As part of our intervention into the debates over the history of national liberation and of socialism, we – at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research – are producing a series of studies on key areas of dispute and debate. These studies will engage with histories and legacies of socialism and national liberation, documenting the past so as to better understand the struggles of the present. These are short texts based on considerable intellectual labour – the amassing of vast amounts of evidence, the work of deep analysis.

January 23, 2024

Events in recent years, including Israel’s genocide in Gaza, signify a qualitative change in the US-dominated world order. Imperialism has begun its transformation to a new stage: Hyper-Imperialism. This is imperialism conducted in an exaggerated and kinetic way, whilst also subject to the constraints that the declining empire has foisted on itself. The spasmodic quality of its exertion is felt by the millions of Congolese, Palestinians, Somalis, Syrians, and Yemeni – whose heads instinctively jerk for cover at sudden sounds of the over US$ 2 trillion dollar military spending of the US-led Military Bloc.

March 13, 2023

Significant global changes have emerged in the years since the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. This can be seen in a new phase of imperialism and the particularities of eight contradictions, summarised in our latest text.

September 27, 2022

Catastrophes of one kind or another have rippled outward from Ukraine, including galloping inflation that is out of control. Areas of the world that are not directly party to the conflict are being hit hard by growing economic pressures, with political unrest an inevitable consequence. In this context, the Peace and Justice Project, a research institute headed by Jeremy Corbyn, joined up with Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and two media partners, Globetrotter and the Morning Star, to produce a series of reflections on unfolding conflicts in relation to concepts of nonalignment and peace.

September 13, 2022

We are witnessing a dangerous political, economic, and military escalation by the United States and its Western allies against Russia and China. The United States seeks to prevent a historical process that seems inevitable, the process of Eurasian integration, which threatens the primacy of the Euro-Atlantic elites. To secure global hegemony, the United States is committed to the pursuit of global nuclear primacy and is willing to use any means to ‘weaken’ both Russia and China – even at the risk of destroying the planet.

November 24, 2021

As part of a network of research institutions that have been looking closely at the long-term crises of neoliberal austerity, induced debt regimes, and maldevelopment, we have jointly produced a set of policies toward a new world order.  Our plan – drawing from the lineage of the New International Economic Order – puts forward a vision for the present and the immediate future centred on twelve key themes: democracy and the world order, the environment, finance, health, housing, food, education, work, care, women, culture, and the digital world.

August 7, 2019

Since 1996, activists in Xolobeni, a coastal region in South Africa, have been fighting a foreign mining conglomerate that learned that their ancestral lands happen to be rich in titanium. The anti-mining activists of Xolobeni, who have lost many comrades to hit squads, continue to struggle against this foreign company and its partners in the South African government. Given that their land is located in a global biodiversity hotspot, their struggle is the struggle of us all: it is the fight for water, soil, food, and air.

April 29, 2019

Raw minerals are needed for everyday life, but when that life is also the cost of our infrastructural needs it is time to start asking questions. Why do 60% of the world’s mining companies have their headquarters in Canada? In this briefing we provide the financial details of ten Canadian mining companies. This data becomes a corporate crime rap sheet when it is read alongside concise accounts of the most horrendous violations committed–globally–by these companies. Canadian wealth is deeply dependent on a depraved indifference to human life, an indifference seemingly shared by Canadian mining companies.

March 1, 2018

In the Ruins of the Present traces the challenges posed by globalization and what these challenges produce for our society. The first attempt to address the problems of globalization was neo-liberalism. It failed. Next came cruel populism, which expresses itself in narrow, hateful terms. It will also fail. The Left is weak – decomposed by globalization. The need of the hour is for the Left to recompose itself, to become a vital force for a fragile humanity.

March 21, 2023

The fifth study from the Women of Struggle, Women in Struggle series discusses the life and political struggles of Josie Mpama (1903–1979), a leader in the resistance against colonial oppression and the apartheid system in South Africa. As a central figure in the Communist Party of South Africa and in society more broadly, Josie teaches us about the importance of grassroots and mass organising. Like so many women involved in radical politics, particularly in the Global South, Josie’s extraordinary political contributions and theoretical acumen have been overlooked and largely excluded from then mainstream historical record.

March 8, 2023

This publication, from Tricontinental and ALBA Movimientos, sets out on a path to recover the history of struggles, resistance, insurrections,and revolutionary dreams that have been led by womenand  LGBTQ+ people throughout the region at different times in order to find the seeds of the popular Latin American feminisms that exist today. Selected and produced by popular feminist activists in Latin America and the Caribbean, these stories continue to inspire us today.

March 30, 2022

Nela Martínez (1912–2004), Ecuadorian activist and fighter for the people, was a key figure in the struggles of the working class and women. A communist and internationalist militant, she participated in the formation of the Ecuadorian Federation of Indians and played a central role in the Glorious May Revolution. A member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ecuador, she led the creation of women’s organisations such as the Ecuadorian Women’s Alliance and the Revolutionary Union of Ecuadorian Women. Her political biography intertwines women’s struggles with anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist struggles.

March 8, 2021

This study looks at the life and legacy of Kanak Mukherjee, a fighter for the people and people’s struggles who was born in undivided Bengal, India, in 1921. The rich trajectory of her activism teaches us about the history of women organising in local, national, and international struggles that linked women’s rights to anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggles throughout the twentieth century.

March 5, 2020

The world that we live in today is characterised by great social and political upheavals, with workers facing overwhelming attacks from neoliberal politics. The policies of neoliberalism and neofascism put immense pressure on women, who become the primary and principal targets of precariousness, oppression, and exploitation.

February 14, 2023

Although it existed for just 40 years, the German Democratic Republic (DDR) was able to construct a fundamentally different health care system that ensured a continuous improvement of the population’s health. The DDR built on progressive medical traditions and socialist property relations to eliminate the profit motive from medicine and construct a unitary health care system that operated in all sectors of society, from urban neighbourhoods and rural villages to workplaces and schools.

April 20, 2021

‘Risen from the Ruins’, the first edition of the new series ‘Studies on the DDR’, follows the foundation of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) after World War II and traces its development from an anti-fascist democratic state to a socialist one. The study investigates the DDR’s economic efficiency, accomplishments, and contradictions, while also outlining central aspects of its socialist society such as collective organization in state-owned enterprises, the planned economy, and internationalist solidarity.

July 23, 2021

On 25 February 2021, the Chinese government announced that extreme poverty had been abolished in China, a country of 1.4 billion people. This historic victory is a culmination of a seven-decade-long process that began with the Chinese Revolution of 1949. This study looks into the process through which China was able to eradicate extreme poverty as a fundamental step in constructing socialism.

November 5, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated existing social, political, health, and economic crises. It is often women who bear the brunt of the cataclysmic shifts in daily life, from the increasing care work of children, the elderly, and the sick to skyrocketing incidences of gender-based violence, as women and LGBTQIA+ people are quarantined with their abusers. This study looks into the challenges that have been sharpened by the pandemic — in particular, how the current crisis has impacted women across the world — and presents a list of  people’s feminist demands as we strive for a path forward.

July 8, 2020

In this report, we look at Cuba, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Kerala (India) to investigate how these socialist parts of the world have been able to handle the virus more effectively.

June 2, 2020

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States government has put its tremendous resources towards heightening aggression against its perceived adversaries – notably, against Venezuela – from heightening sanctions to a foiled invasion to leveraging its stronghold over international institutions like the IMF. This study takes a deep look at the US-led hybrid war against Venezuela, debunking the false narratives created to support this attack.

April 28, 2020

This is the first in a multiple part series of studies on CoronaShock. It is made up of three articles on how China identified the novel coronavirus and then how the Chinese government and Chinese society fought against its wider diffusion, as well as an interview with Li Zhong, an artist from Shanghai.

March 21, 2020

SARS-CoV-2 or COVID19, now declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation, has begun to wreak havoc in large parts of the world, with other parts waiting in anticipation. We are in a real struggle, which needs total mobilisation; a struggle that needs to put life before profit. We will only win this struggle – as China has already done – if are people are united and disciplined, if governments earn our respect by their actions, and if we act in solidarity across the globe.