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Month: March 2026

Red Flag: Defend Iran, but Don’t Support the Theocracy!

In his weekly column, Nathaniel Flakin calls for anti-imperialism but not campism.


03/03/2026

As the United States military and its Zionist proxy bombard Iran, murdering hundreds of civilians, we revolutionary socialists are neither pacifists nor neutral. We stand on the side of the country under attack by imperialism. A defeat of the U.S. and Israeli aggressors would give courage to oppressed and exploited people around the world.

Thomas Friedman’s claim that Iran is “the biggest imperialist power in the region since 1979” is absurd. Friedman, an advocate of the Iraq War and a friend of the House of Saud, has been responsible for far more carnage in the Middle East than any Iranian leader.

Yet while we support the resistance against imperialist attacks, as socialists we also fight for the political independence of the working class. This means we never give political support to capitalist governments — even those in the Pentagon’s crosshairs.

A handful of socialist groups in imperialist countries, such as the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) in the United States or the Kommunistische Organisation (KO) in Germany, go beyond the elementary need to stand with Iran’s resistance — they say the working class should give political support the Islamic Republic. This spreads illusions in a semi-colonial bourgeoisie and ultimately weakens the struggle against imperialism.

A Capitalist Theocracy

Iran, a dependent capitalist country, is not, as Western propaganda would put it, uniquely “evil.” Iran executes thousands of citizens each year and oppresses women with myriad patriarchal rules — but in this, the Islamic Republic is no different than Saudi Arabia. The latter is an ally of the self-proclaimed “free world” while the other must be “liberated” with cruise missiles. Imperialist policies have nothing to do with human rights.

As the Financial Times acknowledges, Ali Khamenei was more cultured than the illiterate buffoon Trump or the corrupt cynic Netanyahu, who do not seem to believe in anything. These two did not even pause their genocide in Gaza while accusing Khamenei of mass murder.

Yet even while we recognize that Khamenei was no more evil than his imperialist counterparts — and a lot less dangerous — we cannot ignore the fact that he headed a repressive state apparatus that banned unions and shot at protestors. This government draws its legitimacy from god, even though Iranians do not appear to be very religious.

Despite its rhetoric, the Islamic Republic is not an anti-imperialist force — it does not represent “a taking back of natural resources and a restoration of rights and dignity,” as the PSL puts it. Iran is a capitalist country in which the means of production are owned by billionaires. Iran’s government, like those of some other semi-colonial countries, does not question a world order based on plunder by the Great Powers — it simply wants a slightly larger piece of the pie. Even Iran’s support for anti-Zionist forces in the region has more to do with geopolitical calculation than anti-imperialist conviction.

It’s absolutely wrong to say that the Islamic Republic is the “product of the people’s revolution of 1979,” as the KO puts it. The truth is the opposite: there was a genuine people’s revolution, with the working class organizing itself in shoras (councils), showing the possibility of a socialist transformation. The clergy led a counterrevolution and massacred thousands of communists so that the bourgeoisie could remain in power. The Islamic Republic was reestablished to ensure that Iran’s workers could be exploted.

Back in 2009, the PSL did acknowledge that the Islamic Republic is “staunchly anti-communist” and had carried out a “bloody campaign of repression … against leftist forces.” They went so far as to recognize that the “Islamic Republic represents the capitalist class” — but they claim it represents the “nationalist sector” of the capitalist class, which workers should support against the “comprador sector” of their exploiters. This Stalinist class collaboration can only lead to defeat — support for “nationalist” capitalists does not lead to liberation.

PSL, KO, and other “campist” groups call for support for the Islamic Republic without being able to point to a single socialist group in Iran that shares their position. This is obvious: communists in Iran are subject to arrest and torture. PSL and KO are supporting a government that would throw them in jail if they tried to set up shop in Teheran. 

A Working-Class Perspective

Modern campism is based on a terrible lack of imagination. While campism historically offered uncritical support to Stalinist states (where, at the very least, capital had been expropriated), today’s campists tend to serve as cheerleaders for any capitalist government in conflict with U.S. imperialism. This is based on a vision of the world where the dividing lines are between states and nations. If U.S. imperialism is the dominant power, then the only force that can oppose it are weaker states.

Yet the world’s real dividing lines are between classes. It is the working class, if it constitutes itself as an independent political force, that can lead all oppressed people in the struggle for liberation.

When the PSL, the KO, and other campists support the Islamic Republic, this logically implies that Iran’s working class should obey the authorities and cease all efforts to organize for a better life. Campists believe this powerful proletariat, which toppled a dictatorship in 1979 and shook the foundations of imperialist domination in the Middle East, has no role to play today. 

A bourgeois government’s “resistance” to imperialism will always be partial. By defending private property, all capitalist states defend the economic foundations of imperialism. The only way to break with imperialism would be for a workers’ government to nationalize the means of production and the natural resources in Iran — but the Islamic Republic suppresses all unions and organizations with this perspective.

This is just one example of how an “anti-imperialist” bourgeois government represses and weakens the working class — holding down the one force that could actually defeat U.S. imperialism.

Permanent Revolution

Iran’s self-defense against U.S. and Israeli aggression is progressive — a U.S. victory would further subjugate the people of the region. Workers and leftists need to be part of that defense. But as part of an anti-imperialist struggle, we must question the strict limits placed by the Islamic Republic. This means, for example, mobilizing women, in spite of Khamenei’s obscurantist ideas about women’s role. It means calling for strikes in both the region and in the imperialist centers to stop the war machine.

The working class must aim to lead the struggle against imperialism. This is how an anti-imperialist defensive war can be transformed into a socialist revolution — this is the perspective of permanent revolution, a perspective that was becoming visible in 1979-80. It was the mullahs who crushed workers’ self-organization back then — and there is no reason that workers should trust them today.

Some left-wing supporters of Iran see themselves as “Marxist-Leninists.” But speaking at a congress of the Communist International, Lenin emphasized the “the need to combat Pan-Islamism and similar trends, which strive to combine the liberation movement against European and American imperialism with an attempt to strengthen the positions of the khans, landowners, mullahs, etc.” Instead, he thought communists should remain an independent force in the anti-imperialist struggle:

“The Communist International must enter into a temporary alliance with bourgeois democracy in the colonial and backward countries, but should not merge with it, and should under all circumstances uphold the independence of the proletarian movement even if it is in its most embryonic form.”

That’s the Marxist and Leninist policy today — and it’s defended by Trotskyists.

Red Flag is a weekly opinion column on Berlin politics that Nathaniel has been writing since 2020. After moving through different homes, it now appears at The Left Berlin.

Reminder: Join the school strike against military service this Thursday at 11:00 at Potsdamer Platz!

8 March – Women*’s Day History

This week in working class history


Poster for Women's Day, March 8, 1914, demanding voting rights for women

8 March was not always on 8 March, but it was always from the working class: in 28 February 1909, the first unofficial “Women’s Day” took place in different US cities (drawing inspiration from the previous year’s March in New York), with large demonstrations organised by socialist women of the Socialist Party of America across the country, demanding the right to vote. 

A year later, in 1910, Clara Zetkin, Luise Zietz, and other comrades were at the Second International Conference of Working Women in Copenhagen, proposing an International Working Women’s Day. The conference approved it, although with no fixed date, under the slogan “The vote for women will unite our strength in the struggle for socialism”. The vision came to life, and on 19 March 1911, the day was officially marked in Europe for the first time – Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Denmark saw over one million demonstrators take to the streets demanding the right to vote and for the end of gender discrimination in the workplace. 

The year 1917 is particularly important for Women*’s Day history: in Petrograd, Russia, tens of thousands of women working in textile factories led a strike starting on 8 March (23 February in the Julian calendar) and lasting several days. They demanded “bread for our children and the return of our husbands from the trenches” – or bread and peace for short, as it became known. It was the beginning of the February Revolution. 

In 1975, the United Nations celebrated International Women’s Day for the first time, formally recognising 8 March as an annual date through a resolution later on, in 1977. As the UN itself says on its website, “It is a day when women are recognised for their achievements” – dropping the “Working” from its name, and successfully co-opting the date to be globally welcomed by the feminist bourgeoisie with flowers and celebrations of femininity. 

However, not all is lost when it comes to grassroots transnational processes: since 2017, feminist groups, first in Argentina, then expanding elsewhere (with highlights to other Latin American countries, Poland and the Spanish State), organised around the idea of an International Women’s Strike (IWS), with clear anti-capitalist demands and achieving impressive global coordination, under the slogan “if women stop, the world stops”. Besides recentering the strike as a tool, it also reappropriated it and went beyond the classic sense of strike, to connect productive and reproductive labour. Because a large number of women work in precarious conditions, unable to exercise the right to strike, and because a lot of the work carried by women doesn’t stop at the labour market, but extends to the home, the feminist strike proposed four axes: labour strike, student strike, consumer strike, and care strike. 

Even if, in recent years, the concept of a feminist strike has lost some of its steam, reproductive labour and care work have been on the feminist agenda, highlighting the need for a feminism for the 99%. This year and all years, 8 March shouldn’t be about gifting roses to the women* in your life — even if they’re for Clara Zetkin — but rather about fighting for the end of exploitation of everyone involved in the supply chain for those roses to reach you, as well as those cleaning the petals off the dining table the next day.

Court case against Baki ends

Repression in Berlin – report #4


This is the fourth of our series of weekly court reports. You can read all the Repression in Berlin articles here.

This week’s column features the case of Baki Devrimkaya, an activist organized with Klasse gegen Klasse, who stood trial on February 10th for his pro-Palestine solidarity.

Baki served as a steward during a lecture hall occupation at the Freie Universität Berlin in December 2023. A group of right-wing agitators tried to derail the gathering by physically assaulting stewards, calling student protesters “Nazis,” and destroying photos of murdered Palestinian children. Baki was thereafter charged with assault, ”insult,” and “coercion” for allegedly preventing these disruptors from entering the occupied lecture hall.

After the protest, Baki became “the subject of a right-wing smear campaign, leading to death threats in social media and even intimidation on the street,” Nathaniel Flakin writes.

On February 10th, all three charges against Baki were dropped in exchange for a €450 donation to NGO medico international. Klasse gegen Klasse organized a rally in front of the courthouse, joined by over 70 comrades from different groups, which soon turned into a celebration after the verdict was announced.

Baki’s attorney Timo Winter remarked on the length of the proceedings, stating (translated from German): “We do not know for certain, but it can be assumed that the state of Berlin, the Ministry of Justice, has issued an instruction to pursue the repression of Palestine to the very end. This is something we are observing more and more, and we are concerned about the rights of freedom of assembly and freedom of expression, especially when it comes to Palestine.”

One of many, the case against Baki raises increasing concerns about the repression of pro-Palestinian activism and solidarity.

News from Berlin and Germany, 3rd March 2026

Weekly news round-up from Berlin and Germany


News from Berlin

German citizenship applications: around 5% rejected in Berlin

According to figures from the Berlin State Office for Immigration (LEA), cited by Interior State Secretary Christian Hochgrebe (SPD), the LEA’s naturalisation department rejected one in 20 citizenship applications in 2025: 39,034 Berliners were successfully naturalised last year, while 1,931 had their applications rejected. Hochgrebe said there were multiple reasons why applications might be rejected, for example, if information is missing, inconsistent or incorrect. In some applications, workers may suspect documents have been forged. Since operations were centralised at the LEA, staff numbers have nearly doubled, and the application process has been almost entirely digitised. According to Hochgrebe, digitisation means security standards are now “significantly higher”. Source: iamexpat

An example

On February 25, Bild announced that Berlinale festival director Tricia Tuttle was about to be dismissed, not only because of Syrian-Palestinian director Abdallah Alkhatib’s speech at the closing gala, but also because a photo taken before that shows her with the Alkhatib film crew and a Palestinian flag. However, making an example out of Tuttle did not work. Tuttle has received a great deal of solidarity: more than 600 filmmakers signed an open letter on the “Future of the Berlinale,” and the German Cultural Council, the Federal Association of Directors and a group of Israeli directors have expressed their support. Source: jW

EU: armaments instead of urban development?

The European Commission is urging member states to use funding from cohesion policy—funds intended for the social and economic development of regions—for the expansion of military infrastructure. The Commission is planning 4 multimodal corridors for “short-term and large-scale military movements” in Europe. For the period 2021 to 2027, Berlin is earmarked for approximately €680 million from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Whether Berlin and Brandenburg could also be directly involved in a “dual-use” infrastructure (i.e, for civilian and military purposes) is unclear: the Berlin Senate claims to have no knowledge about it. Source: BZ

“NOlympia” and the potential withdrawal from the Olympic bid

The Berlin Senate anticipates that withdrawing its bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Games would incur administrative costs of “up to one million euros.” This is according to the official cost estimate from the Senate Department for the citizens’ initiative “For Berlin—Against the Olympics. We say no to a bid for the Olympic Games in 2036, 2040, and 2044.” The “NOlympia” alliance sharply criticized the Senate Department for the Interior for its calculations. “This cost estimate is a political smokescreen,” said Gabriele Hiller, spokesperson for the alliance. “The Senate is trying to convince the people of Berlin that it would be more expensive not to host the Games than to hold them.” Source: tagesspiegel

“Wing of Zion” at the Berlin Brandenburg Airport (BER)

While fighting between Israel and Iran continues to escalate in the Middle East, the Israeli government plane has been moved from the crisis region to Berlin. The Boeing 767 used for government travel, known as “Wing of Zion,” is now safely parked on the tarmac at BER Airport, away from the fighting—apparently as a precautionary measure. BER declined to comment on the aircraft’s whereabouts when asked, and the Israeli embassy also did not initially respond to a request for comment. According to Israeli media reports, the aircraft had been moved out of the country during previous conflicts to protect it from missile attacks. Source: morgenpost

Protest against Görlitzer Park closure remains peaceful

After years of debate, Görlitzer Park in Berlin-Kreuzberg was closed for the first time at night on March 1. Earlier in the evening, around 300 people protested the closure at a demonstration, partly moderated by a representative of the Green Party. They gathered in the park for a concert under the motto “Rave against the Zaun” (Rave against the Fence). Approximately 200 police officers were deployed. According to reports, the protest remained peaceful, with one person arrested. In the future, the 16 entrances will be closed every evening with the newly constructed gates, as the Senate had announced. Exiting the park will still be possible via revolving doors. Source: rbb

News from Germany

AfD wins summary proceedings regarding classification as “right-wing extremist”

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) is not permitted to classify and treat the AfD as “confirmed right-wing extremist” for the time being. The Cologne Administrative Court has ruled that the federal authority must await the outcome of the main proceedings. The court noted that the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution based its assessment exclusively on publicly available sources. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution must also refrain from publicly announcing such a classification. An urgent application by the AfD has thus been granted in essence. The decision can still be appealed. Source: jW

Tough measures against Left Youth spokesperson

Martha Chiara Wüthrich (Die Linke) was elected last November to the seven-member Federal Spokesperson Council of the Left Youth Solid, the party’s youth organization. However, according to a decision by the Thuringian State Arbitration Commission of Die Linke, all her membership rights have been revoked for two years, and she is no longer welcome in the party. She is alleged to have made “antisemitic” and “violence-glorifying” statements and to have relativized the Holocaust. Wüthrich intends to first examine the possibility of challenging the Thuringian decision on the grounds of “procedural errors.” She can also appeal to the federal arbitration commission. Source: nd

Fritz-Kola, a supporter of the CDU?

Fritz-Kola was one of the companies which sponsored the CDU Party Conference last month. Given the company’s background, it sounds strange. Such support caused many negative reactions online, even calling for a boycott of the beverage. According to a statement published on Instagram and Facebook by founder and CEO Mirco Wolf Wiegert, that was not an easy decision for the company but considered necessary in the interest of democracy and an open society. Nevertheless, some commentators accuse the Hamburg-based company of lobbying, since the sugar tax was discussed at the conference. Fritz-Kola is against it, advocating instead for conscious consumption. Source: mopo

Hennigsdorf CDU Votes with AfD for Citizens’ Militia

The Hennigsdorf city council (SVV) intends to establish a kind of citizens’ militia to strengthen the “subjective sense of security” near its train station. Five CDU councilors, four councilors from the “Citizens for Hennigsdorf” voters’ association, and the entire seven-member AfD faction voted in favor. The Brandenburg branch of the AfD is classified as a confirmed right-wing extremist organization by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Police see no benefit from the initiative: the head of the Hennigsdorf police, Chief Inspector Gerald Bliß, had made it very clear how pointless he considered the project. He was familiar with such security partnerships from neighborhoods or allotment garden associations, Bliß said. But they “should originate from the grassroots.” Source: taz

Final Girls Berlin Film Festival

Horror cinema directed, written, or produced by women and non-binary filmmakers.


02/03/2026

Final Girls Berlin film festival showcases horror cinema that’s directed, written, or produced by women and non-binary filmmakers. We are committed to creating space for female voices and visions, whether monstrous, heroic or some messy combination of the two, in the horror genre. We’ve seen more than enough representations of women as beautified victims and constructions of male fantasies or anxieties, and are working towards the primacy of women as subjects and storytellers in horror.

Our definition of women includes anyone with female experience –past or present– and is trans-inclusive. Anyone who feels addressed by the term is welcome to submit their films to the festival.

Get ready for a diverse and expansive experience at this year’s Final Girls Berlin—featuring FGB’s most international selection yet! The opening film, Laura Casabé’s THE VIRGIN OF THE QUARRY LAKE from Argentina, centers on a spell-binding teen who uses her powers to satiate her dark desires.

Folk horror is well-represented this year, with Aislinn Clarke delving into Irish folklore and trauma in FREWAKA, a retrospective screening of Kasi Lemmons’ Southern Gothic tale about a young girl confronting family secrets, and the Adams’ family MOTHER OF FLIES (German Premiere) about a young woman striking a sinister deal with a witch after receiving a terminal diagnosis.

The talents of Canadian director and actress Grace Glowicki are on full display—she directs and stars in the unconventional DEAD LOVER (German Premiere) about a grief-stricken gravedigger trying to resurrect her beloved, and can be seen in Madeleine Sims-Fewer & Dusty Mancinelli’s HONEY BUNCH, a twisty love story about a husband trying to help his amnesiac wife.

On the lighter side of things, we have Tina Romero’s (daughter of George) zombie comedy QUEENS OF THE DEAD, full of glitter, and drag queens. The feature program is rounded out by the moving, otherworldly CAMP (German Premiere) directed by Avalon Fast and the award-winning panic attack of a movieIF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU directed by Mary Bronstein starring a never better Rose Byrne.

As always, you have your share of short blocks to choose from—there’s Final Girls Berlin staples such as Midnight, Queer Horror, and Social Horror, as well as Religious Horror, the Psychosexual, films exploring the dark side of Ambition and Friendship, and more!

Sound is at the forefront of the events in 2026. There’s the very first FGB Live Score event with horror prog trio Pavone Cristallo accompanying Maya Deren’s MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON (1943) and Germaine Dulac’s THE SEASHELL AND THE CLERGYMAN (1928) as well as two sonic workshops: “Make Your Own Damn Sounds: How to make sound effects and foley for your film“ and “Hysterics Unplugged—the Sound of Horror.“ In addition, there will be talks about “Deconstructing Sex/Gender and the Body in Contemporary Horror Shorts“ and “Female Hunger, Appetite, and Consumption“ as well as an empowerment through horror workshop for BIPOCs and a “Frankenstein Technique“ collage workshop.