To the surprise of many, the conservative Greek government has launched a crackdown on the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn. KD Tait looks at the reasons for this and what it means for the working class movement Six MPs and around 30 party activists, including Golden Dawn’s top leader, Nikolaos Michaloliakos and his deputy, have been arrested […]

Martin Suchanek attended the Syriza Congress in July as an international observer from the New Anticapitalist Organisation (NAO) in Germany In last year’s elections in Greece, Syriza (The Coalition of the Radical Left) narrowly failed to gain the largest proportion of votes that would have given it the opportunity to try to form a government […]

In 1913 Dublin workers waged a heroic battle against their employers, the church and the police. Despite being defeated, argues Bernie McAdam, the lockout lives on as the most inspirational act of working class resistance in Irish history.

By Martin Suchanek, Gruppe Arbeitermacht Before last year’s elections in Greece, Alexis Tsipras was described by the bourgeois press as the “most dangerous man in Europe”. It was said that if he were to enter government the euro and the European Union would be in danger. A representative of the Merkel government in Germany accused […]

  Statement of the Socialist Party of Sri Lanka, section of the League for the Fifth International Two student leaders, Sanjeewa Bandara, Convenor of the Inter University Student Federation, IUSF, and Kimbullawe Chandrananda, Convenor of the Inter University Bhikku Federation, IUBF, have been detained by police in the capital, Colombo. Both were arrested on grounds […]

The movement which brought millions onto the streets now finds itself caught between the uncompromising violence of the state and the limitations of its tactics. KD Tait argues that now is the time to organise to ensure the loss of Gezi Park does not turn from setback to defeat. As night fell on the evening […]

In the week following 13 May, when rioting broke out in the Stockholm suburb of Husby, and then spread to others, the tabloid press, TV reporters and all manner of political commentators positively swarmed over these areas with a high proportion of residents from an immigrant background. They minutely logged each burned out car and […]

  Almost 80 years ago, the city of Minneapolis was a battlefield in the class war between workers and bosses. Three strikes in 1934 shook the city and American society to their foundations. The feature of these strikes by the Teamster Union Local 574 was that they were led by Trotskyists. Minneapolis boasted the strongest […]

The vote was close on Tuesday 30 April as a €23 billion bailout deal scraped through the Cypriot House of Representatives in Nicosia with a two vote majority. The deal, stitched together by the “Troika” of the European Union, European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund bureaucrats, provides €10bn in EU and IMF funds […]

In celebration of International Women’s Day and as part of an ongoing debate about the principles of women’s organisation and the revolutionary movement, Joy Macready looks at the history of early Soviet Russia and its lessons for today The Marxist position on women’s liberation owes a great debt to a remarkable group of women in […]

The Italian general election did not give a majority to any party or coalition – but it did produce a clear winner: the Five Stars Movement (M5S) of Beppe Grillo. With 25.5 per cent of the vote in the lower house and 23.8 per cent in the upper it is the biggest single party in […]

Dave Stockton Stock markets fell and EU leaders reacted in horror as the result came in from Italy’s general election on 24-25 February. Their hoped-for winners, “responsible” parties that would continue to push austerity, had failed to win a working majority in parliament. Eurocrats had hoped the austerity programme of cuts and neoliberal “reforms” designed […]

The New Anticapitalist Party (founded in 2009) at first seemed a beacon of hope to the left, not just in France but also across Europe. Marc Lasalle looks at why the dream has faded. Olivier Besancenot was in 2002 and again in 2007 the charismatic young presidential candidate of the Ligue communiste revolutionnaire (LCR), when […]

The Socialist Party of Ireland has announced its withdrawal from the United Left Alliance (ULA). The Workers and Unemployed Action Group (WUAG) departed last year and only the People before Profit Alliance/Socialist Workers Party, along with non aligned activists, remain in the depleted ranks of the ULA. The General Election 2011 had seen the recently […]

The task of the day is to organise citizens’ defence committees to defend the Short Strand and Catholic communities, says Bernie McAdam. These could then become the basis of a political alternative to the government’s cuts programme and the continuing repression

Finally, Desmond de Silva’s report into the murder of Pat Finucane, the Belfast solicitor, has been released. The Report found that there were ‘shocking levels of state collusion’ in the murder. It told of the ‘wilful and abject failure by successive governments’ to run agents lawfully. It confirmed that Pat Finucane had been murdered by […]

An evening rally and demo called for solidarity with the 14 November European general strikes – but union leaders expose the gulf between the British movement and that of the mainland, says Jeremy Dewar

By Jeremy Dewar On 25 October, Ford stunned workers at its Southampton transit van and Dagenham stamping plants, announcing 1,400 job cuts and the closure of both sites next year. Unions say job losses could be as high as 2,000. Closure would threaten a further 10,000 jobs in the supply chain. The US car giant […]

By Joy Macready, at the Firenze 10+10 conference In November 2002 the first European Social Forum in Florence issued the call for worldwide anti-war demonstrations on February 15, 2003. To mark its tenth anniversary, 1,500 activists gathered there for an event titled Firenze 10+10. The title was meant to indicate the meeting would draw of […]

By Peter Main As we go to press, workers across southern Europe are gearing up for a coordinated, cross-border general strike. On 14 November there will be one-day general strikes in Portugal, Spain, Greece, Italy, France, Malta and Cyprus. And the list is not closed. Unions, youth organisations and social movements are mobilising in Belgium […]

All Together! All Together! Yes! Yes! Yes! November 14 is a date to put in every activist’s diary. On that day, there will be one-day general strikes by the big union federations in Portugal, Spain, Greece, Italy, France, Malta and Cyprus. And the list is not closed. Unions, youth organisations and social movements are mobilising […]

The continent is still deep in recession. Coordinated by Germany, France and the European Commission and Central Bank, savage austerity is being imposed on its weaker economies. KD Tait looks at resistance in Portugal and Greece and opposition in France to the new Fiscal Treaty. The southern states of the European Union – Portugal, Italy and […]

This autumn the epicentre of struggle against savage austerity has moved from Greece to Spain. KD Tait examines the potential for halting the attacks and the strategy needed to do this.

By K Tait Hundreds of masked, black-clad police advancing, firing rubber bullets into the backs of fleeing protesters. In a side street, young people confronting vans of riot police behind a blazing barricade. These were the streets of Madrid as Spain’s government announced a further £8billion of cuts to education, health and welfare spending in […]

WHEN IT IS 38 degrees in the sun, not much stirs in the centre of Athens. But on 24 August 10,000 mainly young, male migrant workers from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan took to the streets after months of escalating attacks by racists and fascists.

Three members of the Russian radical feminist band Pussy Riot have been sentenced to two years in prison after being found guilty of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”. The verdict is grossly out of proportion to the collective’s “crime” of singing a rowdy anti-Putin song in a Moscow cathedral two weeks before his re-election as […]

Spain is the new Greece, the latest country to fall victim to the bond markets and Eurozone bailout conditions. With its banks weighed down by €184 billion in toxic debts and in a double-dip recession since last Autumn, in June Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy had to go cap in hand to Eurozone finance ministers for […]

Nassos Theodoridis, a member of Syriza’s Human Rights Commission, spoke by live-link to a meeting organised by the Labour Representation Committee, Leeds Against the Cuts and Leeds Anticapitalist Alternative. The meeting was introduced by Andy Young of Workers Power who gave a brief outline of the situation in Greece and then Nassos spoke about the […]

By the narrow margin of just 2.77 per cent of the popular vote, the Greek electorate succumbed to the blackmail of the Greek media and political class and the threats of the leaders of the European Union to give Antonis Samaras of New Democracy, ND, the initiative to form a coalition to continue wreaking havoc […]

Austerity, its consequences, and how to resist: these are the issues fuelling the rise of radical Greek party Syriza. Its programme rejects the cuts imposed by the International Monetary Fund, EU Commission and European Central Bank – the so-called “Troika”. This rejection has exposed the fact that the interests of the Greek workers and youth […]