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The rise of far-right populism in the world – A ‘morbid symptom’ of our times
By Bulent Gokay
June 23, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci wrote in his Prison Notebooks, in 1930, that “the crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born. In this interregnum, a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Gramsci was preoccupied with the breakdown and collapse of the liberal order which was the dominant pattern in international affairs after World War I. In particular, when struggling to understand the rise to power of Benito Mussolini, Gramsci used the term, “morbid phenomenon”. For Gramsci, Mussolini was one such morbid symptom. The term “interregnum” was originally used to denote a time-lag separating the death of one royal sovereign from the enthronement of the successor. Interregnum here, as referred by Gramsci, can be understood with a new wider meaning as a period where one arrangement of hegemony is waning, but prior to the full emergence of another.
The Law and Justice Party and Poland’s turn to the right
By Gavin Rae and Czesław Kulesza
January 19, 2017 –– Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Transform! Europe –– It has been over a year since the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) took over complete governmental control in Poland. The presidential election won by Andrzej Duda in May 2015 and the victory of PiS five months later, gave party’s leader Jarosław Kaczyński almost total control of the state.
Northern nastiness: Far right becomes second party in German chancellor Merkel's home state
By Victor Grossman
September 15, 2016 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from The Left Berlin — Old German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once said – or so goes the legend: “If the world ever perishes I’d want to be in Mecklenburg where everything happens fifty years late.” The alarm bells are now loudly ringing, warning that this once feudally most backward part of Germany between Berlin and the Baltic Sea may prove something like the opposite!
The elections on Sunday (Sept. 4) were an unmitigated disaster! The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), running for the first time, rang up an amazing 21.9 % of the vote, putting it in second place behind the Social Democrats and beating out Angela Merkel in her own home state!
Ukraine: 'Before Maidan, Ukraine was more democratic', says Volodymyr Ishchenko
A toppled statue of Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine.
More on the political situation in Ukraine
Volodymyr Ishchenko interviewed by Javier Morales
April 27, 2015 -- LeftEast, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
Javier Morales: How do you think that Ukrainian society is assessing the consequences of the Euromaidan revolution? Has there been any change in their attitudes in the past year?
David Renton: On SYRIZA and the Independent Greeks; and compromises and alliances
"The migration minister is Tasia Christodoulopoulou, doyenne of Greek migrants’ lawyers – the equivalent in England of giving our unreconstructed CLR James-ite Ian Macdonald the job."
Click for more on SYRIZA
By David Renton
March 7, 2015 -- Lives; Running, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- Six weeks ago, when SYRIZA formed a coalition with the Independent Greeks (ANEL) the most common view among my friends was that this was SYRIZA’s first betrayal and that others would inevitably follow.
Farooq Tariq: 'Fue un ataque de fanáticos musulmanes contra los niños musulmanes'
[English at http://links.org.au/node/4210.]
Por Farooq Tariq
Sábado, 20 de diciembre de 2014 -- Viento Sur -- Ha sido el ataque más mortífero realizado contra una escuela por los fanáticos religiosos. En la Escuela Pública del Ejército [una de las cerca de 150 creadas y gestionadas por el ejército. ndr] hubo 146 víctimas. Entre ellas, 136 niños con edades comprendidas entre 10 y 17 años. A los niños se les pidió que recitaran el Kalma [ver: http://ismaili.net/heritage/node/10521] y luego les dispararon. Fue un ataque de fánaticos musulmames contra niños musulmanes.
El Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan se atribuyó la responsabilidad y envió una foto de los siete militantes que participaron en la "operación" portando armas y bombas. Lo hicieron depués de que se publicaran en la web los rostros de los siete militantes muertos, asesinados por el ejército en el contraataque, no antes de que ellos causaron el daño máximo.
Los fanáticos afirmaron que no mataron niños pequeños, que su "islam" no les permite asesina a niños del "enemigo" menores de 12 años. Casi el 11% de los niños matriculados en la escuela murieron en los primeros 15 minutos que tuvieron ocupada la escuela.
Farooq Tariq and Tariq Ali on the 'Talibanisation' of Pakistan and the Afghan war blowback
Tariq Ali appeared on the December 18, 2014, episode of Democracy Now! (text below).
By Farooq Tariq
December 19, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- It was the most deadly attack on any school by religious fanatics: 146 were killed in a Peshawar Army Public School, including 136 children, ages ranging from 10 to 17 years. The attackers asked the children to recite the Kalma and then fired at them. It was an attack on Muslim children by Muslim fanatics.
Tehreek Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility and sent a group photo of the seven militants who took part in the “operation” holding guns and bombs. This was in response to the posting online of the dead faces of the seven who were killed by the army in the counter attack, not before they caused maximum damage.
Volodymyr Ishchenko on Ukraine: Maidan, the far right and civil war
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal has published various left viewpoints from the region on the political situation in Ukraine. Another video is below. For more by
Volodymyr Ishchenko.
By Volodymyr Ishchenko
November 4, 2014 -- Danyliw Research Seminar on Contemporary Ukraine -- How significant was the participation of the far right in Maidan? Unfortunately, this question quickly falls victim to extreme politicisation due to two phenomena: first, active propaganda aimed at discrediting Maidan by its opponents, including the Russian media, and second, by whitewashing attempts by Maidan's (left-) liberal or moderate nationalist supporters.
Ukraine: Election confirms right-wing government and its austerity and war aims
Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine, with the new modernised main battle tank T-72B for the Ukrainian National Guard.
More on the political situation in Ukraine.
By Roger Annis
November 11, 2014 – A version of this first appeared at Truthout, submitted to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal by the author -- The general election to Ukraine’s parliament (the Verkhovna Rada, or Supreme Council) on October 26 was another step by the country’s wealthy power brokers to consolidate their pro-Europe, pro-austerity economic course and related war against the rebellious population in the east of the country. A large, neo-conservative and far-right majority now controls the Rada.
Communist resistance in Nazi Germany
Historian Doug Enaa Greene, as part of the Center for Marxist Education's Red History Lecture Series, speaks on "Communist Resistance in Nazi Germany".
For more by Doug Enaa Greene, click HERE.
By Doug Enaa Greene
October 29, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- In 1943, a member of the Communist Party, sentenced to die for resistance activities as a member of the Red Orchestra, wrote these final words to his father:
War in eastern Ukraine and the new Cold War
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal has published various left viewpoints on the political situation in Ukraine.
October 9, 2014 -- A Socialist in Canada, submitted to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal by the author -- On September 29, 2014, the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University hosted a talk by Roger Annis on the war in eastern Ukraine and the accompanying political and military threats by NATO and the Kyiv government against Russia. Roger Annis is a Vancouver-based writer and antiwar activist who has written extensively on Ukraine.
The themes covered in the one-hour talk included:
Sweden: Far-right gains cause political crisis; Beware of 'Swedish lessons'
September 25, 2014 -- International Viewpoint, submitted to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal by the author -- Sweden went to elections on September 14 to elect a new government for the next four years. As expected, an informal red-green coalition gained outpolled (43.7% votes) its rival "bourgeois alliance" (39.3%). The red-green alliance includes the Social Democratic Party, the Left Party (the reformed Communist Party) and Greens. It has represented the ideological polarisation in Swedish electoral politics since the 1990s. It represents the mainstream Swedish left.
In contrast, the right-wing alliance, consisting of the Moderate Party (conservatives), Liberals, the Centre Party and Christian Democrats, was a formal block. It won the last two elections and during eight years of misrule, it managed to aggressively dismantle the famous Swedish welfare state. It will be news only for casual observers of Swedish developments that the country is now top among OECD lands where the class gulf has widened.
Feminist Initiative
The fight for socialism in Slovenia: interview with Anej Korsika (Initiative for Democratic Socialism)
For more on the Initiative for Democratic Socialism, click HERE.
Anej Korsika interviewed by James Robertson
September 1, 2014 -- Left East, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
James Robertson: Let’s start with a brief history of the Initiative for Democratic Socialism (IDS) and its role in the formation of the Združena levica (UL, United Left) earlier this year. What are the origins of IDS?
Anej Korsika: The Initiative for Democratic Socialism, to use the old cliche, has a short history and a long past. Officially, the party was founded on March 8 this year. However when one wants to grasp the gradual formation of the party, one needs to take into consideration a much longer timeline.
Behind the Kiev/NATO war on the people of eastern Ukraine
Market in Luhansk hit by Ukraine government shelling, August 2014.
The following is an edited version of a talk by Roger Annis on August 22, 2014, that was delivered to a session of the Peoples Social Forum that took place in Ottawa from August 21 to 25. Also on the panel was David Mandel, a professor of political science in Montreal and expert in the history of the working class movements in Russia and Ukraine. You can read Mandel's talk, titled "Understanding the civil war in Ukraine", HERE.
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal has published various left viewpoints on the political situation in Ukraine. These do not necessarily represent the views of the publishers.
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‘No Afghanistan in Ukraine!’: Anti-war protests spread as Kyiv wages all-out war in the south east
Anti-war protest in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, July 25, 2014, blocking traffic bridge over Bug River. Sign reads: "We demand, save the 79th Regiment!"
Read more on the situation in Ukraine HERE.
By Roger Annis
July 31, 2014 -- A Socialist in Canada, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- A rising wave of anti-war and anti-conscription protests is taking place in cities and towns across western Ukraine. The protests are prompted by the announcement of Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko 10 days ago that a “third” military mobilisation is now required for the war that his governing regime began waging against the population of eastern Ukraine three months ago. Kyiv calls the war an "anti-terrorist operation".
The protests are paralleled by a rise in Ukraine army desertions and refusals of men and women to heed conscription orders.
'No to the war in eastern Ukraine!' Declarations of the Yalta anti-war conference
Ukraine army in Kramatorsk. Photo Ukraine government.
Read more on the situation in Ukraine HERE.
July 16, 2014 -- Text from A Socialist in Canada, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission
Declaration of the assembly of citizens of Ukraine and representatives of international solidarity networks, issued in Yalta, Crimea, July 7, 2014
A major human rights and humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Ukraine. The government that took power in Kyiv in February 2014 is conducting a brutal military assault in the southeast of the country.
Ukraine’s fractures: Interview with Volodymyr Ishchenko in 'New Left Review'
Volodymyr Ishchenko.
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal has published several views from the left on developments in Ukraine HERE.
The following interview with Ukrainian socialist Volodymyr Ishchenko, founding editor in Ukraine of the journal Spilne (Commons), appeared in New Left Review #8, May-June 2014. It is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal in the interests of information and discussion.
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Introduction [by New Left Review]
Discussion: Fourth International needs to oppose the war and austerity drive against Ukrainian people
Far-right militia parade openly in Kyiv.
More on developments in Ukraine HERE.
By Roger Annis and Renfrey Clarke
June 27, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- On June 7, the leadership bureau of the Fourth International adopted a statement on the crisis in Ukraine. It was adopted unanimously, with one abstention vote. The text was translated and published in English on June 16, and has also been published without comment in the weekly Presse-toi à gauche (Move Left!) online bulletin in Quebec.
Borotba on Ukraine: ‘An alarm bell for pro-democracy and anti-fascist forces’
Ukrainian Svoboda (freedom) party members carry portraits of Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.
June 12, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The following address was delivered by Andriy Manchuk on April 11, 2014, to a three-day, European-wide anti-fascist meeting in Athens, Greece. He spoke on behalf of Borotba group of Ukraine. Borotba is a significant association of left groups and activists in Ukraine formed in 2011.
The theme of the anti-fascist meeting in Athens was, “From France to the Ukraine, and from Norway to Greece: No Pasaran!” [They shall not pass!]. The following text was first published on the English-language page of Borotba’s website. The original translation has been slightly edited for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, and published on June 12, 2014.
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By Andriy Manchuk
Ukraine: New president escalates austerity, civil war; popular resistance deepens
Ukraine troops and fighter aircraft launch attacks on rebellious eastern Ukraine.
For more on Ukraine, click HERE.
By Roger Annis
June 2, 2014 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The newly elected president of western Ukraine is deepening the disastrous course to civil war of his interim predecessor. Within hours of his election on May 25, Petro Poroshenko ordered jet fighters, helicopter gunships, artillery and snipers to back fascist stormtroopers from western Ukraine in attacking the airport and surrounding neighbourhoods in Donetsk in the east, the country’s fifth-largest city.
