Catalonia’s Independence Referendum on October 1 has opened up a major regime crisis in Spain. Braving brutal police repression, hundreds of thousands occupied and defended polling stations so that 2.2 million people could vote on the day. There were images of police officers using hammers to break through the doors of polling stations and then snatching polling boxes from the hands of the people, of police officers using batons against unarmed civilians, including elderly ladies, of police officers throwing people downstairs.

Editor of marxist.com, Alan Woods, has begun a speaking tour of Latin America with meetings organized by Marxists in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. The tour will continue in November with a series of meetings in Mexico City, organised by Esteban Volkov (Trotsky’s grandson) and the Trotsky Museum.