Marxist Left Review

04/05/2026

"[T]ruth is not a luxury for the left – it’s a condition for effective anti-imperialism. Defending Venezuela from US aggression does not require defending Nicolás Maduro’s government, and conflating the two ultimately weakens both anti-war politics abroad and working-class struggles inside Venezuela. In the same way that defending Iraq and Afghanistan against US imperialism did not require giving political support to Sadam Hussein or the Taliban.

The left’s task is not to choose between imperial tutelage and authoritarian neoliberalism. It is to defend sovereignty while fighting for an independent, democratic, working-class alternative: restoring labour rights, freeing political prisoners, rebuilding unions, ending secret privatisations, and breaking with imperial capital. Maduro’s record matters here because his anti-worker, neoliberal turn did not protect Venezuela from imperialism – it made imperial domination easier. By hollowing out the Bolivarian process, repressing unions and the left, pulverising wages, and governing through opaque deals, the regime dismantled the very social forces capable of defending sovereignty from below."

Read more from "Venezuela in Trump's crosshairs: Interview with Anderson Bean" in the new issue of Marxist Left Review: https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/venezuela-in-trumps-crosshairs-interview-with-anderson-bean/

02/05/2026

"Over the last two decades the tendency on the left has been to dismiss Pauline Hanson as a “has been” and a joke. We can no longer afford that attitude. The rules of the game have decisively changed. We are in a much more volatile and threatening international political situation, with Trump in the White House and long entrenched bulwarks of the Western political establishment such as the British Tory party threatened with annihilation as much of its voter base defects to Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform UK. There are no grounds for complacency. Politics has become much more serious and the left needs to rise to the occasion and offer a clear alternative to defend working-class interests."

From more from the article "Why Pauline Hanson's rise is different from the last time" in the new issue of Marxist Left Review: https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/why-pauline-hansons-rise-is-different-from-the-last-time/

01/05/2026

"In June last year a unanimous decision was made by the Victorian Socialists’ conference to establish a nationwide organisation known as the Socialist Party. The enthusiastic welcome that this new party has received has exceeded many expectations, with over 5,500 dues-paying members after just six months, making it easily the largest socialist organisation in Australia for some decades."

Read more from article "The Australian Socialist Party: A project to transform the left" in the new issue of Marxist Left Review: https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/the-australian-socialist-party-a-project-to-transform-the-left/

30/04/2026

"Blaming migration levels diverts attention from the real reasons that we are in a housing crisis. Housing in Australia is premised on the idea that houses are merely a commodity. They are something that is bought and sold, or rented, on the capitalist market. Whether you can buy a house outright, borrow to buy one over time, or rent is determined by your income. A minimal number of crumbling Housing Commission places exist only for the poorest of the poor."

Read more from the article "How capitalism, not migrants, created Australia's housing crisis" in the new issue of Marxist Left Review: https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/how-capitalism-not-migrants-created-australias-housing-crisis/

29/04/2026

"We are now at a watershed in Australian politics, the most dramatic developments for decades. The entire political order that has governed Australia for more than a century – the alternation in government of Labor and Liberal-National parties (and their predecessors) – is crumbling. While important developments are under way on the left of politics, with the ALP’s primary vote sinking steadily, the most dramatic change has been a radicalisation of the right. Support for the Liberal Party, the preferred party of the capitalist class, has been dropping for two decades but is now collapsing.

A catalyst for this latest turn and its chief beneficiary has been One Nation, now overtaking the Coalition in the polls. With the far right pushing ahead of the established centre-right parties, Australia is now catching up with much of Europe, where centrist parties have been hammered by the far right since the 1990s. The speed at which Australia is doing so is astonishing, suggesting that processes in this direction have been under way for years but awaiting an outlet around which far-right sentiments could coalesce. One Nation has now become that outlet. Any number of developments may follow; the very future of the Liberal Party is in question."

Read more from the editorial in the new issue of Marxist Left Review: https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/editorial-australia-catches-up-understanding-one-nations-far-right-surge/

28/04/2026

The new issue of Marxist Left Review is now on our website. It has a whole host of important articles and book reviews. Check it out now at https://marxistleftreview.org/, print edition will be coming out asap.

* Editorial: Australia catches up - Understanding One Nation's far right surge

The surge of support for One Nation has shaken up Australian politics and blown apart the idea that we are immune to the advance of the far right. In this editorial Tom Bramble looks at how changes in Australian politics over decades has laid the basis for One Nation's rise.

* Why Pauline Hanson's rise is different from the last time

In this important article, Mick Armstrong compares the rise of Pauline Hanson in the 1990s and the surge for One Nation today.

* How capitalism, not migrants, created Australia's housing crisis

The feeling that migrants are the cause of the housing crisis is widespread. Right-wing politicians frequently blame “unsustainable immigration” for the lack of affordable housing. In this article Jordan Humphreys debunks this racist myth and explains how the capitalist system has entrenched housing inequality in Australia.

* The Australian Socialist Party: A project to transform the left

In June last year a unanimous decision was made by the Victorian Socialists’ conference to establish a nationwide organisation known as the Socialist Party. The enthusiastic welcome that this new party has received has exceeded many expectations. In this article Omar Hassan outlines a radical vision for the new party.

* Venezuela in Trump's crosshairs: Interview with Anderson Bean

In an interview with Marxist Left Review, Anderson Bean, provides an account of recent Venezuelan politics that cuts against both the lies of the US government and the uncritical approach of sections of the international socialist left.

* Review: Conspiracy nation: Inside Australia's far right

Priya De reviews a new book looking at the rampant conspiracism on the Australian far right.

* Review: When workers don't step up: a history of recent revolutions

Owen Marsden-Readford reviews a new book on revolutionary movements in Poland, South Africa, Iran and Brazil in the late 20th century.

* Review: The academy ruins an important history of Jewish anti-zionism

Long time socialist and radical anti-Zionist Janey Stone reviews a new book on Jewish anti-Zionism but finds it disappointing.

* Review: Has Chile changed since Pinochet?

Clara da Costa-Reidel reviews a two volume book series on the evolution of Chilean politics after the vicious coup of 1973.

03/10/2025

New article online: The rise and fall of the Palestinian Fronts

Vashti Fox looks at the history and deeply flawed politics of the Palestinian left, in particular the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and argues that a new revolutionary left needs to be built across the region.

Read more here: https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-palestinian-fronts/

15/09/2025

The new issue of Marxist Left Review is out now! Subscribers should have received their digital copy already and the physical one is on its way. The editorial and the first article are up on the website.

Please get a subscription to help us promote socialist politics in understanding the world today: https://marxistleftreview.org/subscribe/

15/09/2025

Omar Hassan, the editor of Marxist Left Review, discusses the impact of Trump on the world system in the editorial for the new issue:

"Trump’s first six months have dramatically transformed both US and global politics. His return to the highest office in the land was foreshadowed for some months, with the hapless figures of Biden and Harris incapable of staving off the resurrection of one the most incoherent, incompetent – and yet dangerously fascistic – figures in history."

Omar Hassan analyses the domestic and global impact of Trump’s second term, the resistance so far and the potential for further struggle.

15/09/2025

In the latest issue of the Marxist Left Review, Mick Armstrong explores the relationship between the socialist left and struggles for national liberation:

"The war on Palestine and Lebanon has sharply posed a series of theoretical and strategic questions for Marxists. What is the relationship between the struggle for national independence and the broader struggle for human liberation? What social forces have the potential to defeat Israeli colonial settler rule and its imperialist backers? Does an alliance of the working class of Palestine and the broader Arab world with bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalist forces, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, offer a way forward? What are the tasks of socialists in the imperialist heartlands? Should socialists adhere to a two-stage approach of limiting the struggle to a first stage of winning an independent capitalist nation state and then a later second stage of a struggle for socialism? Or alternatively should Marxists break with a stages approach and attempt to carry the struggle for national liberation over into a struggle for workers’ power?"

Mick Armstrong examines the record of the left in relation to national liberation struggles, showing how the class-collaborationist politics of nationalism and Stalinism have betrayed colonised peoples, and been an obstacle in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.