What will be the future of Israel and the Gulf countries? What is the possible order of the Middle East and Asia? Those questions are the starting point for this week's Against the Stream – a special Q&A episode where Hamid Alizadeh and Jorge Martín work through the best and toughest questions from our comment section.

Starting with the events in Iran, Hamid and Jorge explain that any end to the war will not be a compromise on Iran's part. Iran has achieved all of its aims while the United States has achieved none. The Gulf states are quietly making their own arrangements with Tehran. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Egypt are moving away from the American camp. China is positioned to broker the new regional order.

Next, they dig into one of the most common theoretical questions in our comment section: is China capitalist? For Marxists this is a concrete question that can only be answered by looking at the real development of China. The past thirty years paint a clear picture: privatisation, industrial capacity sitting idle, hundreds of millions in precarious work, youth unemployment, and more billionaires than any country on earth. Understanding why and how this happened is key to putting forward a programme for socialism in China and internationally.

From there the episode turns to Venezuela, and to a particular kind of argument that circulates on the left – that Western Marxists are too dogmatic, too Eurocentric, too theoretical to understand developments taking place in other continents. The answer lies in the facts. Since the kidnapping of Maduro, Venezuela has become a US protectorate. Its oil income goes into a Washington-controlled bank account. Chávez himself said in 2012 that the greatest mistake of the revolution was not taking it to its final conclusion. Only theory and an honest appraisal of events can give us foresight – and be an antidote to identity politics, which explains nothing at all.

Finally, Hamid and Jorge answer whether international revolution is actually on the agenda – and whether there is any point in joining a union today.

New episodes of Against the Stream every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

📖 RECOMMENDED READING 📖

Revolution and counter-revolution in Venezuela:

https://marxist.com/book-the-venezuelan-revolution-marxist-perspective/revolution-andnbspcounter-revolution-in-venezuela.htm

China's long march to capitalism

https://marxist.com/china-long-march-capitalism021006.htm

Leon Trotsky: Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay (1940)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/xx/tu.htm

What is to be Done? How Lenin built a battle organisation

https://marxist.com/what-is-to-be-done-how-lenin-built-a-battle-organisation.htm

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS ⏱️

00:01:24 How will the Iran war impact the future of the Middle East?00:14:56 Is China really capitalist?00:32:26 If China is capitalist, why do many own their own homes?00:40:05 Will multipolarity make China move towards socialism?00:44:19 Will defeating US imperialism benefit the Chinese/Iranian masses?00:48:37 Does the RCI only support 'pure and perfect' revolutionary struggles?01:00:44 Is international revolution possible?01:07:32 Is there any use joining the unions?

🫵 Join the Revolutionary Communist International: https://marxist.com/join-us.htm

📚 Marxist literature: https://wellred-books.com/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/

💬 Twitter: https://x.com/revcomintern/

Six prime ministers in ten years. Labour just lost fifteen hundred council seats. Has Britain become ungovernable?

In this week's Against the Stream, Hamid Alizadeh sits down with Adam Booth, editor of The Communist, the paper of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Britain, to give a Marxist answer to that question. And the answer is not what most commentators want to hear.

The episode traces the deep roots of the British crisis: from the deindustrialisation that began over a century ago, to the Thatcherite turn to financialisation and the City of London, to the mountain of debt that now costs Britain 110 billion pounds a year in interest payments alone. That is three point six percent of everything the British working class produces every year, going straight into the pockets of the banks.The episode explains why the revolving door of prime ministers is not a problem of individual incompetence but a symptom of the terminal decline of British capitalism. Trotsky predicted this degeneration a hundred years ago, and the process he described has only accelerated. Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Keir Starmer are not anomalies. They are the natural political products of a speculative, financialised economy with no industrial base left to speak of.

The episode also takes on the bond markets, the so-called vigilantes who now openly dictate who should lead the Labour Party. It explains concretely what a bond is, why the markets reacted the way they did to Liz Truss, and why no government, however well-intentioned, can simply ignore these mechanisms under capitalism.

And crucially, it goes through the left alternatives on offer, including Modern Monetary Theory, borrowing to invest, taxing the rich, and defaulting on the debt, and explains clearly why none of these, on their own, offer a way out. Not because they are too radical, but because they do not go far enough. The only real solution is democratic control over the commanding heights of the economy.

New episodes of Against the Stream every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

🌐 Links 🌐

🫵 Join the Revolutionary Communist International:

https://marxist.com/join-us.htm

📚 Marxist literature:

https://wellred-books.com/

🎧 Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/68nGNHz5lB8UZXICGIDMva?si=682ef70551644443

📱 Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/against-the-stream/id1777793987

📸 Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/revcomintern/

💬 Twitter:

https://x.com/revcomintern/

Trump is in Beijing. He thinks he has gone to negotiate from a position of strength, but in reality, he is negotiating from a position of weakness. That is the story of American imperialism in 2026.

In this week's episode of Against the Stream, Hamid Alizadeh and Jorge Martín give a Marxist analysis of what the Iran War has done to American power, what it means for China, and what it reveals about the deeper historical decline of US imperialism.

The episode covers a lot of ground. Analysing two extraordinary pieces from the American press – one by a MAGA theoretician in the New York Times, one by neocon hawk Robert Kagan in the Atlantic – it is clear that even parts of the American ruling class are now writing obituaries for American hegemony.

A CIA intelligence assessment confirms that Iran retains 70 percent of its pre-war missile stockpiles and 80 percent of its mobile launchers. Operation Freedom, the US attempt to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, lasted just 36 hours. American weapons stocks will take three to five years to replace. And Trump has, for the first time in US history, agreed to discuss arms deliveries to Taiwan with China.

Meanwhile, China has 1.2 billion barrels of oil in reserve and hasn't touched them. It controls 90 percent of global rare earth refining. It produces over 3.5 million STEM graduates a year – compared to 820,000 in the US. And it is now the go-to power for everyone from the Philippines to Venezuela who needs an alternative to Washington.

The episode also asks the deeper question: how did we get here? Is China just better run, or is something more fundamental going on? And is the decline of American imperialism actually a good thing for the working class of the world?

New episodes of Against the Stream air every Thursday at 6pm GMT on YouTube.

📖 Recommended reading

Opinion | America Is Officially an Empire in Decline - The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/03/opinion/iran-us-empire.html

Checkmate in Iran - The Atlantic

www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/05/iran-war-trump-losing/687094/

Ted Grant - Will There Be A Slump?

https://www.marxists.org/archive/grant/1960/slump.htm