As the World Socialist Web Site has explained, the second election of Trump represented “the violent realignment of the American political superstructure to correspond with the real social relations that exist in the United States.” Trump, himself a billionaire, heads a government of, by and for the financial oligarchy, with the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, overseeing measures to slash $1 trillion by firing federal workers and cutting the social benefits provided by the federal government.
It would make far more sense, from the standpoint of the working class, to oppose the Trump-Musk cuts with demands to seize the $1 trillion in additional wealth accumulated by just 19 super-billionaires in 2024 alone. More fundamentally, the entire wealth of the capitalist class, the trillions produced by the labor of the working class, should be expropriated to provide the basis for the socialist reorganization of economic life under a workers’ government.
🟊🟊🟊🟊🟊
In recent weeks, the World Socialist Web Site has published several important commentaries on the American Revolution and the Civil War. These have been occasioned by anniversaries, but there is a more fundamental significance. Workers in the United States must learn the lessons of history. The first American Revolution of 1775-83 proclaimed the equality of man. The Civil War, the second American Revolution, acted on that principle by putting an end to slavery. This meant, in practice, depriving the slaveowners of their property, that is, their revolutionary expropriation.
There can be no solution to the great social problems of the contemporary United States without the expropriation of the billionaires.
The workers’ grievances include the county’s refusal to grant wage increases that match the soaring cost of living; chronic understaffing and overwork; rampant outsourcing to private contractors that extract handsome corporate profits at the expense of workers; unsafe working conditions, especially during the pandemic; and the complete disregard for their role as frontline staff who risked and, in some cases, lost their lives to COVID-19.
3. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis (1936-2025)
The media’s canonization of Bergoglio as the “Father of the poor,” “Man of the people,” and the “Progressive Pope” aims to place a last coat of “democratic” and “modern” varnish on the Catholic Church as it grants its blessing to the ruling elites’ global turn to fascist and dictatorial forms of rule.
Speaking at the White House Easter Egg Roll Monday, the American would-be Führer called Bergoglio “a good man.” In a clear affront against the separation of church and state, Trump said, “We’re bringing religion back in America” as he ordered US and state flags flown at half-mast across the country.
There can be no reformist or national solution to a deepening breakdown of the global capitalist system, of which the US-China rivalry is a malignant expression.
Death row in America is overwhelmingly populated by the poor, the mentally incompetent, and those of African American, Latino or immigrant backgrounds. As is the case with so many of the individuals sentenced to death in the US, there was no consideration given to Mendoza’s mental state, or any investigation of what in his background may have driven him to commit [his] brutal crime.
The Harvard lawsuit highlights an emerging conflict between major US universities and the fascist agenda of the Trump administration. The attack on Harvard is part of an across-the-board attack on universities which the White House has accused of being overrun by “radical Left and Marxist maniacs.”
Termed Balikatan, or shoulder-to-shoulder, the exercises are the 40th iteration of the annual war games. Balikatan exercises used to involve domestic operations, largely targeting the Muslim population of the southern island of Mindanao. They were, in a sense, colonial affairs. Over the past decade, this character has utterly changed. Discreetly at first, now openly and explicitly, Balikatan has turned into joint preparations for war with China.
Every day, scenes reminiscent of 1930s Nazi Germany or Cold War-era US-backed Latin American dictatorships are unfolding across the United States. Immigrants, legal residents, tourists— even US citizens— are being arbitrarily detained and disappeared into a network of remote detention centers without due process.
In a statement published April 17, a group of humanitarian organizations including Oxfam and Save the Children published a statement warning that the “humanitarian aid system in Gaza is facing total collapse.”
The statement declared that “This is one of the worst humanitarian failures of our generation. Every single person in Gaza is relying on humanitarian aid to survive. That lifeline has been completely cut off since a blockade on all aid supplies was imposed by Israeli authorities on 2 March.”
19. Workers Struggles: Europe, Middle East & Africa
- Canary Islands:
Tourism workers strike and demonstrate for more pay
- Finland:
Government employees strike for pay increase
- United Kingdom:
Scottish Water workers strike over pays
UK civil servants strike over office closures
Train drivers at Hull Trains strike over colleague's dismissal
- Iran:
Protests by workers and retirees continue
- Nigeria:
Striking teachers and council workers protest
Meteorological workers begin indefinite strike
- South Africa:
Strike ballot at Transnet ports and freight company over pay
20. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
Internationally, major artistic figures such as Roger Waters and Ai Wei Wei as well as historians such as Mario Kessler and Christian Gerlach have supported the campaign to free Bogdan Syrotiuk. Many political tendencies have also condemned his imprisonment and called for his release, despite their political differences with the Trotskyist movement. These include Jill Stein from the Greens in the United States, and several groups and websites in Russia and Turkey. Most recently, the website of the Socialist Laborer Party in Turkey, and that of the Partisan Defense Committee, which is affiliated with the Spartacist tendency, have issued statements in support of Bogdan.
21. San Francisco, California city legal resources for immigrants needing help
22. Please Join an International Online May Day Rally!
On Saturday, May 3, the International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site will hold an annual International Online May Day Rally, uniting workers from across the globe in the fight against fascism, dictatorship, and war.
The return of Donald Trump to office marks a turning point in the global crisis of capitalism. His administration has rapidly advanced a fascistic agenda, dismantling democratic rights, escalating attacks on immigrants, launching a trade war, and preparing for military conflicts throughout the world. A chilling crackdown on student activists for opposing the genocide in Gaza has seen hundreds targeted, including Mahmoud Khalil, Momodou Taal, and Rümeysa Öztürk, who have faced arrests, deportation threats, and visa revocations for their courageous protests.
Backed by billionaires like Elon Musk, Trump embodies the oligarchic rule driving staggering inequality and imperialist aggression. Trump’s policies reflect the global shift of capitalist governments toward authoritarianism in the service of oligarchy— from Germany’s AfD to Italy’s Meloni and Argentina’s Milei. The ruling class worldwide is responding to the economic crisis and social opposition with militarism and repression.
These developments underscore
the urgent need for a unified international movement of the working
class, which is increasingly mobilizing against war, inequality, and
repression. This year’s May Day rally will present a socialist program
to unify workers internationally in the struggle against capitalism. It
will outline a revolutionary perspective to end imperialist violence and
build a society based on equality and human need.
