The Red Review

The Red Review | Issue #31 (Apr 2026)

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 02:57:12 GMT

End Canadian Complicity in War against Iran

by Yves Engler

The US and Israel have launched a massive war of aggression against Iran. Canada has assisted directly and helped pave the way for the war. In three weeks, the US and Israel have killed 1500 Iranians. They’ve assassinated top officials and Israel has said they’ll kill whomever else they want. They’ve also destroyed massive amounts of civil infrastructure, including ecologically sensitive oil and natural gas facilities. At the same time Israel has killed over a thousand Lebanese. They’ve destroyed large swaths of Beirut and are seeking to ethnically cleanse the south of that country. As they destroy Lebanon and Iran, the Jewish supremacist state continues to kill Palestinians in Gaza and displace them in the West Bank.

by Gary Porter

Every day the media reports new outrages, more climate catastrophes, escalating wars and attacks, mass killings, new threats, sanctions, tariffs and assassinations. Most people admit feeling anxiety, discouragement and depression. But some are beginning to organize, develop demands and build huge protest movements. Three recent examples: the people in Iran, Venezuela and revolutionary Cuba who are resisting US military might and the people in Minneapolis who successfully drove out Trump’s racist goons and defended undocumented workers. We are witnessing the obvious decline of the US led empire, the increasing economic difficulties of Western Europe and the long economic doldrums of Japan. From a Marxist viewpoint, society is organized into classes, defined by their relationship to the means of production.

by Kurt Young

In 2018 my mother became ill to the point of hospitalization. She had begun developing stones in her gall bladder which led to a host of debilitating symptoms. Her initial surgical admission at a hospital in Mississauga went without incident. A semi-private room was provided to her pre and post-surgery. After several years of discomfort, the extreme pain returned. My mother was admitted to the emergency ward. Due to her condition not being considered severe enough, she was made to wait 18 hours before admission. When a gurney had become available, my mother was then placed in a staff only hallway for several more hours until a room could be made available. This was a large room with bays separated by thin cloth suspended on a rail and track system. Even at this point in time my mother had yet to see a doctor.

by Tyler Brittain

Hundreds of students, many traveling from universities across Ontario, converged on the Legislature at Queen’s Park in Toronto on March 24. They gathered to protest draconian austerity measures being imposed by the Doug Ford Conservative government. The premier’s sweeping changes to Ontario’s public post-secondary education system include slashing the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) and ending the tuition freeze. The current 85% grants and 15% loans formula has been reversed to 75% loans, or more. This means more debt, higher costs, and more barriers for students who are already struggling with the high cost of living, including rising expenses for rent, food, transportation and housing. This will drive thousands out of school, with grim prospects for the future.

by Red Review

You are reading the 31st edition of our monthly on-line journal Red Review. Front line anti-capitalist militants cover major events, historical landmarks, and theoretical questions from a Marxist perspective, presenting the Socialist Action assessment on significant debates occurring on the left. Please consider a contribution to maintain and help further grow this revolutionary endeavour by sending a bank e-transfer to: barryaw@rogers.com.

by Gary Porter

“Capitalism can’t be fixed.” The contradictions deeply embedded in the capitalist system are irreconcilable, un-resolvable. Canadian workers, organized independently of the ruling class and with an experienced revolutionary socialist leadership, are the only force capable of overturning capitalist rule. To accomplish this historic task, a substantial part of the working class must be organized in militant unions. The unions require a class struggle political leadership, prepared to carry the fight decisively against the billionaires who exploit workers and suppress their rights. Such a struggle quickly involves the capitalist state, the bosses’ police, and their courts.

by V.I. Lenin

The April Theses is a pivotal political document that outlines a series of directives proposed by Vladimir Lenin upon his return to Russia in April 1917. In it, Lenin, a leader of the Bolsheviks, called for the rejection of the existing provisional government, advocating for the seizure of power by the Soviets and the redistribution of land to the working class. The theses articulated ten key points, including demands for the nationalization of banks, control of industry by workers, and an end to Russia’s involvement in World War I. Initially met with skepticism by some Bolshevik leaders, the ideas gained traction among the general populace, contributing to their popular support.

End Canadian Complicity in War against Iran

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 02:35:30 GMT

The US and Israel have launched a massive war of aggression against Iran. Canada has assisted directly and helped pave the way for the war.

In three weeks, the US and Israel have killed 1500 Iranians. They’ve assassinated top officials and Israel has said they’ll kill whomever else they want. They’ve also destroyed massive amounts of civil infrastructure, including ecologically sensitive oil and natural gas facilities.

At the same time Israel has killed over a thousand Lebanese. They’ve destroyed large swaths of Beirut and are seeking to ethnically cleanse the south of that country. As they destroy Lebanon and Iran, the Jewish supremacist state continues to kill Palestinians in Gaza and displace them in the West Bank.

Rather than push back, Canadian officials have justified the US/Israeli aggression on Iran and largely ignored Israeli violence in Lebanon and Palestine. Ottawa has released several statements framing Iran as the aggressor in a war instigated by the US and Israel. The government has suggested it may assist the warmongers by offering “defensive” support to Gulf countries or by dispatching a warship to disrupt Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Through NORAD, hundreds of Canadian soldiers assist the US with monitoring West Asia, likely providing intelligence assistance for US/Israeli strikes. Additionally, Canadian forces stationed with the US in the region and those deployed at Canada’s base in Kuwait may also have assisted the aggression.

What’s certain is that Ottawa paved the way for the war through a slew of measures designed to isolate Iran. By cutting off ties, labelling Iran a terror supporter and sanctioning the country Canada has worked for many years to weaken Iran diplomatically and economically.

Canada should apologize for contributing to the overthrow of Iran’s nascent democracy in 1953 and initiate a full accounting of Ottawa’s role in the coup against Prime Minster Mohammad Mossadegh.

Canada should adopt the following measures to oppose the war and re-found bilateral relations with Iran:

Condemn Trump and Netanyahu’s illegal war of aggression.
Declare that Canada will not formally dispatch troops to assist in the war.
Direct all Canadian soldiers working with the US military to halt any assistance to the war.
Bring the 200+ Canadian troops in the region home.
Close Canada’s military base in Kuwait.
Restart diplomatic relations with Tehran.
Repeal a host of sanctions imposed on Iranian individuals and entities.
Remove Iran from Canada’s state sponsors of terror list.
Remove the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from Canada’s terrorist list.

Capitalism’s Seven Contradictions Threaten Humanity

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 02:31:31 GMT

But some are beginning to organize, develop demands and build huge protest movements. Three recent examples: the people in Iran, Venezuela and revolutionary Cuba who are resisting US military might and the people in Minneapolis who successfully drove out Trump’s racist goons and defended undocumented workers.

We are witnessing the obvious decline of the US led empire, the increasing economic difficulties of Western Europe and the long economic doldrums of Japan.

From a Marxist viewpoint, society is organized into classes, defined by their relationship to the means of production. Under capitalism, a system based on private ownership of the means of production, a tiny minority of capitalists must constantly earn profits and strive to accumulate more capital. Under capitalism, there are three classes: the tiny capitalist ruling class, a massive class of workers with nothing but their labour power to sell, and a middle class of small business operators, farmers, professionals and technocrats.

Capitalism is rife with contradictions which cannot be resolved within the boundaries of its system. To understand the source of the increasing storms and stresses under capitalism and the way out, we must understand these contradictions.

The principal contradictions of capitalism can be understood through the dialectical materialist framework that analyzes the internal and external antagonisms driving its development, crises, and current decline. These contradictions are both inherent to capitalism as a world system and specific to the imperialist stage, of which the U.S. is the current hegemonic power. They include:

1. The Capital-Labour Contradiction

This is the fundamental class antagonism between the bourgeoisie (owners of capital) and the proletariat (working class). Under U.S. imperialism, this is mediated but not resolved by super-exploitation of a global labour pool, financialization, and ideological apparatuses. The results of this irreconcilable contradiction include stagnant real wages versus soaring productivity and profits; extreme wealth inequality; precarious labour; erosion of the social wage (public services); and the use of racial, gender, and national divisions to fragment class consciousness. Financialization represents a parasitic extraction of surplus value from the working class globally and domestically through debt, rent, and user fees.

2. The Contradiction between the Socialized Character of Production and the Private, Monopolistic Appropriation of its Output

This is a core contradiction of capitalism magnified under imperialism. Production is globally integrated and highly socialized (complex global supply chains, coordinated international labour), yet the profits and control are concentrated in fewer, larger private monopolistic firms (transnational corporations, financial institutions) based in the imperial core. This leads to crises of overproduction where the collectively produced wealth cannot be realized as profit because the mass of workers (whose consumption is constrained by low wages) cannot buy back the goods and services they produce. The U.S. “solves” this temporarily through financial bubbles, militarized Keynesianism, and debt-driven consumption, exacerbating long-term instability.

3. The Contradiction between Imperialist Powers (Inter-Imperialist Rivalry)

While temporarily suppressed by U.S. hegemony post-1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, this contradiction elaborated by Lenin is re-emerging. Capitalist states and their associated monopolies compete for markets, resources, spheres of influence, and control over global financial and trade architectures. The U.S.’s relative economic decline and the rise of other powers (notably China, but also a resurgent Russia and a unified EU bloc) create friction. Conflicts over trade, technology (semiconductors, 5G and AI), currency dominance (challenges to the petrodollar), and military positioning (NATO expansion, Pacific alliances) signify the reawakening of this rivalry, threatening global instability and potentially major inter-state conflict.

4. The Contradiction between the Imperialist Core and the Oppressed Nations of the Periphery/Semi-Periphery

This is the principal external contradiction. Imperialism extracts super-profits through the unequal exchange, debt bondage, resource extraction, and labour super-exploitation of the Global South.

It generates resistance in the form of national liberation struggles, anti-neoliberal governments, demands for a New International Economic Order, and efforts at regional integration bypassing imperial institutions (like BRICS). U.S. militarism (via direct intervention, proxy wars, sanctions, and a global network of military bases) is the violent enforcement mechanism to maintain this exploitative hierarchy, leading to perpetual war and blowback.

5. The Contradiction between the Drive for Capital Accumulation and the Ecological Limits of the Planet

This is the imperative for infinite expansion on a finite planet. U.S. imperialism, as the historical leader of the capitalist world-system, is the largest cumulative polluter and the primary architect of a global economic model premised on extractivism and unsustainable consumption. The US has given up any commitment to reduce greenhouse gases, climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource wars. This contradiction threatens the very basis of civilization and creates “ecological imperialism”—where the core offshores environmental damage to the periphery and resists global climate justice measures that would impede capital accumulation.

6. The Political Contradiction: Bourgeois Democracy vs. Dictatorship of Capital

There is a rising tension between the ideological claims of liberal democracy and the reality of capitalist class rule. The state is, in the Marxist view, a “committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie,” but it must legitimize itself through popular consent. This is the fusion of economic and political power (the “financial oligarchy”), where corporations and wealthy individuals dominate the funding of political candidates, lobbying, and media. This leads to rampant political corruption, the hollowing out of democratic institutions, the rise of plutocracy, and a crisis of legitimacy. This often manifests as political polarization, as competing factions of capital (e.g., fossil capital vs. tech capital) vie for state control while populist anger grows from below.

7. The Contradiction of Financialization

While not entirely separate from the above, it is a key feature of contemporary U.S. imperialism. It involves the disproportionate growth of the financial sector (FIRE: Finance, Insurance, Real Estate), which feeds on and distorts the productive economy. This process creates a fragile economy of speculative bubbles, systemic risk, and “fictitious capital.” It represents a shift from the (already exploitative) extraction of profit via production to extraction via financial channels (usury, speculation, asset inflation). This deepens inequality, fuels instability, (2008 crisis) and turns the U.S. into a “rentier-imperialist” state, dependent on the dollar’s seigniorage and its ability to impose financial sanctions—a power that itself provokes resistance and de-dollarization efforts and instability.

Conclusion

These contradictions do not exist in isolation but interact dynamically (dialectically). For example, the stagnation of wages (Contradiction 1) is offset by financialized debt (Contradiction 7), which fuels consumption but creates crises. The ecological crisis (5) both results from and fuels inter-imperialist rivalry (3) and core-periphery conflict (4). The internal political decay (6) undermines the U.S.’s ability to coherently manage its global empire in the face of rising rivals (3) and resistance (4).

Ultimately, Marxists understand these contradictions are unresolvable within the framework of imperialism. They can only be managed temporarily through exploitation, coercion, and crisis, until they generate the conditions for their own negation through systemic crisis and the revolutionary agency of the international working class in alliance with oppressed nations.

At the moment of crisis, there must be in existence a disciplined and experienced worker based party capable of explaining the tasks to move forward and organizing the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist rulers. It is to the building of such a party, that Socialist Action is committed.

Emergency Departments: a Refuge or a Death Sentence

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 02:27:05 GMT

After several years of discomfort, the extreme pain returned. My mother was admitted to the emergency ward. Due to her condition not being considered severe enough, she was made to wait 18 hours before admission. When a gurney had become available, my mother was then placed in a staff only hallway for several more hours until a room could be made available. This was a large room with bays separated by thin cloth suspended on a rail and track system. Even at this point in time my mother had yet to see a doctor.

After a room was made available, my mother was moved to the hallway on the third floor with a collapsible, portable steel framed cloth barrier as the means of protecting her privacy. This was my mother’s pre-operation experience. Post operation, after the doctors had successfully removed the last remnants of stones from her gall bladder, my mother was housed in an auditorium with a dozen or so other patients with the same flimsy curtains separating their beds and providing “privacy”.

On September 13, 2025 after being severely injured in a motorcycle riding class, I was admitted to the Oakville Trafalgar hospital. Oakville is considered among the top ten wealthiest cities in Canada. The facilities were a stark contrast to the hospital where my mother was admitted. In the emergency room each bay intended to house patients was separated by strong sturdy walls with sliding glass doors providing privacy. Likely owing to the severity of my injuries, I remained in the hallway for less than 20 minutes as a room was being made available for me. After my operation I was provided with a large private room - the size of which in most hospitals would have been dedicated to two patients. This was a model of how medical services should be delivered. It seems that the wealthy in this area enjoyed a level of care unavailable to many others.

Luckily my mother’s health condition was non-life threatening, unlike 16-year-old Finlay van der Werken who on February 9, 2024, died in an emergency ward after waiting for more than eight hours. This tragedy was a direct result of overcrowded and understaffed Canadian hospitals. To spare others the grief she now endures, his mother began a petition campaign for “Finlay’s Law” - legislation to set maximum legal pediatric ER waittime limits (e.g., physician assessment within two hours and admission within eight hours), mandate safe pediatric nursetopatient and physiciantopatient ratios, create independent oversight and public reviews of pediatric ER deaths, and fund better pediatric emergency readiness. These are reforms that are urgently needed.

An ever growing number of hospitals across Ontario are practicing “hallway medicine”. Staffing shortages caused by the Ford government health care cuts have resulted in Ontario having the lowest nursing hours per patient in Canada. Ontario also has the fewest hospital beds per person among peer countries - ranking third from the bottom of OECD countries.

According to a Globe and Mail investigation, since 2019, some 34% of Canadian emergency rooms were closed on a short term or a planned long term basis. Accessible emergency room services are critical for severely ill or injured patients and are a safety net for the 6 million Canadians without a primary care-giver as well as the un-housed and those who suffer from substance abuse disorders.

The emergency room crisis is the result of the knock-on effect of a lack of acute care hospital beds which in turn is related to lack of staff and the shortage of long term care homes.

Our healthcare system is chronically underfunded and left to deteriorate while private healthcare is gaining momentum across the country. It is urgent now to join with unions, social movements and communities involved in the Canadian Health Coalition to demand universal public health care. Capitalism Can’t be Fixed. Only socialism can provide a sustainable solution to this crisis.

Solidarity with Students - Dump Thug Ford

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 02:24:07 GMT

The premier’s sweeping changes to Ontario’s public post-secondary education system include slashing the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) and ending the tuition freeze. The current 85% grants and 15% loans formula has been reversed to 75% loans, or more.

This means more debt, higher costs, and more barriers for students who are already struggling with the high cost of living, including rising expenses for rent, food, transportation and housing. This will drive thousands out of school, with grim prospects for the future.

Doug Ford is not a stranger to scandal and unpopular opinions. From the passing of omnibus Bill 33 in late 2025 (which included the power to interfere with student union activities), to the 2019 cuts to OSAP and the persistent under-funding of post-secondary education - the very cause of the current crisis in the sector. Students and workers continue to bear the burden of provincial failures.

Many at the latest protest chanted for a province-wide student strike. Socialist Action members echoed that sentiment. Our banner featuring the slogan “Dump Thug Ford with a General Strike” was very popular. In fact, the call for a student strike and a general strike resonated with students and workers alike. Many people testified to us about how the latest cuts affect them personally, among other issues. We explained the need for a Workers’ Government that would make post-secondary education free by taxing the untold wealth of giant corporations, landlords, and the billionaire class. It is evident that the needs of a decaying capitalist system is at the root of austerity measures such as the OSAP cuts. As the new socialist policy book “Capitalism Can’t be Fixed” states, Onward to a socialist future!

Ontario is saddled with massive amounts of debt. The “fiscal sanity” that the ruling class in Canada demands dictates the agenda of cuts. The ruling rich insist on more taxpayer dollars to bolster their own investments. This austerity being pushed on Ontario students is not unique to the Doug Ford government, it is integral to the capitalist system in crisis. Liberals and Conservatives are equally devoted to serving the billionaires of this country.

Previously, on March 4, a rally was held at Queen’s Park to demonstrate against opposition to the cuts. Nearly 3000 people (mostly students) gathered to show their anger. Recently, the McMaster University Student Union voted to take strike action. It is clear that the next step is a student walkout like those that occurred in Quebec in 2012. Over a period of more than 3 months, a quarter million students in Quebec carried out a series of strikes and demonstrations to reverse a 75% tuition increase that was planned by the Quebec government. This movement shows the power that the students and workers have when we organize and work together. The students won and the tuition hike was canceled.

CFS-Ontario, the largest student union in Ontario, should organize its membership and launch a strike. Socialist Action stands unequivocally with the students of Ontario and will assist in a student strike to dismantle these proposed cuts by the Ontario Government. The mass mobilizations of post-secondary school workers and students can be the beginning of a powerful social movement capable of bringing down the Ford government.

Please Support Our 2026 Fund Appeal to Raise $5,000 by May Day

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 02:22:08 GMT

Revolutionary Socialism in Canada: What's Next?

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 02:16:05 GMT

The basic defensive organization of workers against economic exploitation, in Canada and everywhere, is the union. Organized at the factory level, unions can quickly form alliances across industries and geographic territories. Union solidarity against united bosses is the only way to win. The capitalist state was compelled to accept unions as legal entities with the right to bargain collectively and to enforce union contracts. These struggles were massive, often violent struggles against police and armies, over decades. Such struggles continue.

State of the Union

At present, in Canada, according to the most recent 2023 Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey, there are a total of 4.96 million union members covered by a collective agreement; that is 30.1 % of the workforce (2026). This means that three in ten workers belong to a union. However, leaders exhibiting no conflicting privileges and demonstrating a clear commitment to a workers’ victory could win transformative gains for workers and significantly undermine capitalist domination.

The following table lists the largest unions in Canada. Note that membership figures fluctuate, and official, certified totals are not yet available. The figures below are compiled from recent union statements and reports.

Regional, National & International Unions with Large Memberships (2025)

Union Membership

Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) - 800,000

National Union of Public and General Employees - 425,000

Unifor - 320,000

United Food and Commercial Workers Canada (UFCW) - 250,000

United Steel Workers (USW) - 225,000

Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) - 270,000

Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ) - 140,000

Teamsters Canada (TC) - 125,000

Service Employee International Union Canada - 100,000

Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario - 83,000

Canadian Union of Postal Workers - 55,000

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers - 70,000

Statistics Canada’s State of the Union Report indicates unionization rates vary significantly across the country; from 22.8% in Alberta to 38.2% in Newfoundland and Labrador. Rates declined in every province except PEI from 1997 to 2023. Internationally, the unionization rates vary from 8% in France and 10% in US to 90% in Iceland. Scandinavian countries register at 60% and Canada comes in at 30%.

The demographic profile of union members in Canada has changed significantly over the past 50 years. In 1977, 12% of union members were women. Today 48% of union members are women. Women are taking on leadership roles in several unions, resulting in an increase in militancy, an increasing fight for childcare, maternity and paternity leave, equal pay, and equal access to higher paying jobs. 10% of women were unionized in 1977; 30% of women are unionized today.

The most recent figure from Statistics Canada for the average weekly earnings of all employees is $1,317.16, a 2.5% increase over the last 12 months. Wages in manufacturing average around $20.12 per hour, approximately $41,600 annually. The most recent national data from a House of Commons committee reports the overall wage gap between union and non-union workers in Canada is about 10%. However, this premium can be much higher for specific groups or regions. For part-time workers, the gap is even wider, with unionized part-timers earning 29% more ($32.57/hr) than non-union part-timers ($22.91/hr).

Thus unions still demonstrate their ability to defend workers from the bosses and to improve the lot of their members. The wage difference doesn’t capture the full picture. Unionized workers are often more likely to receive supplementary benefits like health coverage, pensions, and paid leave. Some of the wage gap is narrowed by what’s called the “union threat effect.” To discourage unionization, some non-union employers may offer higher wages and better conditions to stay labour competitive.

Strikes were more prevalent in the 1970s and peaked at 9.1 million days in early 1980’s. Days lost due to labour disputes declined over the decades until 2023 when public sector workers struck for 6.6 million days. Pundits ascribe the incidence of strike actions to inflation rates.

Current labour challenges

The current political situation for the Canadian working class is defined by a powerful contradiction: deep economic anxiety and political alienation are fueling a search for new political voices, as the economic landscape shows increasing signs of deterioration. Workers are caught between nearly stagnant wages, an affordability crisis, and the growing realization that their real interests are not at all represented, not even by the New Democratic Party (NDP).

- Persistent Affordability Crisis: For working-class Canadians, the cost of living is the central issue. Political leaders across the spectrum, from Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre to union heads, acknowledge that housing costs, food bank usage (which has recently doubled), and general unaffordability, constitute a “direct attack on the working-class”.

- A Shifting Job Market: The unemployment rate has risen to 6.5% in early 2026, while full-time work hours are actually increasing. Unemployment is rising despite a shrinking labour force (due to stricter immigration rules and an aging population). The manufacturing and resource sector, heavily exposed to trade wars, shed 28,000 jobs in January and 84,000 in February, highlighting the precarious situation.

Political Realignment:

As economic uncertainty increases, the political loyalty of the working class seems up for grabs, with traditional alliances under strain. The NDP, historically the party of labour, is failing to connect despite workers’ increasing economic and political anxiety. Data shows the Conservative Party has actually won the plurality of the working-class vote for the last 20 years, not the NDP. While the NDP historically scored higher with workers than with other classes, that edge has faded. The party’s base is shifting towards public sector union members and professionals, creating increasing internal tensions with private-sector workers. In a bid to reconnect, major private-sector unions like UFCW Canada endorsed labour leader Rob Ashton in the federal NDP leadership race, signaling a desire for a return to the party’s working-class roots.

The Conservative Party, particularly under Pierre Poilievre, is actively courting working-class voters with a message focused on affordability, cutting taxes, and repealing Liberal-NDP policies. At a packed town hall on Vancouver Island, Poilievre framed housing unaffordability and crime as failures directly impacting working people, using populist symbolism to position himself as their champion. But crime is not increasing. It is a dog whistle for repressive measures. This strategy builds on a long-term trend of using diversionary cultural issues and economic nationalism to attract workers to the Conservatives. Of course the official party platform of the Tories is replete with a full-scale war on unions and on wages, working conditions, and major social needs such as health and education. Poilievre’s populism is an opportunistic lie, made possible by the utter failure of the union and NDP bureaucrats to address workers’ issues and advance real solutions.

Labour begins to fight back:

Feeling squeezed, labour unions are becoming more assertive. After the longest transit strike in BC’s history last year, union representatives warn that “labour is more militant now” and future strikes are possible in the absence of meaningful bargaining. Labour leaders are also uniting to demand a “worker-centred trade policy” that protects domestic jobs from the volatility of global trade deals. Unions are fiercely criticizing past trade deals for prioritizing corporate interests, leading to plant closures and precarious work.

Wage growth is slowing (3.3% in January) and is expected to remain limited due to “soft labour market conditions.” A critical, underlying issue is a sense of powerlessness. Workers are feeling that “people like me have no say” and that “politicians only care about the rich and powerful”. Such disaffection is a major driver of the current political volatility. Without leadership, clear direction and mass action, the workers are correct. Their power is muted and the capitalist state serves the billionaires. In short, the Canadian working class is economically anxious and politically disaffected, creating a volatile landscape where traditional party loyalties are weakening and new, more assertive voices—from militant unions to populist conservatives—are vying for support.

This context should be fertile ground for the NDP to expose Tory populism as an outright lie and the Carney government as entirely an agent of bankers and billionaires. The Carney Liberals have shifted sharply to the right as they attempt to deal with escalating economic attacks by the increasingly fascistic US ruling class and their violent state apparatus. Carney opposes Trump on trade, but not foreign policy. He supports the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, US illegal attacks on Venezuela, Cuba and Iran, and US backed Zionist genocide against Palestinians and other Arab forces. This Liberal posture opens wide doors for the NDP to pose a strong challenge to the capitalist parties and to mobilize international solidarity among all workers and oppressed across the globe.

But in the last federal election the NDP, following their alliance with the Trudeau government, was almost wiped out, winning only 7 seats and losing official party status in the House of Commons. The Party is now down to 6 seats, with the loss of Inuvik. During the race for a new NDP leader, top bureaucrats excluded two socialist candidates from competing, refusing to allow members the right to decide. All 5 vetted candidates are reformists who think capitalism can be fixed and that billionaires should pay a bit more tax but remain in charge. The party reveals no interest in challenging capitalism or advancing a genuine workers’ agenda. Under the current social democratic, anti-democratic leadership, working people are left abandoned, facing a growing shift by the capitalist class across the west to increasing exploitation, repression of workers struggles, and even outright violence.

History of union relations to the NDP

This is a story of a bond that, while symbolically powerful, was never as robust as commonly perceived and has significantly weakened over time. The relationship has evolved from formal institutional ties based on a degree of class consciousness to a more fragmented and transactional connection.

Here is a timeline tracing the extent of this affiliation:

1961: The Founding Partnership between the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), designating the party as the “political arm of organized labour”. Affiliation to the new party was based on individual unions and per-capita fees.

1963: The Peak of Affiliation. Formal union affiliation peaks at just 14.6% of union members, falling far short of the hoped-for realignment of working-class politics. Union leaders seemed more committed to the NDP than their rank-and-file members.

1970s-1980s: A Period of Gradual Decline. Affiliation numbers continues to fall, reaching roughly 7-8% by the early 1980s. Despite this drop in formal membership, unions remained a critical financial pillar, contributing an average of 18.4% of the party’s annual revenue and providing essential campaign resources like staff and organizers.

1993: A Major Rupture. The Ontario NDP government, under Premier Bob Rae, passes Social Contract legislation, which rolled back public-sector wages and suspended collective bargaining rights. This betrayal profoundly alienated the labour movement. The Ontario Federation of Labour voted to condemn the government, and many unions began re-evaluating their traditional link to the party.

2000s: The Weakening of Ties. Federal campaign finance reform (2004-2006) bans union (and corporate) donations, severing a key financial link. This, combined with the party’s lack of electoral success, accelerates the search for alternative strategies. In a historic first, the Ontario Liberals receive more in union campaign contributions than the Ontario NDP in 2003. The fracture deepens when CAW President Buzz Hargrove endorses strategic voting for the Liberals in 2006, leading to his expulsion from the NDP and a formal break with the union.

2020s: A New, Pragmatic Relationship. Formal ties are now much weaker. The 2021 NDP convention changed its constitution to grant union delegates positions based on union size rather than the number of card-carrying NDP members within the union, an attempt to reverse declining labour clout. While some unions remain close, many now pursue independent political strategies, including issue-based campaigns and tactical endorsements (often for the Liberals) to stop Conservative candidates. It is a ‘pragmatic’ approach known as Gomperism which is the antithesis of independent labour political action.

Despite the decline in formal NDP affiliation, unions still play a significant role as a source of candidates, volunteers, and as a moderating reformist block in the party leadership and conventions. In essence, the NDP-union relationship has moved from one of formal partnership to a more complex and fragmented landscape where loyalty is no longer assured.

Conclusion

The growing desperation of the capitalist class to offset the falling rate of profit and resist the rapidly escalating predatory efforts by the U.S. hegemon will steadily, even rapidly, increase the downward pressure on wages, jobs and living costs. As capitalist screws are tightened on the working class, the privileged, conservative and self-interested layer of bureaucrats who run the trade unions and the NDP will strive to protect their privileges by dampening the response of the rank and file. Instead of mobilizing independent mass strikes, instead of encouraging national and international solidarity and elevating the economic struggle to the political level, to defend workers’ rights and smash anti-labour laws, the bureaucrats will strive to keep the struggle within the bounds of capitalist rules and laws. If they are successful, the workers will lose as they did during the rise of neo-liberalism and concession bargaining.

The stifling of socialists and anti-capitalist demands within the NDP, as demonstrated in the current leadership race, must be resisted. Only the victory of the united workers fighting for workers power and opening the path to socialism can save all of us from capitalist ruination and the grave threat of nuclear holocaust.

Socialists must find a voice, an open expression to bring our indispensable program to workers and their allies, to educate, agitate and organize as we collectively build an effective new leadership. We must strengthen our voice independent of the labour/NDP bureaucrats by speaking out, publishing, and coaching the emerging class warriors. We must be organized locally and nationally to promote our powerful new program “Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed”. We will join picket lines of workers and their allies, hold rallies, demonstrations and conduct education classes. We will share our knowledge and learn from this new generation of revolutionaries.

Paraphrasing Karl Marx, we revolutionary socialists disdain to conceal our views and aims. We openly declare that our ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a socialist revolution. The workers and their oppressed allies have nothing to lose but their chains. We have a world to win. Workers of All Countries, Unite!

The Tasks of the Proletarian Revolution “The April Theses”

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 02:00:58 GMT

This article contains V.I. Lenin’s famous April Theses read by him at two meetings of the All-Russia Conference of Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, on April 4, 1917. (“Marxists Internet Archive”)

Introduction: The April Theses is a pivotal political document that outlines a series of directives proposed by Vladimir Lenin upon his return to Russia in April 1917. In it, Lenin, a leader of the Bolsheviks, called for the rejection of the existing provisional government, advocating for the seizure of power by the Soviets and the redistribution of land to the working class.

The theses articulated ten key points, including demands for the nationalization of banks, control of industry by workers, and an end to Russia’s involvement in World War I. Initially met with skepticism by some Bolshevik leaders, the ideas gained traction among the general populace, contributing to their popular support.

This document ultimately laid the groundwork for the October Revolution later that year, which overthrew the provisional government and established Soviet power. The April Theses marked a significant shift in revolutionary ideology, emphasizing Marxist principles and the critical role of the proletariat. Lenin’s vision was both a response to the desperate conditions faced by many Russians and a call for a new governmental structure.

By V.I.Lenin

I did not arrive in Petrograd until the night of April 3, and therefore at the meeting on April 4, I could, of course, deliver the report on the tasks of the revolutionary proletariat only on my own behalf, and with reservations as to insufficient preparation.

The only thing I could do to make things easier for myself—and for honest opponents—was to prepare the theses in writing. I read them out, and gave the text to Comrade Tsereteli. I read them twice very slowly: first at a meeting of Bolsheviks and then at a meeting of both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks.

I publish these personal theses of mine with only the briefest explanatory notes, which were developed in far greater detail in the report.

THESES

1) In our attitude towards the war, which under the new [provisional] government of Lvov and Co. unquestionably remains on Russia’s part a predatory imperialist war owing to the capitalist nature of that government, not the slightest concession to “revolutionary defencism” is permissible.

The class-conscious proletariat can give its consent to a revolutionary war, which would really justify revolutionary defencism, only on condition: (a) that the power pass to the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants aligned with the proletariat; (b) that all annexations be renounced in deed and not in word; (c) that a complete break be effected in actual fact with all capitalist interests.

In view of the undoubted honesty of those broad sections of the mass believers in revolutionary defencism who accept the war only as a necessity, and not as a means of conquest, in view of the fact that they are being deceived by the bourgeoisie, it is necessary with particular thoroughness, persistence and patience to explain their error to them, to explain the inseparable connection existing between capital and the imperialist war, and to prove that without overthrowing capital it is impossible to end the war by a truly democratic peace, a peace not imposed by violence.

The most widespread campaign for this view must be organised in the army at the front.

Fraternisation.

2) The specific feature of the present situation in Russia is that the country is passing from the first stage of the revolution—which, owing to the insufficient class-consciousness and organisation of the proletariat, placed power in the hands of the bourgeoisie—to its second stage, which must place power in the hands of the proletariat and the poorest sections of the peasants.

This transition is characterised, on the one hand, by a maximum of legally recognised rights (Russia is now the freest of all the belligerent countries in the world); on the other, by the absence of violence towards the masses, and, finally, by their unreasoning trust in the government of capitalists, those worst enemies of peace and socialism.

This peculiar situation demands of us an ability to adapt ourselves to the special conditions of Party work among unprecedentedly large masses of proletarians who have just awakened to political life.

3) No support for the Provisional Government; the utter falsity of all its promises should be made clear, particularly of those relating to the renunciation of annexations. Exposure in place of the impermissible, illusion-breeding “demand” that this government, a government of capitalists, should cease to be an imperialist government.

4) Recognition of the fact that in most of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies our Party is in a minority, so far a small minority, as against a bloc of all the petty-bourgeois opportunist elements, from the Popular Socialists and the Socialist-Revolutionaries down to the Organising Committee (Chkheidze, Tsereteli, etc.), Steklov, etc., etc., who have yielded to the influence of the bourgeoisie and spread that influence among the proletariat.

The masses must be made to see that the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies are the only possible form of revolutionary government, and that therefore our task is, as long as this government yields to the influence of the bourgeoisie, to present a patient, systematic, and persistent explanation of the errors of their tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses.

As long as we are in the minority we carry on the work of criticising and exposing errors and at the same time we preach the necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies, so that the people may overcome their mistakes by experience.

5) Not a parliamentary republic—to return to a parliamentary republic from the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies would be a retrograde step—but a republic of Soviets of Workers’, Agricultural Labourers’ and Peasants’ Deputies throughout the country, from top to bottom.

Abolition of the police, the army and the bureaucracy.^[1]

The salaries of all officials, all of whom are elective and displaceable at any time, not to exceed the average wage of a competent worker.

6) The weight of emphasis in the agrarian programme to be shifted to the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies.

Confiscation of all landed estates.

Nationalisation of all lands in the country, the land to be disposed of by the local Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. The organisation of separate Soviets of Deputies of Poor Peasants. The setting up of a model farm on each of the large estates (ranging in size from 100 to 300 dessiatines, according to local and other conditions, and to the decisions of the local bodies) under the control of the Soviets of Agricultural Labourers’ Deputies and for the public account.

7) The immediate union of all banks in the country into a single national bank, and the institution of control over it by the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies.

8) It is not our immediate task to “introduce” socialism, but only to bring social production and the distribution of products at once under the control of the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies.

9) Party tasks:

(a) Immediate convocation of a Party congress;

(b) Alteration of the Party Programme, mainly:

(1) On the question of imperialism and the imperialist war,

(2) On our attitude towards the state and our demand for a “commune state”^[2];

(3) Amendment of our out-of-date minimum programme;

10. A new International.

We must take the initiative in creating a revolutionary International, an International against the social-chauvinists and against the “Centre”.^[4]

Notes

^[1] i.e. the standing army to be replaced by the arming of the whole people.—Lenin

^[2] i.e., a state of which the Paris Commune was the prototype.—Lenin

^[3] Instead of “Social-Democracy”, whose official leaders throughout the world have betrayed socialism and deserted to the bourgeoisie (the “defencists” and the vacillating “Kautskyites”), we must call ourselves the Communist Party.—Lenin

^[4] The “Centre” in the international Social-Democratic movement is the trend which vacillates between the chauvinists (=“defencists”) and internationalists, i.e., Kautsky and Co. in Germany, Longuet and Co. in France, Chkheidze and Co. in Russia, Turati and Co. in Italy, MacDonald and Co. in Britain, etc.—Lenin

Tactical Retreats: Why Venezuela’s Revolution Still Stands

The Red Review — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 01:54:56 GMT

Just as the false claims of betrayal on January 3 are now easily disproved, so too are the claims of betrayal in the two months since.

The early morning hours of January 3, 2026, marked an inflection point in Venezuela and Latin America’s centuries-long struggle for self-determination and independence.

Operation Absolute Resolve, ordered by the Trump administration, constituted the most brutal and direct military assault on a sovereign state in the region in recent memory. In a shocking operation that left hundreds dead, President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were illegally kidnapped from Venezuelan soil and transported to the United States, where they now face fabricated charges in a New York federal detention facility.

In the two months since this act of war, a torrent of speculation has emerged from so-called experts and pundits across the political spectrum. This has followed three main lines:

The operation’s success indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the remaining leadership have abandoned the Bolivarian project and socialist transformation, surrendering the country, its economy and its resources to US imperialism.
In foreign relations, the Venezuelan leadership has abandoned its historic anti-imperialism.

Taken together, these claims amount to a proclamation that regime change has succeeded in Venezuela.

They are each false, reflecting an amateurish and superficial approach to politics, reactive “hot takes” rather than real analysis or investigation, which provides a left-wing echo of Trump’s own presentation. To understand Caracas’s current trajectory requires a sober appraisal of what took place on January 3, a close look at the facts of Venezuela’s financial and commercial situation, and an honest assessment of the international correlation of forces in which Venezuela operates. It requires understanding what has changed in this new situation. To sort through the complicated reality of the present, certain examples in the history of socialist states can serve as a guide.

A close look at the facts will prove that what we are witnessing is not surrender but a tactical retreat in the face of overwhelming force for which there are clear analogies in revolutionary history.

The main claims that supposedly reveal “betrayal” are examined and refuted below, but before beginning, an important theoretical distinction must be drawn between government and state power. Government offices and ministries set and execute a range of policies, issue declarations, and so on, and temporarily change hands from “left” to “right.” The permanent institutions of state power (the military, the courts, and the police) represent the real power in any society. Almost all the leftist governments of the region have been elected to hold office in recent years, but they did not hold state power. Presiding over policy but with the same capitalist state in place (especially in the military), there is a clear limit to how much these governments can actually contest the capitalist order and transform social reality. The Bolivarian project likewise emerged as an electoral movement, with Chavez initially just holding government office, but with an important difference. Decades of US-funded coup attempts, internal struggles, and other crises have step by step led to the replacement of the forces loyal to the old order in the judiciary, police, and military with forces formed by and loyal to the Bolivarian Revolution. The United Socialist Party maintains its mission to advance working-class power and build socialism. The struggle may proceed in zig-zags, advances and retreats, based on the correlation of forces, but at every stage, the party works to preserve its gains and minimize its losses.

This is important because Venezuela’s concessions are primarily being made at the level of government, not at the state and party level.

Claim #1: The success of the US operation on January 3 indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution.

The so-called “evidence”

No US service members died in the operation that abducted Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores.
More than 150 US aircraft penetrated Venezuelan airspace without being shot down by the country’s advanced air defenses obtained from Russia.
The “peaceful” extraction of Maduro and Flores could have only occurred due to “collaboration” from Maduro’s inner circle. There was no immediate military counter-escalation by the Venezuelans.

The reality: Resistance in the face of overwhelming military superiority

Much more is now known about the events of January 3 than was initially clear. Contrary to the narrative imposed by Western media and repeated mindlessly by some on the left, there was resistance. Testimonyfrom survivors and statements from President Trump himself confirm that the presidential security detail, alongside Venezuelan military units and a contingent of Cuban internationalist fighters, engaged the attacking forces in a firefight. Thirty-two Cuban combatants fell alongside more than 50 Venezuelans in the security forces and presidential guard, who defended the president with their lives.

First, US electronic warfare systems totally disabled the country’s air defenses and communications infrastructure. According to Venezuela’s defense minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, the US used Venezuela as a “laboratory” for weapons technologies never used before. Padrino is well-known as the military leader who consistently exposed US efforts to corrupt and bribe the military to turn on Maduro and the Bolivarian Revolution, as well as prior US assassination attempts. He personified the country’s “military-civic union” that blocked years of regime change efforts under the banner of “always loyal, traitors never.”

An official Venezuelan account of January 3 still has not been released, given that the country remains militarily surrounded (more on that later). But unofficial reports from witnesses and survivors back up Padrino’s comments. They recount that with all their communications and air defenses knocked out and all electricity in the area blacked out, Venezuela military forces were hit with drones and some kind of sonic weapon that incapacitated soldiers. Instantaneously, they were subjected to rapid and overpowering firepower that resulted in a one-sided massacre, even as they shot back.

In Trump’s State of the Union, he honored the pilot of the first Chinook helicopter, which landed at the presidential compound, carrying the Elite Delta Force units that then conducted the ground operation and kidnapped the president. The helicopter took heavy fire, severely injuring the pilot. The US has also admitted there were additional US casualties, although no deaths.

In preparation for this operation, it has since been revealed that the raid was rehearsed on a full-scale, exact replica of Nicolás Maduro’s compound, built in Kentucky. For weeks, Delta Force commandos practiced “blowing through steel doors at ever-faster paces” and memorizing the layout of corridors and safe rooms. Because Maduro was known to rotate between locations, they launched the operation only after he was confirmed to be at that specific site. Specialized nighttime aviation was provided by a group known as the “Night Stalkers.

The violence did not simply end, though. In leaked communications that have since been confirmed by multiple sources, Delcy Rodríguez revealed that from the first moments of contact on January 3, the Trump administration issued an ultimatum. Rodríguez stated, “The threats started the moment they kidnapped the president. They gave Diosdado, Jorge, and me 15 minutes to respond, or they would kill us.” Any refusal to negotiate, she said, would result not just in kidnapping, but the decapitation and annihilation of the remaining leadership of the Venezuelan state. They also were told that the US military would continue to surround the country. Every statement and every decision they made would be scrutinized as either a sign of compliance or resistance, and their lives could be taken at any moment.

This was negotiation at gunpoint, literally, and it has not ended. The moment required a leadership capable of making a necessary retreat to save the revolution, without fracturing its internal unity.

The United States did not succeed on January 3 because of betrayal by the Venezuelan leadership. It succeeded because, after over 25 years of failed coup attempts, economic warfare, and destabilization campaigns, imperialism finally deployed its most potent weapon: direct military intervention backed by technological superiority that no independent country in the developing world can successfully counter at present.

Analysis: Overwhelming hybrid war attack could not overcome political realities

The United States achieved its objective of capturing Maduro, but it did not achieve its objective of overthrowing the government or state. The remaining leadership, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, Minister of Interior Diosdado Cabello, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez, and the core of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and the Bolivarian armed forces, moved immediately to stabilize institutions, maintain continuity of command.

The US did not plan a larger occupation due to anticipated resistance and the armed mobilization of millions of the Venezuelan people. President Maduro’s call to massively expand the Bolivarian Militias saw over eight million citizens arm themselves. Combined with Venezuela’s professional military, which has not fractured, this created a scenario where any ground invasion would degenerate into a protracted people’s war, with unacceptable political and material costs for the United States. There remains a strong base of support for Chavismo, which the Trump administration tacitly admitted when it said there must be “realism” acknowledging that the Venezuelan right wing lacks the support to lead the country.

The Trump administration instead executed a surgical strike of extraordinary precision, as a way to shift the balance of forces and gain leverage with the Venezuelan government, which it had to accept could not be overthrown. No amount of bragging from Trump and Rubio about “regime change” can overcome this basic fact.

But when Delcy Rodríguez, now acting president, agreed to enter into dialogue with the Trump administration after the attack, many on the left reacted with confusion and dismay. Yes, Maduro and the leadership had pledged a people’s war, and if necessary, a guerrilla struggle along the lines of Vietnam. But the fact is, the US commandos were gone; there was no occupation force to fight. That should be understood as a feature of the revolution’s enduring strength, not weakness.

So how could the Bolivarian Revolution sit at the table with the very forces that had just murdered its defenders and kidnapped its president? The answer lies in the material conditions of survival and a proper understanding of revolutionary strategy. The revolution’s organized social base and military unity represented a kind of deterrent for foreign occupation, but that deterrent cannot expel the enormous military forces still surrounding it, imposing a total naval blockade of its oil while pointing advanced weaponry at their heads. On January 3, the government recognized the military reality and made a tactical decision to retain the institutions of state power under their control, to buy time and live to fight another day.

This decision has clearly required some concessions to the Empire but this too, requires closer scrutiny. Just as the false claims of betrayal on January 3 are now easily disproven, so too are the claims of betrayal in the two months since.

Claim 2: Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the remaining leadership have abandoned the Bolivarian project, surrendering the country, its economy and its resources to US imperialism.

The so-called “evidence”

Venezuela has effectively opened its vast oil reserves to foreign private exploitation and sale.
Venezuela has initiated a process of “reconciliation” with the right-wing opposition, including freeing 2,500 prisoners convicted of forms of treason and violence.
US officials have been greeted in Miraflores Palace with smiles and musical accompaniment, typically accorded to allies and friends.

The reality: a new correlation of forces

Since January 3, the correlation of forces has been fundamentally altered. The US Navy’s largest regional armada in history remained positioned off Venezuela’s coast.

No one is coming to Venezuela’s assistance. Looking at the region, in fact, we find right-wing governments in Argentina, Paraguay, Ecuador, El Salvador, Peru, and Bolivia outright celebrating the attack. Progressive governments in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico offered little more than rhetorical condemnation. The strategic support from Russia and China, while significant in preceding years, proved insufficient to deter imperial aggression and has also been primarily rhetorical. Each country has its own strategic military priorities. Direct intervention also poses the risk of a world war, and given their great distance, they would not have military forces in the region to sustain such a conflict.

The agreements taking shape between Caracas and Washington represent a bitter but necessary compromise. Under its terms, Venezuela has granted the United States significant control over its oil exports, returning to a licensing model similar to that previously operated by Chevron and other companies before the tightened blockade. After acquiring their licenses, foreign oil companies will no longer have to give a majority stake to the state as with previous joint ventures; taxes will be reduced, and they are free to sell their oil on the foreign market without selling to Venezuela’s state-owned company PDVSA. Instead, the US Energy Department has begun marketing Venezuelan crude with the assistance of commodity traders and banks, and Washington has claimed the authority to determine which companies may participate in rebuilding the country’s energy infrastructure. Under this arrangement, for the first time in decades and without any say in it, Venezuelan oil is reportedly even being shipped by foreign tankers to Israel — a country with which it has no relations whatsoever.

In exchange, Venezuela has gained access to revenue from its oil sales through two sovereign wealth funds overseas, effectively controlled by the US. These funds, while subject to US oversight, provide something the country has been denied for years under the sanctions regime: resources for investments in health, education, and infrastructure. The arrangement is exploitative and humiliating, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has openly described it as the US “taking all the oil.” But it keeps the Venezuelan state alive.

Is this a negation of Venezuela’s sovereignty over its oil decision-making? To some extent, yes. But core features of the agreement do correspond to Venezuela’s long-term desire to rebuild its oil exports to the United States, and resemble what Maduro himself was reportedly offering in negotiations with the Trump administration. This included an offer to reopen to US oil exploitation and ownership in exchange for the removal of sanctions. This also corresponds to the reporting of Brazilian journalist Breno Altman. Based on discussions with Maduro’s son, Nicolas Maduro Guerra, Altman reported: “[Maduro] is informed, and his message is always one of support for the Acting President, Delcy Rodríguez.”

The fact of the matter is that Venezuela’s oil infrastructure was built primarily to service the US market, and US refinery infrastructure in the US south was largely built to process Venezuela’s crude. From a purely economic standpoint, these countries remain natural trading partners despite ideological opposition. Even under Chávez, the US bought 60% of Venezuela’s oil exports for a great deal of his presidency, and this constituted the majority of the country’s revenue. Even the expropriation of Venezuela’s foreign-owned oil projects was adopted by Chávez not chiefly as a matter of principle but a reaction to the attempts at sabotage and the deterioration of relations with those companies who refused his terms and exited the country.

In essence, the US was already crushing the Venezuelan oil industry and to devastating effect. First the oil corporations blocked the sale of unique parts and technologies to maintain their abandoned infrastructure. Then came a decade of financial and commercial sanctions, the sequestering of its overseas accounts (some of which remains, ridiculously, in the hands of Juan Guaidó) and finally a literal oil blockade. The Venezuelan economy as a whole had been greatly impacted by this loss of revenue, with soaring inflation, a shortage of hard currency and the collapse of a range of other industries. This is the real source of Venezuela’s out-migration. By releasing billions of revenue into the Venezuelan economy, even under these unjust siege-like conditions, it will undoubtedly lead to an improvement of living conditions. Millions are expected to participate in Venezuela’s people’s consultation on March 8, voting to select 36,000 commune-led initiatives, ranging from public service renovations to economic ventures, for government funding

The agreement with the Trump administration has also led Venezuela to amnesty over 5,000 people and release thousands of prisoners. This includes approximately 800 individuals convicted of different crimes associated with overthrowing the government, including violent acts. Those convicted of murder and “grave violations of human rights” or “crimes against humanity” will not be released. This amnesty, denounced in some quarters as freeing “political prisoners,” is better understood as strategic decompression. It further removes a pretext for humanitarian intervention, isolates the most intransigent sectors of the far-right opposition, and demonstrates that the Bolivarian state retains the authority to define the approach to its own judicial processes. We can assume that the Venezuelan government also hopes this will lead to recognition from other governments in the region and the world. Since the 2024 election, the government has been unable to maintain normal political and commercial relations with most governments in the region outside Cuba, Nicaragua, and a few small Caribbean nations.

Negotiation under gunpoint: Brest-Litovsk in the Caribbean

Here the history of the Russian Revolution provides an indispensable lesson. In 1918, the young Soviet Republic faced the advancing German imperial army with a shattered military and no capacity for effective resistance. Vladimir Lenin, against the objections of the so-called “Left Communists” who demanded a “revolutionary war” to defend the whole territory, led the young revolutionary state to sign the humiliating Brest-Litovsk Treaty. That agreement ceded vast territories, including all of Ukraine, and forty percent of Russia’s industrial base to German imperialism. It was, by any measure, a massive defeat.

Lenin’s critics called this a betrayal of the revolution, and especially of all the workers, peasants, and oppressed nationalities in the ceded territories who had fought and sacrificed everything in 1917, only to be returned to capitalism in the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty.

Yet Lenin understood what his critics did not: the goal was not to die beautifully but to preserve the political instrument of revolution. As the late Comandante Hugo Chávez reflected after the failure of the 1992 rebellion, “We must retreat today to advance tomorrow.” The treaty provided the breathing space necessary to consolidate the Soviet state, build the Red Army, and ultimately defeat not only the German Empire but the combined forces of counterrevolution and foreign intervention. Those who denounced Lenin as a traitor in 1918 were proved wrong by history. The ceded territories all ended up back in the USSR a few years later.

Still, this was not the end of retreats and compromises. Dealing with conditions of famine caused primarily by the civil war, Lenin accepted humanitarian aid from US capitalist charities, established relations with the countries that had just invaded it, and re-established deep economic and commercial ties to German imperialism. Abandoning “war communism,” he guided the state towards the mass reintroduction of capitalist property relations and invited foreign companies. This laid the groundwork, for instance, for the Soviet state to sign agreements with Ford Motor Company (led by fascist sympathizer Henry Ford) to set up shop.

What the government, through Delcy Rodríguez, executes today should be seen in this light. Seated across from US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, receiving CIA Director John Ratcliffe in Miraflores, these are not acts of capitulation but of survival under conditions of extreme duress. Whether she smiles or exchanges the same ceremonial welcome afforded to other state visits is irrelevant. The goal is to give up what can be temporarily sacrificed, oil control, market access, even 800 people convicted of violent crimes, to preserve what cannot be replaced: the revolutionary state, the party, and the lives of its leading cadres who have played an indispensable role in cohering the Bolivarian project as a whole. With that foundation preserved, a retreat now can become a step forward later.

Claim #3: In foreign relations, the Venezuelan leadership has abandoned its historic anti-imperialism.

The so-called “evidence”

When US-Israeli forces attacked Iran on February 28, 2026, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry issued a carefully worded statement that, while condemning the aggression, also condemned the “undue” reprisals carried out by Iran against the Gulf states hosting US bases. The statement was later deleted.
Delcy Rodriguez posted a statement that expressed “solidarity” with Qatar after a phone call with its Emir, a close US ally. No statements of solidarity were issued with Iran.

The reality: Venezuela remains under the gun and wants to preserve its Qatari relationship

This criticism forgets that the Qatar relationship has played a particularly important role for Venezuela in recent years. Qatar has actually hosted Venezuela’s sovereign wealth funds and therefore controls Venezuela’s access to its own oil revenue there. Qatar was also the mediator and host of the last rounds of US-Venezuela negotiations. Venezuela had publicly thanked Qatar in particular for its role in securing the release of political prisoner Alex Saab from US prisons.

More than anything, this criticism forgets that Venezuela remains under the direct threat of American annihilation. Every word and statement remains under the tightest scrutiny, with the highest stakes. CIA Director Ratcliffe has personally warned Venezuelan officials that any deals will be off the table if it serves as a “safe haven” for US adversaries. In such a situation, diplomacy is not a profession of genuine faith but an instrument for preserving sovereign existence.

The formal close relations between Caracas and Tehran remain intact, but to proclaim solidarity with Iran against the US in this massive war would not only cut off a Qatari relationship that has become quite consequential; it would provide Washington with a pretext for a second and far more devastating series of strikes.

Who is Delcy Rodriguez really?

Much of the “betrayal” narrative has focused on the personage of Acting President Delcy Rodríguez. This lacks any real evidence, appears totally false, and is a classic tactic in US military strategy and psychological operations.

The Rodríguez family’s revolutionary credentials are etched in struggle and blood. The father of Delcy and her brother Jorge (the President of the National Assembly) was Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, a leader of the Socialist League, a Marxist-Leninist organization, which received training in Cuba. He was tortured and murdered by the Punto Fijo regime in 1976, in close coordination with the CIA when Delcy was seven years old. Both Delcy and her brother Jorge emerged from this tradition of clandestine and mass struggle for socialism. President Maduro himself was a cadre of the same organization. After Delcy Rodriguez returned to Venezuela from studies abroad, she threw herself into the Chavista movement and government alongside her brother, both of whom became top advisors to Maduro and among his most trusted negotiators and representatives in the most sensitive internal and international matters. She declared that building the Bolivarian revolution would be revenge for the murder of her father, a form of justice. To suggest betrayal among them or capitulation born of cowardice or opportunism ignores four decades of shared political formation and sacrifice.

In his first statement on January 3, Trump implied that Delcy Rodríguez had expressed a willingness to cooperate with the US and meet its demands. Some on the left believed him, interpreting this as a sign of capitulation. Her press conference that same day reaffirmed Venezuela’s sovereignty and their own demands to the US, including the release of President Maduro. The next day, after leading a meeting of the party and state leadership, during which the unity of the military was also reaffirmed, she published a message calling on the US government to work together with Venezuela towards peace and development, but on the framework of sovereignty and equality.

This statement echoed every statement made by Maduro in the past and throughout the years of tensions with the US. Maduro himself consistently called for diplomacy and direct high-level negotiation to avoid an all-out war, and had already offered to negotiate comprehensive economic agreements with the US for Venezuela’s oil and mineral resources. Any such deals would have undoubtedly been conditioned on dialing down and downplaying strategic alliances with named “US adversaries,” including Iran, Russia and China. We can presume each of these countries would understand this given that they have clearly made similar difficult tactical decisions in recent history in the service of self-preservation and national interests. Nonetheless Delcy Rodriguez has repeatedly affirmed that Venezuela will continue to develop relations with people all countries.

If the Venezuelan government under Delcy Rodriguez were to sign a similar deal to what Maduro offered, but now with Maduro kidnapped, it would not constitute treason. It does raise the question of course of why then Trump decided to kidnap Maduro at all, but this has more to do with maintaining his own “tough guy” reputation than a substantive policy difference. In the weeks before January 3, sections of the ruling-class media were especially taunting Trump as a “loser” if he came to a deal that left Maduro in power. He needed a trophy and wanted to come out looking like the strongman who could dictate terms to anyone. Trump is claiming victory, that “we’re in charge.” He’s doing so chiefly for domestic political purposes. But that does not make it so. Unable to carry out actual regime change, he is essentially using words to falsely declare “the regime is changed.”

For her part, Delcy Rodriguez has stated that the return of Maduro and Flores remain the central objective of negotiations with the US

Neutralizing the right-wing and seeking normalized relations

One unintended but significant consequence of this negotiation has been a massive political setback of the long-time US-backed opposition, which has been used to deprive Venezuela of normal international relations. María Corina Machado, who spent years calling for foreign military intervention and celebrating sanctions that devastated the Venezuelan people, has been rendered irrelevant since January 3. She has secured nothing from an administration that now deals directly with the government in Miraflores.

By establishing direct state-to-state relations based on the only commodity US imperialism truly values, oil, the Bolivarian leadership has outflanked the opposition. The United States, in its brutal pragmatism, has chosen to negotiate with the only force that actually controls territory and resources rather than with exile figures who command no real power. In their hasty retreat, Rubio and Trump went so far as to publicly discredit their handpicked opposition figure, thereby de facto recognizing the Bolivarian state as the sole governing entity. A full normalization of relations and recognition of the Venezuelan government is still a ways away, and may require even more tactical retreats and concessions, but if it takes place it will be regarded as a strategic victory for the Bolivarian project.

The task of international solidarity

For the left forces outside Venezuela, the current moment demands clarity about what solidarity means. It does not mean endorsing or defending each and every statement of the Venezuelan government, given the situation it is now operating under. But it also does not mean demanding that the Venezuelan leadership commit suicide in a gesture of revolutionary purity or honor. It does not mean echoing US propaganda about “splits” and “traitors” without evidence. It does not mean measuring every tactical decision against an abstract standard that no revolutionary project in history has ever met.

Solidarity means understanding that Delcy Rodríguez, sitting face-to-face with the representatives of an empire that has long targeted her own family, is engaged in the most difficult kind of revolutionary work: survival under conditions of maximum duress, with the future of 30 million people on the line. Her goal is to preserve a project that has transformed the Venezuelan state, restored Venezuela’s independence, instituted impressive social reforms, created a communal sector, and has held out against a sustained imperial economic, military, and political assault in a context of global isolation and an era of counter-revolution. To engage in revolutionary martyrdom in this context would achieve nothing but lead to the liquidation of the Venezuelan left and set back the Venezuelan revolution for generations.

The revolution has not ended. It has temporarily retreated, regrouped, and is fighting by other means. The breathing space purchased through these negotiations, however costly, provides the conditions for future advances.

Nicolás Maduro remains the legitimate president of Venezuela, even as he sits unjustly in a jail cell, deprived of even the ability to pay his legal fees. The oil that flows north under this agreement is not tribute but ransom, paid to secure the lives of the Venezuelan people and the continuity of the socialist state. When the correlation of forces shifts, and it will shift, Venezuela will fight to reclaim what imperialism has temporarily extracted.

The point is not to die for the revolution, but to live and make the revolution.

Reprinted from People’s Dispatch.

The Red Review | Issue #30 (Mar 2026)

The Red Review — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 23:39:58 GMT

Bring the Fight against Capitalism into the NDP

By Jasmine Peardon, Socialist Caucus candidate for federal NDP President

Tragically, the NDP has followed the path of late capitalism– a system in dismal, dangerous decline. As environmental regulation and working-class power have been attacked from above, both capitalism and the party have increasingly centralized power at the top, becoming arrogantly distant from the lives and basic needs of the working class. This process has dis-empowered activists and socialists precisely at the moment they are needed most. These evident shifts are not the product of ‘errors’ but reflect the systemic pressures operating within the party.

by Gary Porter

Mark Carney has the reputation of ‘being the smartest guy in the room.’ Every word of Carney’s celebrated speech in Davos was written by him personally. In the days prior to the speech, Carney met privately with a number of key European leaders. The groundwork was well prepared, evidently. Carney received a standing ovation, a rarity at Davos among the billionaire attendees and their senior political and bureaucratic appendages. Some say there have been only 3 standing ovations in the 30 year history of the World Economic Forum.

by Tyler Brittain and Tom Baker

At the age of twenty-six, Leon Trotsky played a leading role in the failed Russian revolution of 1905. While he was in jail awaiting trial, he penned a ninety page article that analyzed the social forces behind the revolution. “Results and Prospects” offered a ground breaking explanation of how a technically backward country such as Russia could produce the most advanced political result - a workers’ revolution for socialism.

by Imogen Xavier

The roots of this occasion go back to a women's conference of the Socialist International in Copenhagen in 1910, which launched International Women's Day globally in 1911. In 1978, Trotskyist parties, including the predecessor organization of Socialist Action / Ligue pour l’Action Socialiste in the Canadian state, re-launched the annual IWD. Women’s systemic subjugation, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of socioeconomic oppression are rooted in capitalism’s relentless pursuit of profit. Ultra-conservatives and religious fundamentalists seek the further subjugation of women to uphold their archaic patriarchal power structures.

by Zachariah Allister

The end of the summer break was near. I had been spinning my tires on finding a place to complete my journalism internship and with it, my journalism degree. There was just something about applying to these payless positions for corporations, that enabled the live streamed holocaust in Palestine. It just didn’t sit right with me. At this point I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to be a journalist in the current Canadian political environment. During the month of August, my dad had been encouraging me to join the Yves Engler campaign for NDP leader. He told me they were looking for video creatives to help with the communications committee and my ears perked up. I knew of Yves. I had heard Yves speak on a panel as part of his book tour for “Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy” at Wilfred Laurier University’s Waterloo campus.

by United National Antiwar Coalition

The United States has amassed a huge military presence around Iran, including an aircraft carrier group, fighter jets, and drones indicating that war is imminent. The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) is calling for popular resistance to these criminal and illegal U.S. threats to take place throughout the country. If there is a U.S. attack on Iran, we call for unified and immediate EMERGENCY RESPONSE ACTIONS across the United States and beyond. In an attempt to build internal opposition, the U.S. has used escalating sanctions and economic destabilization plans against Iran for decades. The efforts to establish a compliant regime have included military attacks, economic sabotage, and assassinations of Iran’s leaders by the United States and Israel.

by René Tamayo León

“We are living in a time when U.S. imperialism is emboldened and has once again set its sights on Cuba with increased aggression, which grows with each passing day,” denounced Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, on Friday morning during the Extraordinary Plenary Session of the Provincial Party Committee in Havana. The Head of State made an incisive analysis of the events that have unfolded in the region and the world since January 3, following the aggression against Venezuela by the U.S. government, and which now threaten the island.

by Global Green News

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s newly signed oil deal with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith — a plan to build a major interprovincial pipeline through British Columbia — has triggered an immediate and forceful warning from Wet’suwet’en land defender Marlene Hale: if the federal government pushes forward, a massive Indigenous uprising is inevitable. In an extensive interview with Global Green News, Hale criticized both Carney and Smith for advancing what she calls a “dangerous, Trump-style resource agenda” at a moment of intensifying climate catastrophe and ongoing violations of Indigenous sovereignty.

by Rezgar Omer

Since 2011, emerging from an ideological trajectory distinct from the jihadist factions within Syria, the revolution of the peoples of Northern Syria rose as a grassroots movement demanding human dignity and fundamental rights. Today, however, this experiment faces a draconian international conspiracy. Built upon the ruins of the centralized Ba’athist state through the collective participation of Kurdish, Arab, and Christian communities, Rojava presented an advanced model of “Democratic Confederalism”, proving that self-governance is possible without external intervention (Knapp, Flach, & Ayboğa, 2016). Yet, the military offensives of 2025 by the Syrian state, bolstered by Turkish coordination and the financial backing of Gulf States, particularly Qatar, have dealt a devastating blow to this project.

Bring the Fight against Capitalism into the NDP

The Red Review — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 22:09:25 GMT

My campaign for President is about bringing the fight against capitalism directly into the party’s core. It is about restoring meaningful democratic participation for voices that have been sidelined, even silenced. The party must become a vehicle for socialist and anti-imperialist movements, as well as for progressive youth, women, trans and Indigenous peoples, giving them real power in shaping its direction. This is the broader coalition we must build—one capable of advancing bold, transformative policy and committed to fighting for a more just and hopeful future.

Last year, I and 45 other researchers came together to draft the policy platform called “Capitalism Can’t be Fixed - Onward to a Socialist Future”. This product of profoundly democratic dialogue articulates policies that reflect the demands of workers, social movements, and caretakers of the planet. It calls for a radical renewal of democracy inside the party and out. My campaign for the NDP presidency advances that commitment.

A Federal Council under my leadership would champion a bold, unapologetic socialist transformation of this party and country. It would support and lead the party rank and file to organize working and oppressed people against corporate control, transfer democratic and economic power to the working class, and build a society rooted in justice, equality and solidarity.

As a young leader, I know that many of my generation do not see the NDP, or electoral politics in general, as a medium to find solutions to the structural challenges we face. As attested in the 2025 NDP Renewal Report, “young New Democrats often feel under-supported, tokenized, or sidelined in decision-making. They reported that messaging feels scripted and corporate”. The party has not been a place to develop as leaders or to exercise meaningful power. Older comrades in the party concur, and together we call for accountability and a democratic revolution in the party.

The NDP should, as a priority, strengthen its presence in workplaces and communities to develop progressive forces across the country. It should actively engage grassroots organizers, labour militants, and community leaders who are already building working-class power, and position the NDP to support and amplify their efforts. Only by rooting itself in social movements and in the broader struggle against capitalism can the NDP foster a democratic, member-driven organization capable of advancing a genuine alternative to a toxic system in decay.

Carney's “Middle Nations” Turn: No Solution for Workers

The Red Review — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 22:06:00 GMT

The speech has been the subject of analyses, commentary and significant action ever since. Many in Canada, including muddleheaded New Democrats and union brass have expressed support for Carney’s careful call to arms against US bully tactics and their resulting economic chaos. Many European and US commentators critical of Trump have commented about the incisiveness, directness and courage in Carney’s characterization of Trump’s weaponization of trade and tariffs, and his disregard for the rule of law, as a rupture in inter-imperialist relations. Carney admitted that Canada had hypocritically covered up for the violation of the so called “rule of law” imposed by the US for decades, knowing that it was applied unevenly and unfairly by the US super power. But that is over, he claimed.

Indeed, a new era has opened in which the US seeks simply to force capitalist “middle nations” to accept arbitrary, unpredictable, and often punitive and destructive trade terms. Such US policies do not result merely from Trump’s venal personality and chaotic brain, but from the increasingly urgent contradictions of the declining US empire.

Capitalist investors and infrastructure planners cannot operate in such an environment. Other options must be found. Carney suggested cooperation and agreement on trade terms and credit arrangements among “middle nations” beyond US direct control and the expansion of trade with Asia, including China. His aim is to organize middle imperialist powers to resist increasing US pressure to submit to the increasingly desperate needs of the US Empire.

Carney was speaking immediately after his very public and well-planned trips to China and Qatar. China, seeing the opportunity to help undermine the western alliance, a clear benefit to China, Russia and the global south, opened their doors to welcome Canada back after the break in relations following Canada’s arrest and lengthy detainment of Meng Wenzhou, CFO of Huawei, as per the US’ request.

Carney obtained tariff adjustments from China. The Chinese tariffs on canola and seafood are being reduced to 15%, while Canada has lowered tariffs to 6% from 100% on the first 49,000 electric vehicles from China this year, rising to 70,000 next year. 49,000 vehicles represent just over 3% of the Canadian vehicle market. Carney has negotiated trade terms with the EU on nearly the same basis as members of the EU and has negotiated credit terms with the Qatar sovereign fund for the nationwide infrastructure projects he aims to build. These include a new cross-Canada oil pipeline and the two new gas lines being built in Northern BC. Danielle Smith and the hydrocarbon billionaires have virtually nothing left to complain about with Carney at the helm.

Carney has positioned Canada as a country that is politically and financially stable, does not use tariffs and sanctions arbitrarily and whose laws and business practices are normal and reliable. Foreign investors are increasingly looking more to Canada as a place to invest rather than the US. Volkswagen recently announced it will move its large US based production facilities to Canada. Canadian business are less likely to transfer to the US and more likely to stay home.

However, Carney, a dyed-in-the-wool imperialist, strongly supports NATO and its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. In spite of his recent improvement of trade terms with China he recently responded to a reporter asking who is Canada’s worst enemy. He said it was China, without hesitation.

In fact Stephen Harper, evangelical Christian and authoritarian Prime Minister of Canada for almost a decade, has largely supported Carney’s direction. Harper has called for unity in Canada against US threats to Canada’s sovereignty and in opposition to Alberta right wing separatists and to Quebec nationalists.

Canada’s ruling class operates an extensive imperialist system of its own. In the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa, Canadian mine operators, among the biggest in the world, extract vast resources under exploitative conditions. They extract massive concessions from neo colonial governments, desperate for investment and development to build infrastructure and develop their resources. Canadian-based global corporations pay low royalties and low or no taxes. Canadian corporations operating in the global south pay low wages with low or no benefits, no job security and no concern for worker safety. The super profits are not used to serve the interest of the people of the global south. Profits are transferred to tax haven jurisdictions to avoid tax in Canada as well. It is a sordid story of exploitation, oppression and greed. Carney’s speech was aimed at defending that system from the depredations of the more powerful US empire.

The Trump administration is making crude attempts to get a piece of Canada’s profitable imperialist action and to gain access to Canada’s plentiful resources. He wants exclusive or privileged access to Canada’s potash, oil, gas, timber, uranium, electrical energy and water, and wants them at below market prices. Preferably, he would like to add Canada’s vast resources and highly educated and skilled working class to the United States polity and subject to American law. The American capitalists would then strip Canadian workers of hard-won rights and benefits such as Medicare, dental care, abortion rights, paid holidays, paid maternity/paternity leave, low-cost child care, just as American workers are denied today.

All of these measures highlight the increasing margin of manoeuvre which Canadian billionaires seek in dealing with the gradually weakening US empire. Trump says the US does not need Canada on the one hand, while insisting that Canada become the 51st state on the other hand. Canadian capitalism and with Carney’s trailblazing, other mid-sized imperialist countries are looking to ally with each other to wrest increasing independence from the jaws of the US beast.

Does this mean better times ahead for Canadian workers? Unemployment and inflation are rising; new laws designed to streamline capitalist national projects largely bypass regulatory oversight; police enforcement against Indigenous and other people protesting against such projects escalates. Carney is cutting 40,000 workers from the civil service and increasing military spending to 2% of GDP and later, he says to 5%. This vast waste of resources on weapons and wars serves to aid the fascistic Zionists, the right wing nationalist Zelenski government and to assist the US to sustain growing provocations against China in the South China Sea.

Make no mistake. Carney may squeeze out some gains in the struggle of Canadian imperialism against the efforts of US imperialism to subordinate it. But Caney cannot solve the deep unsolvable contradictions in modern capitalism, nor improve the lives of Canadian workers. Independent political action by Canadian workers in their own interests and over the objections of conservative union leaders and pro-capitalist social democratic mis-leaders in the NDP, that is the way forward.

The Dialectic of Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution

The Red Review — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 22:02:29 GMT

This 1906 booklet proved to be one of the most astonishing political breakthroughs in Marxist thinking in the 20th century. By rejecting the idea of separate historical stages - first the bourgeois-democratic one in the future Russian Revolution, he raised the possibility of transforming the democratic into a proletarian/socialist revolution in a permanent (i.e. uninterrupted) process. The Law of Uneven and Combined Development and the theory of the Permanent Revolution contained in this booklet predicted the general strategy of the October revolution in 1917 and provided key insights into other revolutionary processes in China, Indochina, Cuba, etc.

The idea of ‘permanent revolution’ actually appeared in Marx and Engels’ writings in 1850 where they insisted on an independent proletarian perspective in the unfolding German Revolution of 1848-1850: “while the democratic petty bourgeoisie want to bring the revolution to an end as quickly as possible, it is in our interest and our task to make the revolution permanent until all the propertied classes have been driven from their ruling positions, until the proletariat has conquered state power and until the association of the proletarians has progressed sufficiently far- not only in one country but in all the leading countries of the world”.

This passage contains three of the fundamental themes of Trotsky’s Results and Prospects:

1. the uninterrupted development of the revolution in an underdeveloped country leading to the conquest of power by the working class,

2. the need for the proletarian forces in power to take anti-capitalist and socialist measures and,

3. the necessarily international character of the revolutionary process and the new socialist society, without classes or private property.

Dialectics was at the heart of the theory of permanent revolution. Trotsky’s bold views in Results and Prospects were informed by a specific understanding of Marxism, an interpretation of the dialectical materialist method, distinct from the dominant orthodoxy of the Second International, and of Russian Marxism. Examples include the concept of the unity of the opposites, his condemnation of the abstract formalist character of the Mensheviks, his viewpoint of totality - perceiving capitalism and the class struggle as a world process, the interconnectedness of the different parts of totality, his rejection of un-dialectical economism, and his rich and dialectical understanding of historical development as a pre-determined evolution. Trotsky achieved a dialectical synthesis between the universal and the particular, the specificity of Russian social formation and the world capitalist process. The theory of permanent revolution would later become the cornerstone of Trotsky’s fight against Stalin’s fatalistic theory of “socialism in one country”. Trotskyism is often described as simply anti-Stalinism, but Trotskyism’s real content ultimately lies in not what it opposes, but what it puts forward. It is clear that Trotsky’s theory was a brilliant example of applied dialectics in the analysis of new historical circumstances.

Trotsky wrote that “Dialectical training of the mind is as necessary to a revolutionary fighter as finger exercise is to a pianist, it demands approaching all problems as processes and not as motionless categories.” In other words, as with anything, dialectical training of your brain is a fluid process that will be filled with ups and downs. Learning dialectics takes patience and determination, but learning to think dialectically opens your mind to a whole new way of understanding the world.

Almost all economies today are considered capitalist economies. Most would probably agree that all capitalist states would have common characteristics, as well as being subjected to certain laws and tendencies. However, we cannot conclude that capitalist economies are identical or that they develop the same way. This would be a mistake in the form of formalism.

Formalism means taking one’s starting point from general categories and definitions, deducing particular conclusions from these, and then seeking to impose them on the observed fact; an all too common approach in politics today that leads to serious errors. In reality, nothing is ever unchanged, static, and isolated. Everything is interconnected, always in constant process of coming towards and passing away, and turning into the opposite.

Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution is without a doubt one of the most important theories of Marxism. Understanding what the permanent revolution is and how it develops is crucial for the development of the revolutionary party and for socialist revolution.

115 years of International Women’s Day: For Women’s Liberation and Socialist Revolution!

The Red Review — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 21:58:55 GMT

Women’s systemic subjugation, homophobia, transphobia, and all forms of socioeconomic oppression are rooted in capitalism’s relentless pursuit of profit. Ultra-conservatives and religious fundamentalists seek the further subjugation of women to uphold their archaic patriarchal power structures.

Trans women are women! Our most vulnerable community members must be defended not shunned; leaving sisters behind serves only to divide us! Gender diverse people, however they identify, suffer too under the yoke of misogyny. The struggle for women’s liberation and queer liberation will be fought together and won together.

- This year we honour again the Palestinian women and children victims of genocide and condemn the Zionist state’s campaign of brutal sexual violence. In conflicts around the world, including those in which the Canadian state is complicit, women are objectified and forced to suffer rape as ‘collateral damage’ in war.

- Ruling class claims that women have ‘achieved equality’ are nothing but a sick joke. On average, women in Canada are paid 12 percent less than men, who in turn have seen their wages stagnate, or decline. The wage gap is highest for disabled women of colour. In 2025,economic precarity disproportionately hits women’s quality of life and
access to basic necessities, as mothers, caretakers, and subjects of passive discrimination in the workplace.

- The latest Sustainable Development Goal 5 data shows that the world is not on track to achieve gender equality by 2030. At the present rate it will take another 286 years to close the gender gap.

- Globally one woman dies by intimate partner violence every 10 minutes; in Canada, every 6 days.

- Aboriginal women and girls suffer shameful economic and social conditions. They are systemic victims of racism, inequality, physical assault, disappearance and murder.

While trillions of dollars are wasted globally on corporate bail-outs and the military, women and girls are denied adequate education, economic opportunities, clean water, health care, women’s reproductive choice and personal security. From Canada to Palestine to Haiti, from the USA to Syria, from Europe to Congo, billions of women are denied access to contraception and abortion, pushed into and punished for engaging in sex work, denied autonomy in marriage and divorce, trafficked, assaulted, abused, and killed. All because of their gender.

To transform society and change these conditions permanently, capitalism must be
overthrown. Our demands are simple:

Enforce equal pay and employment access. Mandate better maternity/paternity leave, sick leave, and childcare sick leave for all workers. Provide universal child care and pharma care. Fund women’s social justice organizations. Decriminalize sex work. Fund emergency shelters and legal aid. Develop transformative anti-homelessness programs and build quality social housing. Fund health care, education, and social services. Legislate a $25 per hour minimum wage. No money for war. Tax the rich. For workers’, Indigenous, and community control of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Capitalism can’t be fixed!

Feminism through socialism! No socialism without feminism!

Finding a Political Home: “Capitalism Can’t be Fixed” Insurgent Socialist Campaign

The Red Review — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 21:55:19 GMT

During the month of August, my dad had been encouraging me to join the Yves Engler campaign for NDP leader. He told me they were looking for video creatives to help with the communications committee and my ears perked up. I knew of Yves. I had heard Yves speak on a panel as part of his book tour for “Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy” at Wilfred Laurier University’s Waterloo campus. His comprehensive breakdown of Canadian foreign policy was amazing. Growing up in my dad’s home, I always knew Canada wasn’t truly a force for good in the world, but Yves’ historical context and anti-imperialist analysis was what I needed.

Seven months ago, I attended one of Yves’ early campaign stops at one of my favourite coffee shops in downtown St. Catharines, ON. Yves’ speech left me feeling energized. I had never heard a prospective politician speak like him before. His opening line, “I’m running on a platform that challenges capitalism that challenges imperialism that promotes Decolonization, Degrowth and Economic Democracy.” The simple yet focused sentence encapsulated my entire political ideology. I was instantly engaged, and wanted to help. I offered my assistance as a journalism-student-intern. I felt the weight of seeking a moral internship lifted from my body and mind.

Within the next couple of weeks, I was part of the communications committee; made up of rockstar activists from across the country. I felt as though I was the new draft pick, making my debut in the NHL.

My main focus was on helping the communications committee with whatever they needed. This included sending out mass emails, video editing, website updates (including events), and social media posting. I also assisted with volunteer coordination.

I was proud to do whatever little task the campaign needed. The campaign did a great job of making everyone feel involved and important.

I gladly helped with the various zoom webinars/panel discussions. I got to meet one of my idols, and the genius behind Pink Floyd’s “The Wall,” Roger Waters. He and Yves had been named in the same civil defamation case by genocide fanatic, Dahlia Kurtz.

I also participated in many of the campaign’s public events, live and in-person. The first of which was doing video for a rally scheduled for Toronto’s St. Paul’s Anglican Church. Zionist pressure caused the church to cancel the event three days before. Despite this, the boisterous campaign rally proceeded on the front steps. With their backs to the locked church doors Yves, Mike Palecek, Rabbi David Mivisair and student organizer Sara Rasikh all spoke loudly over noisy pro-Israel disruptors that included the disreputable Meir Weinstein. This was my first time seeing such genocidal zionists in person.

Two days after, I attended the Ontario NDP convention held in Niagara Falls. I went there with the hope of watching the party do its thing - democracy in action. I arrived early on Saturday to attend the Draw the Line protest that was taking place outside the convention building. When I tried to get into the convention I was denied access, despite being a registered member. I decided I would use the washroom before leaving. A security guard quickly called for backup as me and my keffiyeh headed for the closest washroom. When I exited the bathroom, I passed several security guards as I moved towards the exit. As I approached the doors a man in a suit, with what appeared to be an RCMP pin, told me to have a nice day. I told him where he might go, using strong and simplistic language. He took offence to that and followed me out into the parking lot. He told me I had to leave the property. He then put his hands on me so as to help usher me to the area I was already walking. I started to yell and told him to get his hands off me! Naturally this caused a scene in which people who were outside participating in the Draw the Line protest assisted me in getting out of that increasingly volatile situation.

This situation really opened my eyes. The NDP brass had shown me what they were willing to do to party members who they saw as threatening. If the NDP were happy to enact violence on an activist member, what were they willing to do to members who wanted to challenge the status quo?

On Nov. 14, 2025, the campaign held another rally in Toronto. The hall was packed with about 200 people. By this point I could no longer deny it, I was a socialist! I readily signed Socialist Action’s contact list. I could no longer align myself with social democrats as it were. Rebooting the NDP through Yves Engler and later Bianca Mugyenyi’s anti-capitalist campaigns would be the last ditch effort to reinvigorate the only mass Labour oriented electoral party in Canada. They were the only candidates talking about expropriation of the Epstein class, of shutting down the tar sands, landback, of building a socialist future rooted in justice, equality and solidarity.

Not only was Yves able to quickly raise the outrageous $100,000 entry fee, but Bianca was able to do it in a fraction of the time. Even though neither of them was deemed acceptable as leadership contestants by the secret 3 person vetting committee, the policy that they put forth, struck terror in the heart of the NDP brass. It was clear to me that they knew there was significant hunger amongst NDP members for real change.

During the course of the campaign we observed leadership contestants shift their meagre policy platforms ever so slightly to the left in response to the campaign’s Capitalism Can’t Be Fixed, Onward to a Socialist Future policy book. Heather McPherson’s “National Housing Emergency Plan” called for an “end to corporate control of housing” in response to Yves’ call to convert Canada’s Real Estate Investment Trust into Housing Cooperatives.

Recently, Yves decidedly used strong language to call out Lewis’s support for NATO, calling him a “warmonger”. This sparked major discourse over Canadian militarism and NATO involvement. Previously, Lewis stated that, “Canada should continue providing the defence assistance that Ukraine needs to protect its sovereignty.” Just a few days ago, Lewis has come out and said in an interview published by The Islands Grapevine and posted on X, that he doesn’t believe Canada should even be spending 2% GDP on our military, let alone the “destructive and nihilistic” 5% target that NATO wants.

One of the major successes of the campaign was exposing the NDP’s undemocratic secret three-person vetting committee. Since both Bianca and Yves were vetted out, other candidates have spoken out. McPherson calls for “faster, clearer vetting,” in her platform. McPherson also stated in an article published by the National Post that “she wouldn’t stand in the way of Engler jumping into the race.” Lewis stated he was “disappointed” after reviewing the reasons for Yves’ disqualification. Tony McQuail has stated that the “vetting process lacks transparency,” and was “concerned” over Bianca’s exclusion for allegedly being Yves’ ‘proxy’ candidate.

While it doesn’t seem like the NDP will truly be a force for socialism in the coming years, it certainly seems like the party can be pressured to move further to the left than it’s been in recent years. And it’ll have to, if it wants to see a resurgence at the next Federal election. Capitalism can’t be fixed! Onward to Winnipeg! Onward to a Socialist Future!

Stop US War on Iran

The Red Review — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 21:51:01 GMT

The United States has amassed a huge military presence around Iran, including an aircraft carrier group, fighter jets, and drones indicating that war is imminent.

The United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) is calling for popular resistance to these criminal and illegal U.S. threats to take place throughout the country.

If there is a U.S. attack on Iran, we call for unified and immediate EMERGENCY RESPONSE ACTIONS across the United States and beyond.

In an attempt to build internal opposition, the U.S. has used escalating sanctions and economic destabilization plans against Iran for decades.

The efforts to establish a compliant regime have included military attacks, economic sabotage, and assassinations of Iran’s leaders by the United States and Israel. The U.S. has now brought one of the largest concentrations of military power the world has seen to surround Iran, a country of 90 million people.

In the words of Donald Trump, regime change against the Iranian state would be, “the best thing that could happen”.

During the recent 12-day war by Israel, fully backed by the U.S., Iran showed that it could defend itself and respond with its own military force. Now, with the aid of Russia and China, and regional resistance forces, Iran has significantly greater potential for retaliation. An attack by the U.S. could lead to war throughout the entire region.

We encourage all forces to issue statements, rally forces, and prepare to oppose this criminal assault.

Reprinted from UNAC, Mar 1, 2026.

Cuba’s Response to Donald Trump’s Threat of War

The Red Review — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 21:46:37 GMT

The Head of State made an incisive analysis of the events that have unfolded in the region and the world since January 3, following the aggression against Venezuela by the U.S. government, and which now threaten the island.

Faced with imperialism’s aggression against Cuba, whose direct lines of action have been clearly announced by Trump, Marco Rubio, and other spokespeople for that government, “we,” Díaz-Canel said, “have to be prepared, and we are preparing ourselves.”

The president explained that these lines of action consist, first, of total suffocation, continuing economic pressure, as reflected in the decisions announced Thursday by Trump on the blockade through tariffs on oil supplies to Cuba, and second, military aggression.

He recalled the comments made by the White House occupant in early January, after the aggression against Venezuela and the kidnapping of its legitimate president, when he said that not much more pressure could be exerted on Cuba and that what had to be done was to go in and destroy the place.

The first of these comments, when he said “I don’t think much more pressure can be exerted” against Cuba, Díaz-Canel pointed out, is confirmation of the extreme levels of pressure of all kinds that have been exerted on our country, although, indirectly, Trump has had to acknowledge that we have resisted.

They “have applied all the pressure they can, and here we are. And that statement, made with such arrogance, debunks the lie that Cuba is a failed state, because they have had to acknowledge that the fundamental cause of the economic crisis the country is experiencing has to do with that pressure, which they themselves describe as maximum.”

With this statement, the First Secretary added — Trump has also had to acknowledge that there is nothing left to deprive and block the Cuban people of, and now, with the executive order to impose tariff sanctions on those who supply us with oil, they want to deprive us of fuel, something necessary for any country to develop its economy, to develop its life, and “we must see,” he denounced, “with what malice, with what perversity, they are proposing this policy.”

Regarding the second part of Trump’s comments earlier this month, when he said that with Cuba, the only option left is to “go in and destroy the place,” Díaz-Canel pointed out that this is “a phrase that provokes outrage and popular revulsion because it implies the ruthless massacre of our country.”

The head of state condemned “the unveiling of the annexationist swarm” that is euphorically celebrating Trump’s executive order to block our access to oil on social media.

Imperialism, he emphasized later, “is concerned about the example of Cuba, what Cuba can do without the blockade, what another type of model, another type of construction, another type of popular empowerment can mean for the world, which, even under blockade, has had social results in 65 years that the United States does not have.”

Díaz-Canel analyzed the elements that are facilitating or imposing the behavior of the current U.S. administration.

He spoke about the updating of the Monroe Doctrine with the Trump corollary and the criterion of imposing peace through the use of force, although, he noted, we must see what that peace is, because wherever force has been applied, in all the conflicts in which the United States is involved, there is no peace; what there is is chaos. By using force, he stressed, the US is crushing the concept of multilateralism that is defended by most of the world.

Díaz-Canel asserted that “when an empire is in decline, it is totally irrational,” and what can be expected from it is “a reaction of arrogance, bullying, blackmail, pressure, coercive measures, violence, slander, and lies.”

EMPIRE OF EVIL

The President returned to his assessment of the Empire’s military invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro Moros and his wife Cilia Flores.

This aggression, he recalled, was preceded by an intense campaign of economic, political, and propaganda pressure that intensified beginning in September 2025 and the largest U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean area in more than 20 years.

The way in which the aggression against Venezuela was structured, the Caribbean leader commented, also contains elements of the war we are facing, because this, he emphasized, is also an ideological war, a cultural war, and a media and communications war.

“Ideological, because what is being imposed here is the hegemony of an empire and its desire to conquer and dominate the world. And it is a hegemony that responds to the great imperialist powers and responds to the rich minorities of the world.

“It is a cultural war because, in order to conquer the world hegemonic ally, it is necessary to break each people’s relationship with their culture and their historical roots so that people see their values and history as obsolete and then accept the patterns that imperialist hegemony wants to impose.”

In the media sphere, the dignitary exposed the multiple communication matrices that were generated from the Empire’s propaganda platforms, including social media, to shape public opinion that would justify what they were going to do next, which intensified starting last September.

Then, following the thread of events, came the pressure, the naval blockade, the illegal bombing of ships allegedly involved in drug trafficking, the blockade on hydrocarbons and the hijacking of oil tankers, and finally, the invasion and kidnapping of the legitimate president of a country and his wife to try them illegally in another country.

And these, Díaz-Canel denounced, “are the same pretexts that are already being constructed against us to justify an aggression against Cuba, to justify coercive measures, to continue increasing pressure against Cuba.”

We are facing an imperial doctrine that also has its sights set on Greenland and Iran; in other words, he said, we are facing a stark imperialist and fascist aggression in which the president of the Empire is behaving like Hitler, with a criminal policy of contempt that aims to take over the world.

SURRENDER WILL NEVER BE AN OPTION

Delving deeper into the threats looming over Cuba, Díaz-Canel pointed out: “Now they are deluded into thinking that the days of the Revolution are numbered, that we are going to collapse under our own weight, that they are going to suffocate us, and that is, once again, an expression of imperial arrogance.”

It is an illusion that contrasted with the reaction of the Cuban people to the aggression against Venezuela on January 3. A people, he recalled, that “reacted with indignation, with patriotism, against imperialism and with unity.”

During the aggression, he recalled, “the Cubans fought and fought hard, confronting elite U.S. forces that had rehearsed an operation to kidnap the president in a matter of minutes, with superior manpower, superior technology, superior weaponry, drones, a sophisticated deployment of technology, and tremendous firepower.”

One day, Díaz-Canel emphasized, we will have to recognize how much the courage and example of the 32 Cubans who fell fighting the US invasion of Venezuela contributed to everything that is happening and everything that may happen in the future. And the Empire, he said, has to calculate “what an attack on Cuba would cost it.”

That is why, he said, our premise will continue to be to prepare ourselves to move forward even when aggression and restrictions become more acute. “Surrender will never be an option,” the Cuban president assured, “and hard times like these must be faced with courage and bravery.”

“Our Party, the State, the Government, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Ministry of the Interior, and the united people are prepared to face any additional blockade measures and any military threat or aggression with the same courage and determination as the 32 Cuban combatants who fell heroically on January 3 in Venezuela,” he emphasized.

In view of the growing aggressiveness of the United States, the First Secretary said that an international complaint will be made in all possible forums about this new coercive measure and that work will continue with friendly countries and the international community.

“We,” said the president, “are a country of peace. Even in the midst of all this aggression and the blockade of all these years, we have said that we have the capacity and willingness to dialogue with the U.S. government. The thing is, dialogue cannot take place under pressure. Dialogue must be on equal terms, with respect, and without preconditions.”

Source: Granma, January 31, 2026.

Wet’suwet’en Activist Marlene Hale Warns Carney About Alberta Oil Deal: “There Will Be an Uprising”

The Red Review — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 21:41:06 GMT

In an extensive interview with Global Green News, Hale criticized both Carney and Smith for advancing what she calls a “dangerous, Trump-style resource agenda” at a moment of intensifying climate catastrophe and ongoing violations of Indigenous sovereignty.

“They made an example of our people of what lies ahead — not just in BC or Alberta, but for Indigenous people all around the world,” Hale said.

Context: The Previous Wet’suwet’en Resistance

Hale is referring to the 2019–2020 Wet’suwet’en conflict, when RCMP carried out militarized raids on unceded Wet’suwet’en territory to force through the Coastal GasLink pipeline despite the clear opposition of hereditary Chiefs. The raids — involving snipers, helicopters, and exclusion zones — sparked nationwide solidarity blockades, rail shutdowns, and international scrutiny of Canada’s colonial policing.

For Hale, that history is not distant: it is a warning of exactly how the Carney government will respond again.

Carney and Smith: “Appeasing Trump-style politics”

Hale reacted sharply to the decision by the prime minister to align himself with Smith’s fossil fuel expansion plans.

“I believe both of them are there to appease Trump — we all know that,” she said. “Danielle Smith is one of the most dangerous women in Canada right now.”

For Hale, the Carney–Smith pipeline deal represents not only a betrayal of climate leadership but also a deliberate political strategy to push federal policy sharply to the right under the guise of national energy development.

“We’re already living in a five-alarm climate emergency”

Hale described how climate disasters have escalated to the point where nearly every week brings new fires, floods, or extreme weather alerts.

She noted that Canada is already in a ‘five-alarm warning’ scenario — and yet the federal government is doubling down on fossil fuel expansion.

The pipeline as a blueprint for future repression

Hale warned that the Carney government is following the same political model used against the Wet’suwet’en: push fossil fuel expansion at all costs and treat Indigenous opposition as a policing issue rather than a rights issue.

“Environmental assessment is not for the people anymore… they just get a slap on the wrist.”

A coastal confrontation: “The biggest fight you will ever see”

If the pipeline reaches BC’s coastline, Hale warned that the fight will escalate dramatically.

“You will have the biggest fight in your hands with all the Chiefs along the coast,” she said.

Coastal Nations have a long history of resisting tanker expansion, protecting salmon, and defending old-growth forests. Hale argues that the Carney–Smith deal places the federal government directly in conflict with these longstanding Indigenous movements.

She warned that the state is already escalating its policing tactics, pointing to recent violent arrests of peaceful Palestine protesters in Vancouver as a sign of what’s to come. “They are putting the message out there that they are coming out very strong. But we have to come out even stronger.”

A warning to Prime Minister Carney

Hale’s message is direct: if Ottawa attempts to force a new pipeline through Indigenous lands, Canada will face a wave of resistance far larger than the Wet’suwet’en uprising of 2019, and the public must be prepared for the government’s response.

As Prime Minister Carney moves ahead with his deal, Hale urges Canadians and international observers to pay close attention to what unfolds next. The government’s pipeline ambitions have set the stage for a pivotal confrontation over Indigenous rights, climate survival, and the future of civil liberties in Canada. Whether Carney chooses escalation or dialogue, and whether the country chooses repression or reconciliation, will shape the political landscape for years to come. For Hale, one thing is certain: the world will be watching what happens next on Wet’suwet’en land, and so should we.

Reprinted from Global Green News, December 8, 2025.

Rojava and the Geopolitics of Betrayal

The Red Review — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 21:32:35 GMT

Built upon the ruins of the centralized Ba’athist state through the collective participation of Kurdish, Arab, and Christian communities, Rojava presented an advanced model of “Democratic Confederalism”, proving that self-governance is possible without external intervention (Knapp, Flach, & Ayboğa, 2016). Yet, the military offensives of 2025 by the Syrian state, bolstered by Turkish coordination and the financial backing of Gulf States, particularly Qatar, have dealt a devastating blow to this project. By contracting the geography of the revolution into two isolated, besieged enclaves, the powers involved have weaponized the deprivation of water, food, electricity, medicine, and the internet. As reported in recent diplomatic appeals, these are indicators of a campaign to liquidate a population in silence and darkness (Ehmed, 2026).

The New Face of ISIS: State-Engineered Reaction

According to political observers, what we are witnessing today is a systematic effort to permanently eradicate this democratic entity. Behind the curtain of the Washington-Ankara “understandings,” the cause of Northern Syria has been commodified. High-level analysis suggests that the Rojava experience is now being treated by global powers as an “expired” asset, sacrificed to reintegrate a unitary Syrian state (Barrack, 2026).

This shift coincides with the region becoming a violent theater for energy corridor control. Human dignity and democratic achievements are being marginalized by insatiable economic interests. This is most evident in the “New ISIS”, a synthesis of former jihadist groups now reorganized within the framework of the Syrian state apparatus. While the original Caliphate was an imperialist-manufactured eruption, its current iteration bears the fingerprints of a regional conspiracy intended to redraw the map for new geopolitical ambitions.

The Proxy Trap and the Ghost of Afrin

The tragedy of Rojava lies in a foundational contradiction: the tension between its internal project of liberation and its temporary alignment with U.S. strategy. As Edward Hunt argued in Jacobin, the U.S. military partnership with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was never an endorsement of Rojava’s anti-capitalist foundations; Washington viewed the Kurds merely as “proxies” whose egalitarian experiments were a nuisance to be tolerated only as long as they served the “War on Terror” (Hunt, 2018).

The current retreat toward a centralized Syrian state fulfills a long-standing U.S. desire to replace revolutionary leadership with an “obedient” alternative. This betrayal is the fruit of the silence that began in 2018 during the invasion of the Afrin canton. When a pluralistic society was transformed into a field of ethnic cleansing, the world remained silent. Afrin served as a laboratory for the demographic engineering and systematic dismantling of secular, feminist politics we see today (openDemocracy, 2018).

The Sociological Miracle: Rebuilding the Subject

Despite being besieged by state armies and abandoned by former “allies,” the resistance in Kobani and the northern cantons persists. The secret of this movement lies in a rare “sociological reconstruction” of the human being that enables resistance under the most grueling conditions.

Before Rojava was a military force, it was a philosophical and social strategy. Their technique centered on developing human capability at the individual and communal levels, teaching us that the rebuilding of the “political subject” must precede the building of institutions (Knapp, Flach, & Ayboğa, 2016). When we see the people of Kobani and Hasakah region standing against state armies, we are seeing a “collective will” that transcends conventional political definitions.

The Ceasefire and Peace Agreement

The agreement signed on January 30^th between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian government is essentially a compromise rather than a capitulation (Hubenko 2026). It represents perhaps the only viable tactic for survival at this moment. The forces arrayed against the SDF include not only the Syrian army, but also a coalition of regional states that have officially declared their support for Damascus. Furthermore, international organizations have effectively refused to invoke their own laws to protect the region from the threat of genocide, a threat that remains imminent, especially as recent events have resulted in the resurgence of ISIS and its ideology.

Bolstered by the most progressive elements of Kurdish society in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and the diaspora, and supported by sections of the global Left, the SDF insists on the “survival of its project.” This is pursued not only through a disciplined military defense adapted to this harsh geopolitical siege, but also by signaling the catastrophic consequences of the project’s total collapse. In areas where the SDF is no longer present, security has completely disintegrated: tribal wars over plunder, clashes between clans and the Syrian army over oil revenues, and ISIS revenge attacks against certain Arab tribes all serve as a grim preview of the chaos that waits as the only alternative. It is abundantly clear that if the SDF project is liquidated, the hope for a multi-ethnic and non-sectarian Middle East will be extinguished with it.

Conclusion: A Choice for the Global Left

If Rojava falls in 2026, it marks the final collapse of the “right to have rights” in the face of global capital. The international community, and specifically the Western Left, must recognize that their governments’ “neutrality” is a moral retreat. Furthermore, the Left must escape the lethal stereotype that dismisses Rojava as a “U.S. proxy”, a logic that fails to analyze the reality of Turkey and the Gulf states supporting a New Syrian Army that carries the exact same ideology as Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Rojava proved that feminism, ecology, and democracy are universal human possibilities. If this experience is traded for Qatari gas and Turkish hegemony, it proves that “democracy” in the 21st century is merely a conditional privilege. The struggle in Rojava is a challenge to the global conscience: is our commitment to liberation authentic, or is it a discourse that lasts only until a more profitable contract arrives?

The Red Review | Issue #29 (Feb 2026)

The Red Review — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 23:13:47 GMT

We Cannot Back Down

by Bianca Mugyenyi

ICE agents have just killed another individual in cold blood in Minneapolis. A day after a general strike in the city sparked by ICE’s assassination of Renee Nicole Good, Trump’s goons have repeatedly shot another person. These killings reflect the growing danger of racist authoritarianism in the United States. This directly impacts Canadians. Around 100 Canadian citizens, including children, are reportedly in ICE detention. We’re seeing increased demonization of migrants in this country. Two weeks ago, the Canada First Movement organized “Stop Mass Immigration” rallies in Toronto and Ottawa. The protests called to “Start Mass deportations” and “Close our borders”. Right wing protesters have been calling to “Bring ICE to Canada”.

by Helen Smith

Since its electoral victory in July 2024, winning 411 seats out of 650 in the House of Commons, the British Labour Party has yielded many lessons. Millions of people, fed up with 14 years of austerity under 5 successive Tory prime ministers, voted for what they hoped would be an end to Tory rule. They voted for Labour’s promises to strengthen the economy, renationalize the railways, rebuild the National Health Service, and repeal the pensioners’ fuel allowance cuts. However, a serious look at the Labour 2024 campaign manifesto showed that the incoming government would be a Tony Blair-style Labour government. According to a recent YouGov poll after a year and a half in office, only 1 in 6 Britons view Prime Minister Starmer favourably. Even fewer have a positive opinion of the Chancellor of the Ex-Chequer.

by Gary Porter

Greenland’s Inuit history began with waves of migration from North America, featuring early cultures like the Saqqaq (c. 2500 BCE) and Dorset, culminating in the arrival of the ancestral Thule people around 1000 CE, the direct ancestors of today’s Greenlandic Inuit (Kalaallit). They mastered marine hunting and established traditions that continue despite Norse settlement and centuries of Danish colonization, focusing on deep connection to the Arctic environment for survival. Temporary Norse settlements led by Eric the Red arrived in in 982 CE, but faded away around 1500 CE. Greenland has a population of 57,000 in the southwest glacier free area. Of these 50,000 are Indigenous Inuit.

by Socialist Action

Stop the U.S. Assault and Canadian complicity. The naked U.S. counter-revolutionary offensive against Venezuela and Latin America will be repelled by global mass protests and by militant self-defence. The future is for the working class of the hemisphere to decide, free of foreign coercion. The answer to imperialist war and plunder is socialist revolution, commencing with demonstrations and labour strikes against the capitalist monsters. On December 16, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a “total and complete blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela. On January 3, 2026, U.S. forces struck targets in Venezuela and seized President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, transporting them to New York to face concocted drug charges.

by Imogen Xavier

As socialists fundamentally striving for a society that does away with the need for surplus labour, automation can be a utopian prospect. This popular vision of so called “fully automated luxury communism” presents a scenario in which it is easy to envision generative AI as a useful and productive tool that erases white-collar administrative work. It is tempting then to see gen-AI as yet another technology ill-employed by capitalists, like smartphones and computers before. There are however important differences between these technologies on which grounds gen-AI as it exists today should be completely disallowed and disconnected from in the modern socialist movement. The reasons for prohibition of conventional gen-AI fall into economic, ethical, and philosophical categories.

by Isaac Peltz

François Legault and his government have launched the most anti-democratic, anti-union laws in modern Quebec history. He might not have been as ready to fight this battle as he claimed. When Premier François Legault said he was ready for war with Quebec’s unions, he may not have expected them to be as prepared as they were. During a cabinet shuffle this fall, Legault declared his intention to “modernize the union system.” The backlash was immediate across almost every sector in the province, prompting Labour Minister Jean Boulet to walk back the Premier’s remarks. Boulet’s words and his actions stood in stark contrast. Bill 3 and Law 14 (formerly Bill 89) are a historic regression on union rights since the Quiet Revolution.

by Yves Engler

Mark Carney is a ‘lying Liberal’, not a defender of international law, let alone an anti-imperialist. The prime minister’s speech in Davos reflects a long Liberal tradition of seeking to convince people to ‘judge what I say, not what I do’. At the World Economic Forum in Switzerland yesterday Carney gave a speech challenging Donald Trump and defending sovereignty. He was widely lauded for explicitly criticizing the so-called international rules-based order. Liberal Canadian politicians are adept at rhetorical flourishes and too often liberal, even left-minded people buy their snake oil. But Carney has an actual record and except for a small positive shift towards China — driven by corporate Canada — that record is highly imperialistic.

by Ramzy Baroud

“The year concludes with some somber numbers, but also much hope and the legendary sumud among ordinary Palestinians.” 2025 started and finished with two declared ceasefires in Gaza, both instantly and brutally shattered by Israel, operating with absolute, unquestioned impunity. The operational definition of a ceasefire, from an Israeli perspective, is a de facto one-sided campaign where the opposing party — be it the Palestinians or the Lebanese — is forcibly stripped of the right to fight back or defend itself. For Israel, its relentless war machine is always framed as an act of self-defense, even as the primary victims of these campaigns, as clearly evidenced by the two-year Gaza genocide, are women and children.

The Red Review

The Red Review | Issue #31 (Apr 2026)

End Canadian Complicity in War against Iran

by Yves Engler

Capitalism’s Seven Contradictions Threaten Humanity

by Gary Porter

Emergency Departments: a Refuge or a Death Sentence

by Kurt Young

Solidarity with Students - Dump Thug Ford

by Tyler Brittain

Please Support Our 2026 Fund Appeal to Raise $5,000 by May Day

by Red Review

Revolutionary Socialism in Canada: What’s Next?

by Gary Porter

The Tasks of the Proletarian Revolution “The April Theses”

by V.I. Lenin

End Canadian Complicity in War against Iran

Capitalism’s Seven Contradictions Threaten Humanity

Emergency Departments: a Refuge or a Death Sentence

Solidarity with Students - Dump Thug Ford

Please Support Our 2026 Fund Appeal to Raise $5,000 by May Day

Revolutionary Socialism in Canada: What's Next?

The Tasks of the Proletarian Revolution “The April Theses”

Tactical Retreats: Why Venezuela’s Revolution Still Stands

Claim #1: The success of the US operation on January 3 indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution.

The so-called “evidence”

The reality: Resistance in the face of overwhelming military superiority

Analysis: Overwhelming hybrid war attack could not overcome political realities

Claim 2: Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the remaining leadership have abandoned the Bolivarian project, surrendering the country, its economy and its resources to US imperialism.

The so-called “evidence”

The reality: a new correlation of forces

Negotiation under gunpoint: Brest-Litovsk in the Caribbean

Claim #3: In foreign relations, the Venezuelan leadership has abandoned its historic anti-imperialism.

The so-called “evidence”

The reality: Venezuela remains under the gun and wants to preserve its Qatari relationship

Who is Delcy Rodriguez really?

Neutralizing the right-wing and seeking normalized relations

The task of international solidarity

The Red Review | Issue #30 (Mar 2026)

Bring the Fight against Capitalism into the NDP

By Jasmine Peardon, Socialist Caucus candidate for federal NDP President

Carney’s “Middle Nations” Turn: No Solution for Workers

by Gary Porter

The Dialectic of Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution

by Tyler Brittain and Tom Baker

115 years of International Women’s Day For Women’s Liberation and Socialist Revolution!

by Imogen Xavier

Finding a Political Home: “Capitalism Can’t be Fixed” Insurgent Socialist Campaign

by Zachariah Allister

Stop US War on Iran

by United National Antiwar Coalition

Cuba’s Response to Donald Trump’s Threat of War

by René Tamayo León

Wet’suwet’en Activist Marlene Hale Warns Carney About Alberta Oil Deal: “There Will Be an Uprising”

by Global Green News

Rojava and the Geopolitics of Betrayal

by Rezgar Omer

Bring the Fight against Capitalism into the NDP

Carney's “Middle Nations” Turn: No Solution for Workers

The Dialectic of Trotsky’s Permanent Revolution

115 years of International Women’s Day: For Women’s Liberation and Socialist Revolution!

Finding a Political Home: “Capitalism Can’t be Fixed” Insurgent Socialist Campaign

Stop US War on Iran

Cuba’s Response to Donald Trump’s Threat of War

Wet’suwet’en Activist Marlene Hale Warns Carney About Alberta Oil Deal: “There Will Be an Uprising”

Context: The Previous Wet’suwet’en Resistance

Carney and Smith: “Appeasing Trump-style politics”

A coastal confrontation: “The biggest fight you will ever see”

A warning to Prime Minister Carney

Rojava and the Geopolitics of Betrayal

The Red Review | Issue #29 (Feb 2026)

We Cannot Back Down

by Bianca Mugyenyi

The British Labour Party and Lessons for Canada’s NDP

by Helen Smith

Greenland and US Imperialist Extortion

by Gary Porter

Imperialist Hands Off Venezuela

by Socialist Action

Socialism & AI: Beyond the Threat to Labour