At a meeting of leading members of the International Marxist Tendency at the end of January, Alan Woods (editor of marxist.com) provided an overview of the dramatic events unfolding at the start of 2021. The crisis of world capitalism is causing eruptions, dislocation and class polarisation in one country after another.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to inflict misery and hardship on ordinary people, while the wealthy enrich themselves even further. The ruling class is pumping trillions into the system to keep it afloat, but even if there are short-term recoveries, this will ensure an even-deeper collapse down the line.

The new year barely began before a far-right mob stormed the US Capitol Building in Washington at the urging of former US president, Donald Trump – turning the centre of Western imperialism into the image of a failed state. These events, coupled with the vastly larger BLM protests last summer, show how deep the polarisation of US society has become.

Elsewhere, big protests in India and Russia demonstrate the same process: the masses' resentment is growing, and the ruling class is failing to govern in the old ways. As Alan explains, every road leads to an unprecedented explosion of class struggle on the world stage.

In this context, the task of Marxists is to present a revolutionary socialist alternative to the millions of radicalising workers and youth who are witnessing with their own eyes the total failure of capitalism to provide them with a decent existence.