supporters behind Biden
By Patrick Martin, 12 March 2020
Sanders’ 10-minute speech on Wednesday, after which he took no questions, effectively conceded the Democratic nomination to the former vice president.
After Super Tuesday primaries, Warren drops out, Sanders tacks to the right
By Barry Grey, 6 March 2020
Sanders began running a campaign ad Tuesday consisting entirely of former President Barack Obama speaking in glowing terms of the Vermont senator.
Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias joins state commission running Spanish intelligence
By Alejandro López, 2 March 2020
Iglesias is sworn to secrecy as he oversees an organization with a long history of brutal repression and targeted assassinations of militant workers and left-wing groups.
New Zealand: Pseudo-left ISO promotes illusions in right-wing Labour-led government
By Tom Peters, 27 February 2020
Despite two-and-a-half years of worsening social inequality, stronger police-state measures, and deepening ties with US imperialism, the pseudo-left ISO claims that the Labour Party-led government can change course and “help the working class.”
Don’t Extradite Assange campaign calls on Boris Johnson to intervene
By Robert Stevens, 24 February 2020
The struggle to free Julian Assange requires an implacable struggle by the working class against the Johnson and Trump governments now conspiring to silence him forever.
UAW quashes effort to force direct election of union officers
By Shannon Jones, 22 February 2020
Labor Notes and the Democratic Socialists of America are backing UAWD in order to promote the illusion that the UAW can be reformed through the direct election of union officials.
Young Democratic Socialists of America’s winter conference props up the Democratic Party
By Genevieve Leigh, 21 February 2020
Those who attended were told to integrate themselves fully into the Democratic primary election campaign of Bernie Sanders. The fundamental aim of the event organizers was to disabuse young people of the notion that socialism entails an independent struggle for political power.
Peronism leans on the pseudo-left FIT-U to implement IMF austerity in Argentina
By Andrea Lobo, 19 February 2020
Facing growing popular anger, the Peronist parties and unions are relying on the Left Workers Front-Unity (FIT-U) to prevent workers from mobilizing independently against IMF austerity.
19 February 2020
Washington Post war hawk Jackson Diehl lauds Sanders’ foreign policy
By Barry Grey, 18 February 2020
In Monday’s column, Diehl reassures the ruling class that a Sanders administration would not mark a break from the aggressive and militarist policy of American imperialism.
Letter to members of the Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA)
the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (US), 14 February 2020
Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Democratic Socialists of America say it is possible to fight for socialism from within the Democratic Party. Such a political program is not real socialism and can lead only to disaster.
Sanders tells New York Times he would consider a preemptive strike against Iran or North Korea
By Jacob Crosse and Barry Grey, 14 February 2020
The answers given by Sanders’ campaign to a foreign policy survey published this month by the Times provide a revealing picture of the attitude of the self-styled “democratic socialist” to American imperialism and war.
999 CTU defeats Sanders endorsement
14 February 2020
After 10 months’ silence, UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn warns against extradition of Julian Assange
By Oscar Grenfell and Chris Marsden, 13 February 2020
For the past year, Corbyn has led the suppression of any discussion over Assange’s imprisonment in Britain and the country’s participation in the US-led attempt to destroy him.
Anticapitalistas prepare to leave Spain’s Podemos-Socialist Party government
By Alejandro López and Alex Lantier, 13 February 2020
Amid growing protests against the right-wing policies of Podemos, its Anticapitalistas faction called for a “civilized, respectful, empathetic and even loving” separation from Podemos.
Australian pseudo-left seeks to cover up its abandonment of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange
By Patrick O’Connor, 10 February 2020
Socialist Alternative’s article, “The betrayal of Julian Assange,” is a crude attempt to cover up its own role in the “betrayal” of the WikiLeaks publisher.
Jacobin’s Bhaskar Sunkara on the Iowa caucuses: Don’t lose faith in the Democrats
By Andre Damon, 7 February 2020
Writing in the Guardian, Sunkara claims that “we should have confidence” in the “integrity” of the vote in Iowa, arguing that the DNC will not “steal the election from Bernie Sanders.”
Brazil’s Workers Party advances austerity policies in unity with Bolsonaro
By Tomas Castanheira, 5 February 2020
The PT, which promotes itself as a representative of the “left”, in fact constitutes one of the greatest threats to the Brazilian working class, alongside Bolsonaro.
Amidst growth of class struggle, union membership in US falls to historic lows
By Jerry White, 4 February 2020
Workers entering into struggle all over the world increasingly see the unions as agents of management working against their interests.
The right-wing record of Jacinda Ardern’s government in New Zealand
By the Socialist Equality Group (New Zealand), 3 February 2020
Labour’s decision to give the anti-immigrant NZ First Party a central role in government signalled a further shift towards nationalism and war preparations.
Sri Lanka: Pseudo-left blames working people for Rajapakse’s election victory
By Wasantha Rupasinghe and K. Ratnayake, 31 January 2020
The responsibility for Rajapakse coming to power squarely rests with the pseudo-left groups, such as the NSSP, as well as the trade unions, the JVP and the Tamil bourgeois parties which promoted the UNP as the lesser evil.
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