ICSS Past Presentations

https://youtu.be/76e8AJkqsTs Has Lenin’s Imperialism Withstood the Test of Time? Reassessing Lenin’s Theory in the Age of Global Capital  Peter Fay - 14 June 2026 Few political works have shaped anti-colonial and revolutionary movements more profoundly than Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916). Written amid the collapse of the Second International and the support of many socialist parties for World War I, it condemned both monopoly capital and the...

https://youtu.be/C1qu2CYOQmg Is the decline of the US empire anything more than a leftist prayer? Believers in US empire decline note three economic factors: the US economic position in the world has seriously weakened, particularly in relation to China; countries are turning away from the dollar as the currency for international trade, which would cripple the US; the US national debt is a weight that will crush the economy. To have a provocative discussion on this topic, we have invited...

https://youtu.be/dFsxBXejr28 Should China be characterized as capitalist/state-capitalist or  market socialist (socialism with Chinese characteristics) or semi-peripheral or imperialist or semi-colonial or oppressed or oppressor? Should the emergence of China as a competitor of the US  in many areas be seen as a great anti-imperialist development? Or, can it be argued that Chinese capitalist development will lead to inter-imperialist conflicts and wars throughout the world? How much power do...

https://youtu.be/pItXqZx07rg On February 28th, the United States and Israel launched an illegal war of aggression against Iran, and Iran is on the defensive against the most powerful military in the world. The United States and Israel's illegal war of aggression is exactly what Hitler did when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, triggering the European Theater of World War II. The American-dominated Nuremberg Trials declared that unprovoked wars of aggression were a "crime...

https://youtu.be/Q7x4NRRnR4A In his book: The Phenomenology of the Capitalist Eternisation, Brazillian-Italian Scholar João Romeiro Hermeto argues that Capital maintains itself by, among other means,  replacing the People’s consciousness of the past and vision of a better future with a constant, debilitating spectacle of the present.  In his talk João summarized his findings on this issue and discussed related matters relevant to the revolutionary struggle in the ICSS session of 3 May 2026. In...

https://youtu.be/nH2IthWuxl0 In his new book (Phenomenology of the Capitalist Eternisation, available from ingramspark.org for $12, or Amazon, $15) João argues that Capital maintains itself by, among other means,  replacing the People’s consciousness of the past and vision of a better future with a constant, debilitating spectacle of the present.  In his talk João will summarize his findings on this issue and discuss related matters relevant to the revolutionary struggle. He last spoke at the...

https://youtu.be/2LBfqEAQ7_I The Current Crisis in Cuba: A historical and conjunctural perspective. Sinan Koont is Associate Professor of Economics (emeritus) at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His visits to Cuba began in 1993 with a 3 month long sabbatical stay at the University of Havana in the middle of the Special Period in Cuba that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then he has  visited the island many times (three times with students) and published numerous...

https://youtu.be/QldJabn6nMY As the war in Iran continues and imperialism is trying to find excuses and reasons to justify the attack, we are witnessing a nation united in resisting this rapacious assault. However, the imperialist attack is not limited only to Israel, the US, or Iran. The wars in these times go well beyond a couple of borders, and from their first day become a regional conflict a hair breadth away from a world war. The war started by the US and Israel was sold to Americans as...

https://youtu.be/5zRbqYMA5Xc American workers stand on the precipice of an uncertain future. Behind them lies a century of U.S. global dominance. Marxists argue that imperialist expansion, buttressed by the world’s most powerful economy, produced this primacy, while capital garnered enormous profits from both foreign and domestic labor. For decades, especially in the mid-20th century, much of the American working class shared in these gains—through rising living standards, union growth,...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWTFanLiIeo Imperialism has decided to attack Iran recently, in its quest to dominate every inch of the globe, especially if that area is rich in oil.  Iran has a history of independence and fighting off foreign forces that challenge its sovereignty.  However, the war is not only directed against the people of Iran but also against its neighbors, as one by one they are pulled into this assault led by US and Israel.  Türkiye can no longer pretend to sit on the...