Europe

Despite the propaganda of the mass media, millions of workers and youth have flooded onto the streets of cities all around the world to protest against the attack on Iraq. On Friday Greece was brought to a standstill by a massive 4 hour general strike. More than 150,000 people demonstrated in Athens, in addition to tens of thousands around Greece, while airports, banks, public services, public transport, ferry boats and passenger ships, supermarkets and stores were shut down as a result of the strike.

Thursday morning (March 20) once the general public heard that the imperialist war against Iraq had broken out, tens of thousands of school students left the schools spontaneously and marched from every district of Athens to Sindagma (Constitution) Square. At the same time thousands of university students left their faculties and together with thousands of other people they flooded to the square and then a huge demonstration marched to the American Embassy, which is about three kilometres to the North East of the town.

In Southern Ireland, the economic miracle is well and truly over. As we have predicted and explained for some time now, the Celtic Tiger phenomenon, did not mean that capitalism had solved any of its contradictions. On the contrary the boom in the south was based on an increased intensification of the exploitation of labour through a series of so-called social partnership deals, and a heavy reliance on the world market. As the world market dips into recession and drags the southern economy along with it the bosses intend to turn the screw even tighter on the working class in an attempt to maintain their profits.

The dramatic resignation of Robin Cook, until yesterday the Leader of the House of Commons was a devastating blow to Blair and represents another nail in the coffin of Blairism. The prospect of war has shaken British politics to its foundations. There is no going back for Blair now. Sooner or later his days as Labour leader are numbered.

In Southern Ireland the economic miracle is well and truly over. As we have predicted and explained for some time now, the Celtic Tiger phenomenon did not mean that capitalism had solved any of its contradictions. Now in the context of a declining world market the only road open to the bosses to protect their profits will be an assault on workers living standards.

The devolved assembly at Stormont was suspended for the fourth time six months ago in October 2002. Now Blair, Ahern, Adams and Trimble are attempting to raise it from its coffin once more. Democracy, or what passes for it in Belfast, can be switched on and off like a tap it seems. The Stormont assembly represents not an attempt to solve the problems facing ordinary working people, but a scheme to share power between representatives of the main sectarian parties.

Just after the assassination of the Serbian Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic, a Marxist in Belgrade sent us this report and analysis. Djindjic certainly had many enemies and our correspondent looks at each one of them. This event reflects the mess that the transition to capitalism has created in the former Yugoslavia. FromPobunjeni Um Editorial Board.

Tony Blair’s drive towards war with Iraq is producing convulsions throughout the Labour movement. With the threatened resignation or sacking, which ever comes first, of Cabinet Minister Clare Short, after her attack on Blair’s policy on Iraq as “reckless”, the whole edifice of New Labour is threatening to come crashing down.

Students in Britain demonstrated against the war on March 5, as part of the international day of action called by the NYSPC (National Youth and Student Peace Coalition). The demo in Britain was on a much smaller scale than student demos in most other countries, but showed a change in the mood among the active layers of school and university students.

Labour Councils are being forced to choose between cuts in services or increases in the Council Tax. But the resources are there. Proof of that is the huge amount that has been set aside for the war against Iraq. In Southampton we have the courageous stand of Labour Councillor Perry McMillan who has refused to vote the increase in the Council Tax. Steve Jones explains what has been happening.

A Yugoslav Marxist student looks at the achievements of state education under the old Titoist regime and compares it to today’s level of education as the whole system is being gradually privatised. Although marred by the bureaucratic deformations of the old Titoist regime, it did show the potential that exists from having a fully state run system. What would have been possible if there had been genuine socialism and workers’ democracy in Yugoslavia? And what does the future hold for the present and future generations of students in the former Yugoslav republics as the greedy hand of capitalism slowly but surely begins to strangle what was good in the old system?

The election of a Labour Government in Britain has raised enormous expectations, not least by workers in Northern Ireland who are looking for a way out of the impasse they have faced for nearly a century. Yet the Labour leadership remain tied to a "bi-partisan" approach that has solved nothing in the past, and looks set to present more of the same for the future. In a short series of articles, Cain O'Mahoney examines labour's role in Northern Ireland and the lessons that must be learnt.

The partition of Ireland, following the Government Of Ireland Act in 1920, gave strength to the reactionary 'theory' that has always been perpetuated by pro-Unionist elements amongst the Northern labour movement that workers' interests were better served by maintaining the link with British capitalism.

After 1945, British imperialism had a different agenda for Northern Ireland. Ireland had been partitioned in 1920 to keep hold of the profitable industries of the North, as well as the important military bases that protected Britain's western flanks. More importantly however, Partition served to act as a break on the growing social revolution that accompanied the struggle for national liberation in Ireland, which had included land and factory seizures by the workers.