On 16 July, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio convened representatives from 65 countries for a ministerial meeting on the “resurgence of political terrorism.” He warned the meeting that the left was an “encroaching darkness.” His colleague Stephen Miller called “left-wing extremism” a “fatal cancer to civilisation” and denounced leftists as motivated by “envy, hatred, jealousy.” Rubio promised to dismantle its international networks “brick by brick.”

Washington’s Red Scare unveiled another weapon four days later, as the State Department published a 100-page report titled “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism”. The report listed a litany of grievances against the Cuban Revolution, accusing it of waging a “war of attrition” against the United States that “has yielded remarkable success.”

For the US, this is not just a war of “espionage, infiltration, sabotage, proxy networks.” It is a battle fought primarily on the “ideological battleground... forged around an overriding resentment and fundamental hatred of the United States and the broader West.” Cuba, the report says, seeks nothing less than to turn “the children of the West… against their own inheritance.”

The report is clearly aimed at deepening the case for regime change in Cuba. But its target is broader. It came just as Washington announced major funding for MAGA-aligned groups in Europe and anti-communist efforts in the US. And it coincided with escalating attack on activists and organisations around the globe.

Indeed, the State Department’s Cuba report names names. It counts the Democratic Socialist of America, Black Alliance for Peace, National Lawyers’ Guild, Codepink, and the People’s Forum among a long list of movements supposedly under Cuba’s ideological grip — enemies of Western civilisation whose aims increasingly converge with the “ambitions of Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran.”

These kinds of attacks are no longer rhetorical. Since last September’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, the Trump administration has run a domestic anti-communist campaign built on a dubious legal category: “domestic terrorism.” Antifa, a short-hand for “anti-fascist”, has been designated a terrorist organisation even though it is not a movement, has no members, and does not exist in any formal sense. The move gives the US government a blank slate to repress, as its own terminology suggests, any opponent of fascism.

The effects are already devastating. In Georgia, many activists opposing a massive police training ground known as “Cop City” have been charged with terrorism; and one, an activist known as Tortuguita, was executed by state forces. In Texas, defendants tied to a 2025 clash at an immigration detention centre now serve sentences of up to a century. In Minnesota, more than a dozen activists face conspiracy charges built partly on the wearing of a sweatshirt.

Today, several US-based organisations are facing official investigations. Individuals have received death threats. And others are seeing intensified legal persecution. On 10 July, Spanish police boxed in a car carrying Fergie Chambers, a prominent US American anti-imperialist philanthropist and activist, who now faces extradition to the US on charges of terrorist financing. It is the first attempt to extradite a supporter of Palestinian liberation from foreign soil — another escalation in Washington’s war on the solidarity movement.

None of this is new. From Jakarta to Guatemala City, Washington has long waged a genocidal war on communism and liberation outside its borders. And, from McCarthyism to COINTELPRO, it waged a crushing and violent struggle against it at home.

These historical precedents — now viewed in light of the violence against Venezuela, Palestine, Cuba, Lebanon and Iran — point to an alarming conclusion: Washington has no red lines, no principles, and no humanitarian constraints in its war. That war will intensify, it will deepen, and more of us will fall within its crosshairs.

But they also point to something else: Washington is panicked. It is losing its grip. It is, as Rubio himself admitted earlier this year, in a state of “terminal decline”. And the “spectre of Communism”, very recently consigned to extinction, appears to haunt it more than ever.

Empire is afraid of the internationalism that increasingly unites the struggles of the South with the struggles of the North. And it is afraid of “communism” because “communism” describes the historical movement towards capitalism’s demise — a future, built through our collective struggle, in which our lives are no longer beholden to the warmongers and monopolists.

The lesson for us is clear: if the spectre continues to haunt our enemies, then our determination to bring its ghostly form to life must, too.

Latest from the Movement

Venezuela Earthquake Relief

The International Committee of PI member the Democratic Socialists of America has launched a fundraiser to support relief efforts in Venezuela following the devastating earthquakes that hit the major cities of Caracas and La Guaira, and the states of Trujillo, Yaracuy, Carabobo, Aragua, and Miranda.

The money will support the Venezuelan people materially during this time of hardship, which is compounded by the sanctions illegally imposed by the United States against them.

You can click here to donate.

Repression in Pakistan

On 31 July, workers and organizers from PI member the Haqooq-e-Khalq Party were arrested in Lahore while peacefully protesting in solidarity with the people of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, who have faced escalating violence and repression. “This is brazen gangsterism from a failing regime,” wrote Ammar Ali Jan. “Protest is not a crime, standing with the oppressed is not illegal.” All detainees have since been released. The struggle continues.

Ecuador’s Democracy Cannot Be Suspended

Ecuador’s authorities are closing the road to the ballot for the country’s largest opposition force. After suspending Revolución Ciudadana for nine months in March, the Electoral Disputes Tribunal has now suspended AMIGO — the party through which its candidates planned to contest November’s local elections — just hours before the deadline to register alliances. The Progressive International Observatory has called on international observers to monitor the entire electoral cycle and demanding due process, political pluralism and a meaningful choice for Ecuador’s voters.

Albania’s Flamingo Protests Cannot Be Arrested

For nearly two months, Albanians have filled the streets against the Trump–Kushner luxury land grab and the government clearing its path. On 27 July, police encircled Parliament, pepper-sprayed demonstrators and detained protesters, including leading members of Progressive International member Lëvizja Bashkë, as the movement demanded Prime Minister Edi Rama’s immediate resignation. After weeks of tear gas, water cannon and arrests, the protests continue insisting that Albania’s coast, public land and political future are not for sale.

Telangana Gig Workers Shut Down the Apps

On 22 July, nearly 390,000 cab, auto-rickshaw, delivery and goods-transport workers across the Indian state of Telangana joined a statewide “breakdown” strike led by Progressive International member the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union and the Telangana App-Based Drivers Forum. Workers logged off Ola, Uber, Rapido, Swiggy, Zomato, Zepto, Blinkit and Porter, disrupting transport and deliveries across Hyderabad and other cities in the state. They are demanding fair minimum fares, lower platform commissions, implementation of the state’s gig-worker protections and the creation of a welfare board — and warn that, unless the government and companies act, the one-day shutdown will become an indefinite strike after 8 August.

India’s “Cockroaches” Force Out The Education Minister

A protest movement in India has forced the education minister from office. The Cockroach Janta Party began as an Instagram account responding to the country’s chief justice slur against unemployed students. The CJP transformed online satire into a nationwide revolt against exam corruption, joblessness and political impunity. Tens of thousands marched on Parliament demanding accountability for the latest medical entrance-exam leak, defying blocked roads, internet restrictions, police batons and tear gas. On 25 July, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned, while the government pledged reforms, compensation for families of students who died by suicide and an end to prosecutions arising from the protests.

Our History

25 July 1898 - US Invasion of Puerto Rico

On 25 July 1898, 16,000 US soldiers invaded Puerto Rico, promising liberation from Spanish rule before abolishing the island’s autonomous government and imposing a new colonial regime. Washington replaced the peso, wiping out 40 per cent of Puerto Ricans’ savings; transferred vast areas of farmland to US banks and sugar corporations; imposed US citizenship without representation; and turned the island into a military outpost for interventions across Latin America and the Caribbean. From the sugar workers’ strike of 1934 to the independence movement targeted by massacres and FBI repression, Puerto Ricans have resisted more than a century of occupation, extraction and rule from Washington.

Read more about and share this history with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.

25 July 1900 - The First Pan-African Conference Ends

On 25 July 1900, the first Pan-African Conference ended in London, bringing together Black intellectuals, activists and organisers from Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and the United States against colonial rule and racial oppression. In his closing Address to the Nations of the World, W. E. B. Du Bois warned that the exploitation of the “black world” threatened the ideals of justice and freedom claimed by Europe itself. The conference helped forge an international movement that would pass through later Pan-African congresses and figures including George Padmore, Amy Ashwood Garvey and Jomo Kenyatta, and onward to Bandung and the Tricontinental — a tradition of solidarity that continues wherever colonialism is resisted.

Read more about and share this history with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.

26 July 1847 - The Founding of Liberia

On 26 July 1847, Liberia — the “Land of Freedom” — declared independence, becoming the world’s second Black republic. Founded by the American Colonization Society as a destination for emancipated Black Americans, the new state remained vulnerable to foreign domination through debt, diplomatic pressure and corporate power. In 1926, the US-backed Firestone Tire & Rubber Company secured a 99-year lease over up to one million acres — around a tenth of Liberia’s arable land — while a Firestone-controlled loan placed the country’s revenues under external supervision. Investigations later documented forced labour on its plantations, where workers earned poverty wages as company profits eclipsed government income. Liberia had escaped formal colonial rule, but Firestone turned much of the country into what W. E. B. Du Bois described as an empire of private capital — a plantation system whose legacy endures today.

Read more about and share this history with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.

26 July 1953 - The Moncada Barracks Assault

On 26 July 1953, Cuban revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada Barracks in the first armed challenge to Fulgencio Batista’s US-backed dictatorship. The assault failed, and around 70 rebels were killed, but Castro used his trial to deliver History Will Absolve Me, setting out a programme of land redistribution, workers’ rights, social provision and resistance to tyranny across the Americas. Sentenced to 15 years in prison, Fidel and Raúl Castro were freed after two years by popular pressure, regrouped in Mexico and returned to build the movement that overthrew Batista on 1 January 1959. The defeat at Moncada became the beginning of the Cuban Revolution.

Read more about and share this history with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.

28 July 1954 - Hugo Chávez is Born

On 28 July 1954, Hugo Chávez Frias was born in Sabaneta, Venezuela. Elected president in 1998 after decades of inequality and exclusion, Chávez redirected oil wealth towards healthcare, education, food and housing, expanded public ownership and sought to place working people at the centre of political power through thousands of communal councils and communes. Abroad, he helped found ALBA and UNASUR, advancing a project of Latin American integration independent of Washington and international financial institutions. From “change the system, not the climate” to his final call of ¡Comuna o nada! — the commune or nothing — Chávez linked socialism, sovereignty and popular democracy in a Bolivarian project that continues to shape the continent.

Read more about and share this history with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.

Art of the Week

The poster is available for purchase on our Workshop through the link below.

Peter Kennard is a photomontage artist and Professor of Political Art at the Royal College of Art. Since the late 1960s, Kennard has made powerfully political work that is a visual manifestation of resistance against economic inequality, war, climate change and injustices, both local and global. Internationally renowned for the photomontages he constructed in support of CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) across the '70s and '80s, Kennard has produced iconic images for left publications and social protests that are firmly lodged in the collective consciousness and still potent and as powerful today. This poster, made for the Progressive International, cites the PI Declaration.

LINK: https://workshop.progressive.international/products/peter-kennard-progressive-international-1?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=briefing