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Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal seeks to promote the exchange of information, experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for open and constructive dialogue between active socialists from different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social policies, and reject the bureaucratic model of "socialism" that arose in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China.
Inspired by the unfolding socialist revolution in Venezuela, as well as the continuing example of socialist Cuba, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is a journal for "Socialism of the 21st century", and the discussions and debates flowing from that powerful example of socialist renewal.
Links is also proud to be the sister publication of Green Left Weekly, the world's leading red-green newspaper, and we urge readers to visit that site regularly.
Please explore Links and subscribe (click on "Subscribe to Links" or "Follow Links on Twitter" in the left menu). Links welcomes readers' constructive comments (but please read the "Comments policy" above).
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Canada: History and strategies in the fight for reproductive justice
By Jocelyn Piercy
August 7, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- When I think of the struggles in Toronto in the 1980s and ’90s for sexual and reproductive justice or liberation (that is, for more than just legal or formal rights), I think of the importance of having AIDS Action Now and the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics (OCAC) as socialist feminist leaders in these respective struggles.
Chile's Revolutionary Left Movement under Allende and Pinochet
By Doug Enaa Greene
August 6, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — In late 1973, following the military coup led by Augusto Pinochet, political activist Bautista Van Schowen was captured by the government. Reportedly, Van Schowen was tortured mercilessly by his captors. In response to his torturers, Van Schowen declared “you don’t know what you’re torturing me for, but I know what I’m dying for.” Van Schowen’s attitude was emblematic of the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (Movement of the Revolutionary Left, MIR), Chile’s small Guevarist organization.
Cuba: Moves to censor journalists sparks controversy
August 5, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — In recent months an important debate has opened up over the role and character of the press in socialist Cuba. As part of making this debate available to an English speaking audience, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is publishing two translated pieces by Fernando Ravsberg and Esteban Morales. We hope to continue to run more articles covering different aspects of what is a critical discussion for the future of Cuba’s socialist revolution.
Erdogan, the coup in Turkey and the global counter-revolution
By Santiago Alba Rico, translated from Cuarto Poder by Sean Seymour-Jones
August 4, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — What many of us feared on the night of July 15 has occurred in the most sombre way possible. If a victorious coup in Turkey would have been terrible, its failure looks set to be no less so. In barely a week, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has detained or purged more than 40,000 public officials: army officers, police, judges, teachers, and journalists. He has declared a state of emergency for three months - which can be extended indefinitely - and has suspended the European Convention of Human Rights, which could open the way – as the government has already insinuated - to the reestablishment of the death penalty and, in any case, normalise repression against all forms of opposition, particularly against the Gulenist forces and the Kurds, who have once again, following the reinitiating of the military conflict a year ago, been converted into the “internal enemy”. In short, to stop or avenge a coup - real and manipulated - Erdogan and his party have at the same time carried out a coup.
Class "justice": Baba Jan and his comrades sentenced to 40 years in prison
By Jan Malewski
August 3, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from International Viewpoint -- Accused without evidence of acts that he could not have committed, since he was at the time about sixty kilometres away, Baba Jan was tortured, convicted and then acquitted on appeal. He came second in the elections in 2015 while imprisoned and was tipped to win a by-election. Now our comrade, who is vice-president of the Awami Workers Party (AWP) of Pakistan and leader of the party in the Gilgit-Baltistan region, was sentenced by the Supreme Court of Appeal in this region occupied and administered by Pakistan, on June 8, 2016, to 40 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 rupees, under a special law, called "anti-terrorist." Eight other activists - Iftikhar Hussain, Aleem, Irfan Ali, Shukurullah Baig, Sarfraz, Rasheed, Musa and Sher Khan – received the same sentence. [1]
Portugal's Left Bloc: 'We are competing for left hegemony'
By Dick Nichols
August 2, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal a much shorter version of this article first appeared in Green Left Weekly — It is hard to imagine a sharper contrast than that between the 10th National Convention of Portugal's Left Bloc, held in Lisbon from June 24 to 26, and its predecessor, held in the same city 18 months ago.
Ecology or catastrophe: the life of Murray Bookchin
Review by Simon Butler
August 1, 2016 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – Just days before the US entered World War II in 1941, a 20-year-old New Yorker and radical political activist named Murray Bookchin was looking forward to beginning work as a seafarer. Inspired by romantic notions of life at sea conveyed by writers such as the socialist novelist Jack London, Bookchin was keen to trade his arduous job in a New Jersey iron foundry for something more adventurous.
The night before he was due to ship out Bookchin’s worried friends took him out for a farewell drink or three. They succeeded in getting him boisterously drunk – so drunk that, as intended, Bookchin was in no shape to report for work the next morning and missed the boat. Not long afterwards the first of many US merchant ships were sunk in the Atlantic by German U-boats. It soon became apparent that Bookchin’s friends had saved his life.
Contemporary crisis and workers control
By Dario Azzellini
July 31, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- During the first decade of the current century factory occupations and production under workers’ control seemed to be limited mainly to South America, with a few exceptions in Asia. It was beyond the imagination of most workers and scholars in industrialized countries that workers would or could occupy their companies and run them on their own. Nevertheless, the crisis that started in 2008 put workers’ control back on the agenda in the northern hemisphere. Occupations of workplaces and production under control of workers sprang up in the United States, Western Europe and Egypt. This chapter describes some of these struggles and their common characteristics and differences.
Poland between social nationalism and the new left
Interview with Marcelina Zawisza and Maciej Konieczny by Lorenzo Marsili for MicroMega
July 30, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal translation by Revolting Europe— In ultra conservative Poland something is happening on the Left, with the birth of Razëm – which means Together – a new party that with over 4 percent of the vote has gained full rights of participation in the political and national media debate. Born from the social movements, inspired by the Spanish Podemos and, at least for now, has decided to break with the traditional parties of the twentieth century. Here’s their story.
From the tar sands to ‘green jobs’? Work and ecological justice
By Greg Albo and Lilian Yap
July 29, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Socialist Project -- The ecological and social implications of climate change have – or should – become a central parameter for all discussions of work and capitalism.
Georgi Plekhanov: Tragedy of a forerunner
By Doug Enaa Greene
July 28, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — When the names of Russian Marxism are remembered, those of Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Nikolai Bukharin figure as leading lights. However, these figures built upon the pioneering work of Georgi Plekhanov. Plekhanov almost single-handedly introduced Marxism into the Russian Empire and popularized it for a generation of socialist militants. However, Plekhanov's Marxism was seriously flawed in a number of ways and he was not up to the challenge of revolutionary politics. It fell to the generation who came after him to carry the struggle forward to victory. Yet Plekhanov's limitations do not take away from his contributions as a pioneer, something always recognized by his Marxist pupils.
Philippines socialists on President Duterte’s SONA: ‘Genuine change is possible only through mass struggle'
By Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM)
Profile of a Communist women's movement: Excerpts from the Communist International's Third Congress
Introductory note by Mike Taber and John Riddell
July 26, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from International Socialist Review -- Among supporters of women’s rights today, the Communist Women’s Movement (CWM) of the 1920s remains virtually unknown. Yet it is a legitimate precursor of the modern women’s liberation movement and bears serious study by supporters of revolutionary socialism. Comparatively little source material concerning the CWM exists in English. An important new source is To the Masses: Proceedings of the Third Congress of the Communist International, as well as other volumes of the series edited by John Riddell.[1] One of the goals of these books is precisely to enable a new generation of revolutionary activists to reclaim their history and continuity. The excerpts published here are taken from the Third Congress discussion of Communist work among women.
[21세기사회주의 컨퍼런스] 마이클 레보위츠 인터뷰: 오늘날 라틴아메리카 신자유주의 대안 만들기
[Original in English here.]
국제전략센터/International Strategy Center -- 2016년 5월 24일 – 링크스– 마이클 레보위츠는 사회주의적 대안 구축에서 나타날 수 있는 문제점을 연구하는데 많은 시간을 할애해온 맑스주의의 선도적 인물이다. 레보위츠는 2004년부터 2010년까지 6년간 베네수엘라 까라까스의 미란다 국제 센터(CIM)에서 혁신적 실천방안과 인간 발전을 위한 프로그램 개발 책임자로 일하면서 “21세기 사회주의” 건설에 참여할 기회를 가졌다.
레보위츠는 최근 링크스와 공동 주최로 호주에서 개최된 21세기 사회주의 컨퍼런스에 참석했다. 아래 내용은 컨퍼런스에서 레보위츠가 중심이 되어 논의한 오늘날 라틴 아메리카에서의 신자유주의 반대와 사회주의 대안 전망에 대해 인터뷰한 내용이다.
Philippines: The contradictions of the Rodrigo Duterte regime
By Sonny Melencio
July 24, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Partido Lakas ng Masa with permission – The following text is based on a talk delivered at All Leaders Meeting of Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (Solidarity of Filipino Workers, BMP)-Sanlakas-Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Labouring Masses, PLM) at Claret Parish Church on July 13, 2016.]
1. The Rodrigo Duterte government is right now the most popular government since the Cory Aquino administration [1986-1992]. (It cannot be compared though to the euphoria that greeted Cory Aquino’s installation to power through the Edsa 1 uprising, which occurred in a different historical context and circumstance.) According to the Pulse Asia survey, President Duterte enjoys a 91% trust rating. This means 9 out 10 Filipinos trust him; and practically no one (0.2%) rejects him, as the remaining 8% are the undecided.
John Bellamy Foster: The anthropocene and Marxism today
July 24, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal via Climate & Capitalism -- John Bellamy Foster discusses the theoretical and programmatic challenges that the Anthropocene, a dangerous new epoch in planetary history, poses for socialists in the 21st century.
John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and co-author of The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth. He spoke at the Marxism 2016 conference in London on July 2.
[21세기사회주의 컨퍼런스] 마르따 하네커: 사회 변화를 위한 전략 – 민중의 힘과 정치적 수단
[Original in English here.]
Cops, class & race: How to stop police violence
July 22, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- A discussion about the origins of the police and their relationship to racism, class and capitalism featuring Dr. Khury Petersen-Smith.
Race and class in the United States: J. Sakai and the politics of revolution
By Doug Enaa Greene
July 22, 2016 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- In 1843, Karl Marx described the proletariat as a “class with radical chains ... which cannot emancipate itself without emancipating itself from all other spheres of society and thereby emancipating all other spheres of society.”[1] The proletariat's struggle, as envisioned by Marx, was not only against its own exploitation, but would take up the struggles of all those oppressed under capitalism, and lead the way to the communism.However, in the United States, the working class has been far more likely to be reformist and conservative than to act as revolutionary “grave-diggers of capitalism.” The question of why the US working class is not a revolutionary force has preoccupied radicals for decades. Does the existence of racism and white supremacy prevent white workers from becoming revolutionary? Or does the origin of the United States as a settler-colonial state mean that the white working class is incapable of being revolutionary force?
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