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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.
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Malaysian socialists put forward 'people's' alternative to TPP, free trade agreements
By Duncan Roden
March 2, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — The movement against the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and other pro-corporate “free trade” deals seek to halt the signing of such agreements. To do this, many opponents seek not just to expose the dangers of the CPTPP, but put forward a better model for trade.
The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) is one group that has sought to set out an alternative vision for international trade, releasing a People's Charter on International Trade Agreements in January.
Cyril Ramaphosa relaunches neo-liberalism: After Jacob Zuma’s firing, South Africa risks budget austerity
By Patrick Bond
February 28, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Cyril Ramaphosa’s soft-coup firing of Jacob Zuma from the South African presidency on February 14, after nearly nine years in power and a humiliating struggle to avoid resigning, has contradictory local and geopolitical implications. Society’s general applause at seeing Zuma’s rear end resonates loudly, but concerns immediately arise about the new president’s neo-liberal, pro-corporate tendencies, and indeed his legacy of financial corruption and class war against workers. There is still a lack of closure on the 2012 Marikana Massacre, in spite of his February 20 speech to parliament pledging atonement. New legislation Ramaphosa supports will limit the right to strike, while the new budget has cuts and tax increases that hurt the poorest.
British politics in transition: Austerity, Brexit and the Corbyn challenge
By Phil Hearse
February 28, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — In the middle of the harshest winter for more than a decade, Britain finds itself still gripped by the icy fingers of neoliberal austerity. Both the health service (NHS) and local government stagger from crisis to crisis, as savage spending cuts by Theresa May’s Conservative government make the provision of adequate services – those used mainly by the elderly, disabled people, the ill, the poor and the homeless – impossible. Eight years of austerity and harsh pay restraint among public sector workers have pushed economic growth into a nosedive, sharply reducing tax income, thus giving a further twist to the knife of Tory cutbacks.
United States: Barre’s hidden history of Italian-American radicalism
February 23, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Barre, located in central Vermont, not far from the capital, Montpelier, with a population of 8710, was for a time in the early 1900s an internationally known center of Italian-American radicalism.
The city was founded in 1788 as a farming community and was named after Issac Barre, a British politician who supported the American colonies in the period leading up to the Revolutionary War. Vermont is known for rocky soil and a cold climate, making farming difficult and many of the first generation of settlers eventually moved away.
Large granite deposits were discovered shortly after the War of 1812 and Barre’s first granite quarry opened in 1813. Vermont’s hilly terrain made transporting granite difficult though and it wasn’t until the Central Vermont Railroad ran a spur into Barre in 1875 that the granite industry took off.
United States: Settler colonialism and the second amendment
By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
February 23, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Monthly Review — The Anglo-American settlers’ violent break from Britain in the late eighteenth century paralleled their search-and-destroy annihilation of Delaware, Cherokee, Muskogee, Seneca, Mohawk, Shawnee, and Miami, during which they slaughtered families without distinction of age or gender, and expanded the boundaries of the thirteen colonies into unceded Native territories.
Pakistan: 10 left-wing parties seek to form alliance
By Dawn staff reporter
February 23, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Dawn — In their maiden meeting to form an `alliance of the left,` the leadership of 10 progressive and left-wing parties on December 29 agreed to work together in the future and formed an eight member committee to find a way for the formation of an alliance.
Change in South Africa's president: Out with the old, in with the not so new
By Shawn Hattingh
February 18, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Pambazuka — For white and international capital in South Africa, the last few weeks have been a period of rejoicing due to Cyril Ramaphosa being elected as African National Congress (ANC) president. His subsequent appointment as the country's president following Jacob Zuma's resignation on February 14 has lead the business elite to feel an even greater sense of smugness.
The bitter faction fights within the ANC, therefore, have seen Zuma defeated and his erstwhile supporters placed squarely on the back foot.
A Marxist perspective on sustainability: Brief reflections on ecological sustainability and social inequality
By Raju J Das[1]
February 18, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Karl Marx’s concept of sustainability is connected to his concepts of metabolism and reproduction. While the first connection is well recognized in recent literature (famously in the work of Paul Burkett, John Bellamy Foster and many others)[2], the second connection is not. Moreover, sustainability is potentially connected to another crucial concept in Marx’s thinking – that is, value of labour power (which is expressed as the wage that workers receive), although Marx fails to explicitly make that connection.
In this short paper, I connect sustainability to metabolism, reproduction, and value of labour power. I argue that sustainability (or a healthy environment) can be seen as an “ecological social wage” under capitalism and has to be fought for as a part of a larger fight against the various logics of capitalism, such as endless accumulation, and against the system as a whole. Therefore, ecological sustainability is fundamentally a class issue, one that concerns the working class of the world as a whole that is comprised of people with different gender, racial, and nationality backgrounds, and it is not to be narrowly seen as an ecological issue, separate from the needs and the movements of the working class.
Do seven cheap things explain the history of capitalism?
A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things:
A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet
Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore
University of California Press, 2017
Reviewed by Ian Angus
February 14, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Climate & Capitalism — Every airport bookstore features books with titles like 10 Ways to Retire Rich, 150 Places You Must Visit Before You Die, or 8 Easy Steps to a Flatter Tummy, with the numbers in very large type on their covers. They are the publishing equivalent of junk food, quickie books written to match titles that were invented by the marketing department to generate impulse purchases. The authors and publisher of A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things must have had such books in mind when they chose its title and designed its cover. Although it is by no means an airport quickie book, it shares their principal defect: the title promises a lot, but the book doesn’t deliver.
India: Communists debate way forward
By Dipankar Bhattacharya
February 14, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Liberation — Media reports coming from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Central Committee meeting held in Kolkata (19-21 January, 2018) indicate that the party is majorly divided on the issue of its current political assessment and tactical position. According to these reports, the draft presented by Sitaram Yechury was defeated 31 to 55 votes in the Central Committee, and the forthcoming CPI(M) Congress in Hyderabad is now expected to take up the draft attributed to former general secretary Prakash Karat for deliberation and adoption. Within the CPI(M) the division is being widely seen as a clash of the ‘Bengal line’ against ‘Kerala line’. Beyond the CPI(M), among broad progressive liberal circles it is being seen as a clash between a pragmatic mass line and a puritan isolationist position, a conflict between people who understand the nuances of popular electoral politics and those who are driven by copybook Marxist dogma.
Fragmented Power: Portugal in Revolution, 1974-1975
By Doug Enaa Greene
February 11, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — On April 25, 1974, just after midnight, the Catholic-owned Radio Renascenca played a song entitled “Grandola Vila Morena”. This was the signal for the underground Armed Forces Movement (MFA) to begin their long-planned coup d'etat and bring down the Estado Novo regime that had ruled Portugal for forty-four years. The coup succeeded with remarkable ease in seizing control of key installations and cities. The next day, the people of Lisbon ignored radio appeals to stay inside and poured into the streets to enjoy their first taste of freedom. To show their support for the soldiers, the people placed carnations on their guns – giving the coup its name as the “Carnation Revolution”. Despite the modest intentions of its organizers, over the next eighteen months the coup unleashed mass movements and popular initiatives that brought Portugal to the brink of a socialist revolution.
Syria: The Assad regime - a response to Marcel Cartier
By Chris Slee
February 10, 2018 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – In a recent article republished on Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, Marcel Cartier denounces the Turkish invasion of Afrin and calls for solidarity with Rojava:
I fully agree with Cartier's call for solidarity with the Rojava Revolution, but I disagree with some other points in his article.
Amedspor: resistance is everywhere
February 8, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from The Region — Amedspor football club was little known outside of Turkey and the Kurdish diaspora until its captain and star player Deniz Naki was shot at on a German autobahn in January 2018.
Catalonia: To stop Puigdemont, Spanish regime dives ever deeper into the sewer
By Dick Nichols
February 7, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Early on January 30, Roger Torrent, speaker of the Catalan parliament that was returned at the December 21 elections, suspended that day’s session. It had been set down to elect outgoing president Carles Puigdemont as head of the new Catalan government.
The decision of Torrent, a leading member of the pro-independence Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), came after the Spanish Constitutional Court had ruled two days earlier that the investiture of Puigdemont, in exile in Brussels, could not take place in absentia.
Moreover, as someone facing charges of “rebellion” and “sedition” he would have to get the permission of Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena—author of the preventive detention of other Catalan MPs—to actually attend the investiture session.
Wild Times: From the 1917 Russian Revolution to the Revolution of Our Times
By Álvaro García, Linera, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Crisis and Critique
Abstract: The present work is an attempt to locate the relevance of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. It takes as a premise the thesis that the previous century was announced by this event, which indeed brought the idea of Communism from the marginal debates into the center of political action. It then goes on to debate revolutions as a plebeian moment, all the way to the possibility and the nature of socialism today, by taking a detour through the meaning of the Bolshevik Revolution. The paper concludes with affirming the necessity of revolutions, as something which dignifies the human beings.
Contextualizing South Korea’s Winter Olympics
By Youngsu Won
February 6, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — This winter has been extremely cold in South Korea, with temperatures regularly reaching well below -10oC – perhaps another sign of climate change. One of the coldest places has been Pyeongchang, a small town in Gangwon Province, which is just below the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and is set to host the Winter Olympics between February 9 to 25.
Blanqui and the Communist Enlightenment
Dedicated to my cousin, Finley William
By Doug Enaa Greene
February 6, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Left Voice with the author's permission — Currently, the principles of the Enlightenment are under attack on several fronts. On the one hand, there are fascists and religious fundamentalists who are opposed to secularism, democracy, and equality. On the other hand, large segments of the left have rejected Enlightenment-inspired “grand narratives” as inherently oppressive and totalitarian. Now that Enlightenment ideas are under attack, the left stands on the same philosophical ground as the right, making it ill-equipped to defend universalist principles. Other so-called defenders of the Enlightenment, whether liberals or social democrats, offer no positive alternative to reactionaries. They remain stalwart defenders of the status quo of capitalism, wars, and racism.
New evidence of Africa’s systematic looting from an increasingly schizophrenic World Bank
By Patrick Bond
February 5, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — A brand new World Bank report, The Changing Wealth of Nations 2018, offers evidence of how much poorer Africa is becoming thanks to rampant minerals, oil and gas extraction. Yet Bank policies and practices remain oriented to enforcing foreign loan repayments and transnational corporate (TNC) profit repatriation, thus maintaining the looting.
Honduras: Free Edwin Espinal and all political prisoners (plus COPINH Updates on the Case of Berta Caceres and Gustavo Castro)
February 4, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Free Edwin Espinal Campaign — Long-time Honduran activist Edwin Espinal has been jailed on charges related to protests against election fraud in Honduras. Due to his activism, he has been subject to State harassment, violence, and threats since the 2009 coup d’état. Immediate action is required to push for Edwin’s release and to ensure his safety.
Ecuador: Referendum could decide fate of Correa’s Citizens’ Revolution
By Denis Rogatyuk
February 3, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Ecuadorians will head to the polls on February 4 to cast their vote in a referendum that could prove to be decisive for the government of President Lenin Moreno and the political direction of the country.
Moreno was elected president last April as the candidate of PAIS Alliance, the party of former left-wing president Rafael Correa. However, less than year on from the election, Correa – together with a majority of PAIS Alliance activists – now view Moreno as a “traitor” for failing to honour his commitment to continue the policies of the Citizens’ Revolution, which was kick-started by Correa’s election in 2007.