Defined by political crises all over the world, spiralling tensions between the imperialist powers, and revolutions in Bangladesh and Kenya, 2024 was an historic year in the crisis of the capitalist system. But now, with Trump days away from power, Ukraine headed unavoidably towards a humiliating and bloody defeat, and with no end in sight to the complete destabilisation of the Middle East, this new year looks to be even more explosive.

At the end of last year, the Assad regime in Syria collapsed. Since then the imperialist powers – including Turkey, the USA, and Israel, which has taken the opportunity to occupy even more of Syria – have tried to get in on the action. At the same time, the Kurdish enclave of Rojava has come under attack from Turkish backed forces, and Kurdish fighters are now being pressured by the ruling ‘rebel’ group, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, to disarm.

Meanwhile, Germany is in a profound political crisis, as the governing coalition has collapsed, the establishment parties have been discredited, the economy is coming to a screeching halt, and the far-right AFD is on the rise. The same process can be seen all across the world, including in France, Britain, and the USA.

In order to explain these developments from a Marxist perspective and to lay out what 2025 has in store for us, Hamid Alizadeh and Fred Weston from the International Secretariat sat down for another episode of Against the Stream.

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Articles discussed in this episode:

German elections: no matter who wins, war, crisis and austerity remain! – In Defence of Marxism

The Progressive Moment in Global Politics Is Over – The Wall Street Journal