Europe

This year’s Labour conference has ended in a victory for the right wing. The left must learn the lessons from the rise and fall of the Corbyn movement. The only way forward is to build the forces of Marxism. Join us in this vital task.

As the world toboggans towards an environmental catastrophe created by the capitalist system, how is Ireland – one of Europe’s most polluting nations – responding to the crisis? By using state repression against young environmental activists. We say: protest is not a crime! Drop the charges against climate activists!

The results of the 20th German federal election on 26 September show a continuing process of polarisation in Germany. Public opinion has never been so volatile, voters have never been so undecided, and parliament has never been so fragmented. The bourgeois-democratic political system of Germany is in crisis, but no class-struggle alternative was to be found in this election.

The municipal elections in Austria’s second-biggest city, Graz, were a political earthquake. The victory of the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) shows a categorical rejection of the hated bourgeois establishment that has managed the city for years, and opens up a perspective of a broad offense against social welfare cuts and an end to Graz’s tenure as a private investors’ paradise.

With petrol pumps across Britain running dry, and gridlock on the roads, the Tories are lurching from one crisis to another. The anarchy of the market is causing chaos to workers’ lives. All the ingredients are being prepared for a social explosion.

The Labour right wing in Britain has won a series of important votes at this year's party conference over the weekend and this week, provoking anger and outrage amongst left delegates on account of their bureaucratic antics. Amidst this mess, however, the ideas of Marxism have gained a strong echo.

On 9 July 2021, 422 workers at the Campi Bisenzio GKN plant near Florence received a text message. It came from the British multinational’s management, communicating that the workers were immediately and collectively dismissed. However, the plant is not in crisis. There is a market for the production of drive shafts and other components for the automotive sector that the plant is capable of producing. So why the sackings?

After a year’s hiatus, Labour’s annual conference begins this weekend. The event is set to be a showdown between Starmer, on one side, and grassroots members and left unions, on the other. The left must boldly take the fight to the right.

The Labour right wing have carried out a brazen attack on press freedoms, explicitly denying the Marxist journalists of Socialist Appeal entrance to the party’s upcoming Labour conference on political grounds. We urge readers to rally against this injustice.

The federal elections in Russia have passed. As we predicted, they were completely rigged by the regime. While it would appear that Communist Party received a majority of the real votes, literally overnight the authorities produced the result they needed. This brazen act of completely rewriting the election results will only provoke growing anger in society.

Across the UK economy, prices are rising and businesses are facing shortages. It is clear that the anarchy of the capitalist market cannot provide society with life’s necessities. The case for socialist planning has never been so clear.

The 30-year anniversary since the fall of the USSR and the restoration of capitalism in Ukraine was marked by celebrations in Kiev on 24 August. Front-and-centre during the festivities were former presidents Yushenko, Kuchma and Poroshenko, who all presided over the transition to the market economy. But behind the jubilation lies three decades of mounting poverty, inequality and repression. This is the real story of capitalism in Ukraine.

Battles are breaking out across the labour movement, with Starmer purging socialists from the party, and the Unison bureaucracy sabotaging the union’s left-wing NEC. The left must make a stand and clear out these agents of the establishment.

The President of Britain's biggest trade union, Paul Holmes, is fighting back against a vicious witch-hunt by the union's right wing. Unfortunately, the employers and union bureaucracy have been supported by the sectarian antics of the Socialist Party. We say: solidarity with Paul!