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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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'Being treated like slaves': Why migrant exploitation exists
By Mike Treen
November 16, 2018 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – Recently Unite Union discovered a case of migrant exploitation where the workers talked about being “treated like slaves”.
In a capitalist society labour is meant to be “free” – unlike the forced labour associated with slavery. Workers are not meant to be the property of an individual owner. But it is also meant to be free in the sense that the worker is not bound to the land like feudal conditions. Then the serfs had no right to leave the land but the owner had no right to evict them either. Creating a class of “free labour” under capitalism involved the forced eviction of peasants from the land.
Right-wing coup or popular revolt? The April 2018 Nicaraguan uprising examined
By Dick Nichols
This document investigates the causes of the student protests that broke out on April 18 against the Nicaraguan government’s decree changing the regulations governing the country’s Institute for Social Security (INSS). The subsequent conflict has to date claimed at least 269 lives.
The research focuses on the period from April 18 to April 30 because what actually happened in these first days of the conflict is key to reaching a conclusion about which of two opposing accounts of its cause is most believable. The first account is that of the Nicaraguan government. This is that the events amounted to an attempt at a right-wing coup against a democratically elected administration , a coup successfully defeated with the minimum possible use of force. The INSS changes were merely a pretext for launching the coup attempt. For the opposition, by contrast, the events amounted to a revolt against a regime that suppressed protest with violence: police and paramilitary forces using military-grade weaponry were deployed to crush peaceful demonstrations that in reaction to state repression escalated into a popular uprising for justice and democracy.
Catalonia: The struggle over strategy in the independence movement
By Dick Nichols
October 26, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Last December 21, the three parliamentary forces supporting Catalan independence-- Together for Catalonia (JxCat), the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and the People’s Unity List (CUP)--together won a 70-65 seat majority in the 135-seat Catalan parliament. Six months of drawn-out negotiations over forming a pro-independence government followed.
During this period Spanish Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena, instructing magistrate with regard to alleged offences in relation to the October 1, 2017 Catalan independence referendum, prohibited JxCat and ERC MPs in preventive detention and exile from standing for Catalan president or as ministers in any new Catalan government. Llarena’s work was backed up by the Spanish Constitutional Court, acting at the behest of the former People’s Party (PP) government of prime minister Mariano Rajoy.
Revolutionary Rojava: An polyethnic, feminist and anti-capitalist experiment
By Rachel Evans
October 26, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — As Syria enters its eighth year of civil war, the Bashar al-Assad regime, backed by Russia and Iran, must be held to account for its role in the killing of 500,000 people. In a bloodbath that has reaped unspeakable horrors, more than 5 million Syrians have been forced to flee the country, with a further 6 million internally displaced. The barbaric Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), grew out of this chaos and at one point controlled a third of Syria. Amid this savagery, however, a beacon of hope emerged in north-eastern Syria in 2012 – the polyethnic liberated zone of Rojava (Western Kurdistan).
‘October Song’ – A challenging portrayal of the Russian Revolution
Review of Paul Le Blanc, October Song:Bolshevik Triumph, Communist Tragedy, 1917-1924, Chicago: Haymarket, 2017, 479 pp., US$19.56.
By John Riddell
Ocotber 26, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from John Riddell's Marxist Essays and Commentaries — Amid a flock of volumes marking the Russian revolution’s centenary last year, Paul Le Blanc’s October Song is set apart by its unique method. Working from English-language sources, Le Blanc offers us an anthology of assessments and viewpoints on the revolution with “a strong inclination to privilege older things” – that is, testimony and opinions from its early years.
The result is a kaleidoscope of observations, some by respected historians and many by unknown or forgotten voices, which, taken together, constitute a far-ranging debate over the meaning of these world-shaking events.
Québec solidaire prepares to confront a new government of austerity and social and ethnic polarization
By RIchard Fidler
October 25, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Life on the Left — Québec solidaire’s 10 members of the National Assembly, elected October 1, took their oath of office on October 17 in two parts.
Karl Kautsky: From Pope to Renegade
Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky, 1910
By Doug Enaa Greene
October 25, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Left Voice with author's permission — At the height of the Second International, Karl Kautsky was recognized by socialists and anti-socialists alike as “The Pope of Marxism” for his popularization and systematization of Marxist ideas. The great figures of the day looked to him for guidance, whether Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, V. I. Lenin, or Eugene Debs. Since Kautsky was such an authoritative voice on Marxism, his subsequent betrayal was so deep that later communists could be forgiven for mistaking his first name as “Renegade” (as Lenin bitterly called him). Although Kautsky fell into obscurity following the Russian Revolution, in the last few years there has been a revival of interest in his politics in both academia (notably by the scholar Lars Lih) and on the political left. This raises questions about the meaning of Kautsky’s orthodox Marxism and about what, if anything, a renewed revolutionary left should adopt from it as our own?
Food sovereignty without animal liberation?
By Dinesh Wadiwel
October 25, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Animal Liberation Currents — Food is a powerful frame for progressive politics. This is because so much contemporary injustice appears connected with issues relating to food: its production, its circulation and its availability. Globally, different forms of food deprivation shape the everyday lives of the poor.[1]
The dawn of our liberation: The early days of the International Communist Women’s Movement
By Daria Dyakonova
‘If women’s liberation is unthinkable without communism,
then communism is unthinkable without women’s liberation.’ — Inessa Armand[1]
then communism is unthinkable without women’s liberation.’ — Inessa Armand[1]
October 13, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from John Riddell's Marxist Essays and Commentaries — On July 30, [1920] in the evening, slender columns of women workers wearing red kerchiefs and holding banners make their way to the Bolshoi Theater from remote districts and outskirts of Moscow. The slogans on the banners run: ‘Through the dictatorship of the proletariat in all countries to the full emancipation of women.’
The most important presidential race in Brazilian history (plus statements from MST & PSOL)
By James N. Green
October 13, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from NACLA — The unexpected strength of the far-right demagogue Jair Bolsonaro in the October 7 Brazilian elections sent shockwaves throughout the country. Capturing 46% of the popular vote in the first round of the presidential contest, Bolsonaro now faces a run-off race on October 28 against Fernando Haddad of the Workers’ Party, who trailed with 29.3% of the votes.
Attacks on peace court could help plunge Colombia back into war
July Henriquez, Human Rights Defender facing charges in Colombia
By James Patrick Jordan
October 13, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — In a brazen attack on Colombia’s peace accords, Attorney General Néstor Humberto Martínez Neira has brought charges against three former officials of the Special Peace Jurisdiction courts (JEP, by its Spanish initials). July Henriquez, Martha Lucía Zamora, and Ernesto Caicedo have been accused of falsifying documents and using their positions to enable Ivan Marquez and other former insurgents and peace negotiators to go underground. I discussed this development with Henriquez and Gustavo Gallardo, president of the human rights organization, Lazos de Dignidad (Links of Dignity). They characterize the charges as “absurd”. The JEP was created as part of agreements ending more than 52 years of Colombian civil war. It was given the responsibility to deal with questions regarding the general amnesty of armed actors, and to hear cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity, both of which are still prosecutable.
Venezuela under siege: Challenges from within and without
By Steve Ellner
October 13, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Alborada — The siege-like conditions which Venezuela has been subjected to from both foreign interference and domestic opposition present a myriad of challenges for the country to move forward.
On 5 October, Venezuela expert Steve Ellner gave a talk entitled ‘Venezuela under Siege: Challenges From Within And Without’ at the James Connolly Forum in Troy, New York. You can watch the full video here.
Plundering and profits: Moving beyond Dependency Theory
By Esteban Mora
October 13, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Review of African Political Economy — In the on-going debate on imperialism on roape.net, Walter Daum distorts arguments that I have made in a response to this debate. In this blogpost I am going to try to expand on the subject, and at the same time, answer Daum’s critique.
Again, is imperialism still imperialism?
By Walter Daum
October 6, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Review of African Political Economy — Esteban Mora begins his contribution to the roape.net discussion of the David Harvey-John Smith debate by asserting that the whole debate over who drains value from whom is misguided. While Smith says the West continues to drain the East and Harvey holds that the direction has been reversed, Mora believes that both claims rest on the ‘misconception’ arising from dependency theory that the imperialist North drains value from the imperialized South. [1] This, he says, is ‘not entirely accurate,’ and he goes on to make further claims which, as I see it, amount to arguing that imperialism as classically defined by Marxists does not exist – and for that matter never did.
Mutual profiting: Unpicking the Harvey-Smith debate
By Esteban Mora
October 6, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Review of African Political Economy — The entire debate between David Harvey and John Smith on roape.net on whether East Asia and the Pacific (including China) or the Triad (US, EU and Japan) is ‘draining’ the other is based on several misconceptions. The debate is based on Paul Baran and dependency theories, which postulate a correlative profiting of the ‘central’ countries over the ‘peripheral’ ones. This means there is a ‘drain of value’ from South to North, and just as companies in the North augment their profits, they ensure that companies in the South diminish their own. In simpler terms there is a correlative movement between rising profits in the North and falling profits in the South. So, this is what they look for in the relationship between BRICS or East Asia and the Western Triad, a relationship where there is a ‘drain’ or a flow of value from one region to the other. But these notions are not entirely accurate, and hence the terms of the debate
Solidaires score important breakthrough in Quebec election
“For the creation of the first country in the world founded with the indigenous.”
By Richard Fidler
October 6, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Socialist Project — The October 1 general election campaign in Quebec unfolded as two distinct contests. One was the competition between the Liberals and Coalition Avenir Québec for control of the government. The other was a battle between the Parti québécois and Québec solidaire for hegemony within the pro-sovereignty movement.
What’s next for #MeToo? The McDonald’s strikes have an answer.
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By Alex Press
October 6, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Vox — McDonald’s workers in several states are going on strike Tuesday over sexual harassment. Workers in some (but not every) McDonald’s in 10 cities — Chicago, Kansas City, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Orlando, San Francisco, and Durham — walked out at lunchtime. They say they won’t return until tomorrow.
Letter from Rural Landless Workers Movement (MST) to supporters on the Brazilian elections
By MST National Coordination
October 5, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — We would like to share some of our views on this delicate moment of Brazilian politics in the last week of the election campaign:
The age of unreason or misology: The knowledge-practice relation and its political significance
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By Raju J Das
September 29, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — In many contemporary societies, there is a typical distrust of knowledge claims that are backed by reason and evidence. Correspondingly, there is a popular penchant for knowledge claims that have no basis in reason or evidence. It is as if post-modernism is being put into practice in popular circles.
Is Latin America still the US’s 'backyard'?
By Alexander Main
September 17, 2018 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from CEPR — In late spring of 2008, the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations published a report titled “US-Latin America Relations: A New Direction for a New Reality.” Timed to influence the foreign policy agenda of the next US administration, the report asserted: “the era of the US as the dominant influence in Latin America is over.” At the Summit of the Americas in April the following year, President Barack Obama appeared to be on the same page as the report’s authors, promising Latin American leaders a “new era” of “equal partnership” and “mutual respect.” Four years later, Obama’s second secretary of state, John Kerry, went a step further, solemnly declaring before his regional counterparts at the Organization of American States (OAS) that the “era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.” The speech ― heralding the end of a nearly 200-year-old policy widely seen as a blank check for US intervention in the region ― was warmly applauded, and perhaps earned Kerry some forgiveness for having referred to Latin America as the US’s “backyard” a few months earlier.
