June 22, 2017

The Protests of June 12: Beginning Russia’s Cold Summer of 2017

by Ilya Budraitskis   0

Note from the LeftEast editors: The rallies that took place in Russia on June 12 under the slogan “We Demand Answers” are the first political event of the summer of 2017. Translated kindly from the original Russian on OpenLeft.ru by Emma Claire Foley. Anti-corruption protests took place in Moscow, Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, Kaliningrad, Lipetsk, Tula, Vladivostok, Norilsk, Sochi, and other cities, a continuation of the high-profile protests of March 26, when people demanded Prime Minister Medvedev answer for his appalling wealth. But it wasn’t as straightforward as that. In Moscow the rally was initiall ..

June 20, 2017

Agrokor – oligarchic crisis in Croatia

by Joachim Becker   0

Note from the LeftEast editors: this article was originally published in Slovak in the newspaper Pravda. We republish the piece in English with the kind permission of the author. The blue sea and summer holidays – that is what people usually associate with Croatia. However, there is a vast inland too. And tourism is not the only pillar of the economy though it is crucial as a foreign exchange earner. Since independence, the economy has, however, become more reliant on the tourist sector. Industry suffered heavily from the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the war and transformation. It has never again reached its 1 ..

June 16, 2017

Anger from the underground: Bulgarian miners in wildcat strike

by lefteast   0

Note from the LeftEast editors: we republish this material originally posted  by evgeni5150 on libcom.org  The miners from Obrochishte – the third largest manganese mine in the world, located in eastern Bulgaria, went on wildcat strike on 01.06.2017. The strike was supported by the anarchosyndicalists from ARS (Avtonomen Rabotnicheski Sindikat / Autonomous Workers Union), while the bureaucratic union in the mine opposed the strike and sided with the bosses. 17 miners from the day shift refused to come out of the mine and stayed underground for 5 days. All the workers from the other shifts, around 150 p ..

June 14, 2017

Interview with Costas Lapavitsas: Strategies for the renaissance of the left in Europe

by lefteast   2

Note from LeftEast Editors: The following interview with Costas Lapavitsas, conducted by Darko Vujica was originally published by prometej.ba on June 10th 2017.  D.V: The standard neo-liberal narrative describes the Greek crisis as a repercussion of the overspending of the indolent Greeks, and this served as an excuse for imposing austerity measures. Could you explain in more detail what actually happened? C.L: There is no content to the view that the crisis was because of the indolence or the spendthrift nature of the Greeks. The crisis was generally in the Eurozone and Greece was the worst case. This crisis h ..

June 8, 2017

“Britain for the many not the few” – some perspectives on the UK elections

by lefteast   0

Note from LeftEast editors: “Today is election day in the UK, but it’s implication resonate far beyond the island. Instead of imploding, first ideologically, then electorally, as social democratic parties in Greece and France have done, British Labour under the leadership of long-time socialist activist Jeremy Corbyn has fought a decidedly leftist, anti-austerity campaign. [Needless to say that] the recent resurgence of left-wing parties in electoral politics, from Syriza to Corbyn’s Labour, has elicited a lot of soul-searching among left-wing activists and beyond. Rather than a moralistic attitude, eit ..

June 6, 2017

Iran again? Rouhani’s new challenges

by Paola Rivetti   0

Note from LeftEast Editors: This article is republished from the blog Presidential Power, which follows the activity of both directly elected and indirectly elected presidents. On Friday 19th May, Iranians residing in the Islamic Republic and abroad confirmed Hassan Rouhani as the president of the Republic. The electoral campaign had been particularly contentious, and since the first TV debate among the candidates, tones had turned harsh. “Iran again” (Iran dobare) is the post-election slogan that Rouhani’s supporters had chosen. However, in office again Rouhani will need to deal with a number of new chal ..

May 29, 2017

Russian Working Women’s Political Activism in 1917: What sort of patriarchy did women confront?

by Anne Bobroff-Hajal   0

This article draws on Anne Bobroff-Hajal’s research in Soviet and U.S. archives for the book Working Women in Russia Under the Hunger Tsars: Political Activism and Daily Life (1994), now available online as a free pdf download. The research focused on the factories of the Central Industrial Region around Moscow, selected because so many women – including married women – were employed in its huge textile and other factories.  The reader wishing more details of these women’s and men’s 1917 activism, their lives, and socialization rituals, will find a fuller picture in the book (and the Ph.D ..