The past two weeks of the Quebec student strike have brought an intense roller-coaster of events. The Quebec government put forward an offer that would “find a way out of the crisis”, but which did nothing to resolve the issue of the proposed tuition increase. The offer was massively rejected in assembly after assembly across Quebec. Then, on Tuesday the 14th of May, there was the surprise announcement by education minister Line Beauchamp, who was not only quitting her ministerial post but also giving up her seat in the National Assembly — reducing the Liberal government’s majority to just one seat. Today, the government seems in a frenzy to smash the students. The provincial police have charged picket lines and arrested dozens. This government is a wounded animal lashing out.

We will have a number of important speakers at this year's Marxist Summer School, taking place on 15-17 June, not least among them Gerry Ruddy. Gerry is a longstanding and well known Irish republican Marxist and a former Ard Comhairle member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party. Gerry writes for the Red Plough, an Independent Republican Marxist Blog, as well as being a regular contributor to Fightback - the website and journal of the International Marxist Tendency in Ireland - and also marxist.com. Gerry has campaigned for many years for the primacy of politics within republican socialism, Marxist ideas and for the central role of the working class in struggling for socialism, solving the age old national question and creating a united worker’s republic. He is the author of several important articles including “The Political Road” and “Ireland - An Overview 1967-2007”, as well as his preface to Alan Woods’ book Republicanism and Revolution.

Just five years ago, not a day would go by without global warming making the headlines. The American politician Al Gore’s documentary film about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, was seen by hundreds of thousands in cinemas across the world. The Conservative Party rebranded themselves as the champions of the environment, nailing their ecological colours to the mast and urging people to ‘vote Blue to go Green’. Even the arch-reactionary American president George W. Bush was forced to concede that, maybe, the environment was worth thinking about.

The Independent Union of Students and Youth of Kazakhstan (NPSMK) expresses solidarity with the striking students of Quebec, who are fighting against the increase of tuition fees.

As part of our preparation for this year's Marxist Summer School, taking place on 15-17 June, we are publishing preparatory reading material for each of the sessions. The first of the two saturday morning sessions is a favourite question for those beginning to think about Marxism: What will Socialism look like? It is a question where Marx was always careful not to fall into the trap of the Utopian socialists who attempted to prepare detailed blueprints of the coming socialist society. As the Marxists always maintain, the task of the emancipation of the working class can only be the task of the working class itself, including the construction of socialism. In this task they will prove themselves far more ingenious and creative than even the greatest individual Marxists. Nevertheless, the discussion of this question is extremely useful for those wishing to gain a greater understanding of what we are fighting for. Below we publish Lal Khan's speech at the 31st congress of The Pakistani Marxists: 'What would a Socialist Pakistan lool like' and other useful links on this topic.

The opening session for this year's Marxist Summer School, taking place on 15-17 June, will set the scene for the whole weekend. We will be discussing the most important of all topics for Marxists - prospects for the world revolution. The question of which stage the working class is passing through, what the consciousness of the class is, and where it is going, is the most important to understand - that way we can as revolutionaries connect with the working class in their real movement. In preparation for this, we are posting a link to the International Marxist Tendency's draft discussion document on world perspectives. Part 1 can be read below, for the other parts follow the link at the end of each part.

A few months ago, Telegraph.co.uk, the online version of the well-known British daily newspaper, ran an article entitled “Male Sex Drive ‘To Blame for World’s Conflicts’.” A team of evolutionary scientists, led by a Prof. Mark Van Vugt, claimed to have found the ever-elusive root cause of all war: males!

The fantastic 12-week long Quebec student strikes mark a new stage in struggle in the Canadian state. However, while this outburst is new for Canada, it is merely the continuation of the international movement against austerity which we have witnessed: the Greek general strikes, the indignados movement in Spain, Wisconsin, the Occupy movement, the inspiration from the Arab revolutions, etc. A victory for the Quebec students is a victory for all workers and youth, both in Canada and around the world, and it is vital that everything possible is done to assure its success and draw out the necessary lessons.

“If sharks were people,” Mr K. was asked by his landlady’s little girl, “would they be nicer to the little fishes?”

This week has been a crucial one in Quebec’s historic student strike. In their struggle against the $1,625 tuition increase, the students have held strong since February 13th — for 73 days straight. 178,390 students remain on unlimited strike despite the government’s gamble they could wait this movement out, that it would tire and collapse.

In this fourth and final part of Patrick Larsen’s account of the struggle of Trotsky and his followers for a genuine revolutionary international, he looks at the revolutionary situations that opened up in Europe between 1943 and 1945. He demonstrates how these were hijacked and diverted by the dominant forces within the labour movement, i.e. the Stalinists and the reformists. This historic betrayal in turn opened up a new situation on a world scale which the majority of Trotsky's followers were unable to understand.

From Tuesday 24th to Thursday 26th April Sheffield City Hall played host to the ninetieth national conference of the National Union of Students (NUS). The conference discussed motions on subjects from the Living Wage campaign, to supporting trade union battles against austerity, to calling a national demonstration against cuts to education.

ULU Marxists, Socialist Appeal and www.marxist.com are proud to announce the 2nd Marxist Summer School: Prospects for the World Revolution, this June 15-17. Join us for a packed weekend of discussion and debate on what relevance the theory and programme of the Marxists has in this epoch of world revolution.

One of the most widespread and entrenched prejudices of capitalist society, and therefore most pernicious, is that charity is purely and simply good, and therefore beyond criticism. If one does not bow to this social pressure, and dare to criticise the role of charity, it is assumed that the person must be fundamentally callous and strongly in favour of the maintenance of poverty and disease. It is presumably for these reasons that the owners of the Save the Children charity, upon funding Ken Loach (by then a known socialist) to make a film celebrating their 50th anniversary in 1971, naively allowed him to get on with it in complete freedom. As Loach explained in a rare showing of the film in Peckham, London, it simply never occurred to them that he might make something in any way critical of what they do.