When the wicked rule, the people groan.
Where there is no vision, the people perish. …
– Book of Proverbs 29:2 and 18 (written before 700 BCE
Socialist World Media, the online media platform for the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI), recently published a fascinating article called “The Man Trotsky”.[1]
This was published on December 14, 2025. It was initially written by the State Capitalist Rae Spiegel (later known as Raya Dunayevskaya) when she was 22 years old. Spiegel served as Leon Trotsky’s personal secretary in Mexico. It was submitted to Max Shachtman for publication in the press of the newly formed Workers Party, but it was never printed.
The piece offers a rare, intimate look at Trotsky’s personality and his vision for a socialist future. The article is well worth a read despite her glorification of the GPU and FBI agent Joseph Hansen.
Given that the article offers fascinating insight into how Leon Trotsky worked, one wonders how he would have responded to the new WSWS Socialism AI platform. My feeling is that he would have welcomed it with open arms and would have had a field day on it. This was my initial reaction to it. I still need more time to develop a deeper understanding of it and its technology, but it appears to be a fantastic aid in the fight for Socialism in the 21st century.
Socialism AI is a specialised chatbot designed to provide workers, students, and activists with access to over 175 years of Marxist theory and nearly 30 years of WSWS historical analysis. It should be seen as a library for the mind, with a fantastic librarian at the helm.
Users can pose questions about historical events, political theory, and current labour struggles (e.g., how to oppose layoffs at specific companies) and receive responses grounded in scientific socialism. While being a little surprised that some features require a paid subscription to cover operational costs, I agree with the initiative to “democratize access” to revolutionary perspectives.
As David North points out, “The historical significance of Socialism AI is sharply revealed when examined in the objective context of its public launch, amid the deepening world capitalist crisis. The working class faces a highly complex economic, geopolitical and social reality, while the bourgeoisie has thoroughly dismantled traditional centres of study and discussion. Under these circumstances, a system that synthesises and connects the insights of Marxist theory with current developments is no mere novelty. It is a means of intellectual counter-attack, of recovering the historical memory of the working-class movement.”[2]
North’s point about recovering the memory of the working class is extremely valid. This has always been the attitude of the Marxist movement, but the development of Socialism AI takes it to a whole other level. This change in how the Marxist movement operates, while not as fundamental as the shift from the Newspaper form to the Internet, is pretty close to that fundamental change. While not a replacement for the World Socialist Website (WSWS), it should be seen as a complement to it.
It has not taken the Pseudo Left fraternity long to start attacking the WSWS’s use of AI for revolutionary purposes. On a forum run by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, titled “WSWS group to launch a ‘Socialism AI’,” the SPGB published several unopposed comments that broadly attacked the WSWS’s launch of Socialism AI and expressed hostility to both orthodox Marxism and AI in general.[3]
The WSWS recently published an attack by “Dmitri. The WSWS has issued an extensive reply to his short comments, saying “ Dmitri’s remarks, notwithstanding his use of technical jargon, exemplify the widespread lack of understanding of AI and hostility to the Marxist approach to technology within the milieu of middle-class radicalism.”[4]
Socialist AI is fit for purpose, and workers and students should embrace the concept behind Socialism AI and use it in their struggle for Socialism in the 21st Century.
[1] https://www.socialistworld.net/2025/12/14/the-man-trotsky/
[2] Technology and the working class: Responding to an opponent of Socialism AI http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/12/19/thbn-d19.html
[3] www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/forum/topic/wsws-group-to-launch-a-socialism-ai/
[4] Technology and the working class: Responding to an opponent of Socialism AI -www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/12/19/thbn-d19.html
A Trumpet of Sedition 