In this lecture from the series on imperialism today, Ilya Matveev discusses the particular character of Russian imperialism and the evolution of the Putin regime. Matveev is a political scientist formerly based in St Petersburg, Russia, and cooperator with the media-project posle.media

Most of the left in France - we'll leave aside the sectors that openly support Putin - condemns this war of aggression by Russian imperialism, and demands the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. At the same time, however, it remains paralysed and voiceless, abandoning the field of Ukraine defence to Macron, to the bourgeoisie.

Recent data shows that between 2019 and 2021, life expectancy (LE) in the US plunged almost three years while for Cuba it edged up 0.2 years. Yet, in 1960, the year after its revolution, Cuba had a LE of 64.2 years, lower by 5.6 years than that in the US (69.8 years).

Cantagallo is a well-known service station on the main north-south motorway on the outskirts of Bologna. We have stopped there many times. A journalist from the leading Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, went there on the 15 August Farragosto bank holiday. He hung around, listened and talked to people who were there. A father was there with his bored son telling him how he had one of his first meals out there when it had just opened. The son kept playing on his phone.

The victory of the Rejection option on the wording of the new Chilean Constitution has raised a number of questions for internationalists. How is it possible that the struggle for the new Constitution, that was demanded by the mass popular revolt of 2019 and which was followed by a resounding victory of almost 80% in the first plebiscite that opened the constitutional process, achieved only 38% popular approval a short time later?

What one year ago seemed like it would be a formality to ratify the constitutional process ended up being a crushing defeat for progressive Chilean forces. The Rechazo (reject) vote beat the Apruebo (approve) vote by nearly 25 percentage points in a referendum with mandatory voting—in contrast to recent elections—and record turnout. Rechazo groups celebrated the win against “revanchism” and “radical Octoberism” (a reference to the 2019 uprising) and a constitution they considered “refoundational” and contrary to “the soul of Chile” and “Chileans’ common sense.”

Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) has recently launched a campaign called ‘Pemulihan Nasional’, also known as a ‘National Rejuvenation’, aimed at providing necessary steps in order for Malaysia to rise out of the challenges brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic. We have proposed 5 pillars for this campaign and the second pillar, which focuses on introducing a job guarantee scheme, will be elaborately broken down in this article.

Much of the knowledge, and especially that which comes from academia and media, is extremely problematic. It is often too empirical, lacking the ability to provide general explanations of phenomena under study.

How has the war (once again) made the Russian Communist Party a conservative force? Why should the left in Russia participate in municipal elections? Will mass political movements appear in Russia? Activist and professor of sociology Aleksandra Zapolski and co-founder of the “Nomination” platform and Moscow State University lecturer Mikhail Lobanov share their predictions ahead of the September elections.

Tara Bilous is a Ukrainian socialist, editor of the left-wing publication Commons: Journal of Social Criticism, and an activist with the organization Sotsyalnyi Rukh (“Social Movement”). After Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, Bilous signed up for the Territorial Defense Forces.

Vera Iastrebova, a Donetsk lawyer and labor movement activist, reported on social media on February 26 that mothers and wives in the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” were desperately seeking ways to protect their menfolk from compulsory mobilization in the now-unfolding war.