Summary: Housing prices are going up all over the world. As a result, many have experienced widespread displacement in process known as “gentrification.” How ought we to understand it? More importantly, how can it be fought? This article claims (perhaps counterintuitively) that great inspiration for answering these questions can be found in Friedrich Engels’s nearly 150-year-old text, “On the Housing Question.” Image: Norra Sorgenfri in Malmö, Sweden — Editors

Summary: The assassination of Black feminist leader Marielle Franco, who was involved in both anti-capitalist and anti-racist politics, and who spoke out with uncommon force against the military occupation of the favelas of Rio, has touched off mass protests against Brazil’s increasingly authoritarian direction–Editors

Summary:  This year’s International Women’s Day marches and strikes exemplified a powerful year of change around the world, especially in Spain — Editors

Summary: Petition against removal of plaque honoring Rosa Luxemburg in her birthplace, Zamosc, Poland — Editors

Summary: How resentment of teachers’ unions was used by capital to weaken labor as a whole. Especially important in light of today’s mass strike by West Virginia teachers — Editors

Summary: Critical analysis of Lenin’s concepts of imperialism, war, national liberation, and the state and revolution, as well as on revolutionary organization and on dialectics. Originally presented at an International Marxist-Humanist Organization panel at the Westside Peace Center, Los Angeles, February 18, 2018; first published in New Politics Online — Editors

Summary: Call for solidarity with those targeted by the Assad regime and its allies Iran and Russia, especially on the part of those on the left who have supported the Afrin Kurds against Turkey’s attack. First published by the Coalition for Peace, Revolution, and Social Justice  — Editors

Summary: Lalan Kishor Singh, a production worker in Nagpur, India, recently raised vital questions in an open letter on the relation of workers and intellectuals, the failures of established socialism and communism, and the future of Marxism. A response follows by Peter Hudis, who visited Nagpur in November, followed by Singh’s reply. Arvind Ghosh has translated Singh from Hindi — Editors.

Turkish Translation

Summary: Cultural, political, and economic crisis deepens in Brazil, with rightwing forces focusing their attacks on Marx and on Black and LGBT people in wake of the decline of the left after nearly two decades of compromise with neoliberalism under Workers’ Party rule. Image: neofascist demonstrators – photo by Diógenes Junior — Editors

Summary: At a moment when Israeli society continues to move ever further to the right, the need to solidarize with Ahed Tamimi, a 17-year-old Palestinian woman anti-war activist from the West Bank, takes on critical importance. This article views her resistance to Israeli policy as part of a legacy of activism, struggle and thought by women reaching back to the work of such figures as Eleanor Marx — Editors

Summary: Speech at Coalition for Peace, Revolution and Social Justice’s January 26 banner drop over the freeway in downtown Los Angeles marking “Year 2 of Trump: LA Rise Up!” This was first published on the CPRSJ website, here https://cprsj.wordpress.com/2018/01/30/behind-turkeys-attack-on-the-afrin-kurds-imperialist-machinations-in-the-middle-east-by-ali-kiani/ –Editors

Summary: A look at the challenges posed by today’s uprising inside Iran. [Image from Ferdowsi Square, Tehran, December 30, 2017] — Editors

Analysis of the social grievances behind the protests, including environmental degradation. Based on a presentation on January 21, 2018 at a meeting of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization in Los Angeles on “Iran 2018: Facing a Poor People’s Uprising and Deadly Threats from Trump’s USA” — Editors

[Photo is of drought-stricken Karun River in Ahvaz.]

Summary:  Statement by Los Angeles-based Coalition for Peace, Revolution and Social Justice about Turkey’s attack on the Syrian Kurds in Afrin [Efrin] — Editors

Summary: Adapted from a speech to the Women’s March in Santa Barbara, which drew several hundred people on January 20, 2018 — Editors