Archive for the ‘Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (ESSF)’ Category
Britain: The Lecturers’ Union and the Betrayal of the Intellectuals – The anti-imperialism of amoral idiots
Many certainties about global politics were transformed on February 24 2022 when the Russian Federation began a genocidal imperialist invasion of Ukraine, a country in the heart of Europe with a population of 44 million people. The imperialist invaders have forced at least seven million people out of their homeland. This was a seismic shock to many parts of the existing international anti-war movement, which failed to see this catastrophe on the horizon. In itself, that is not a problem. The future cannot be foretold with perfect accuracy, we only have 20-20 vision about the past.
But, what to do?
Readers of this blog will be aware of activities sponsored by Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU) and the heroic work of Ukrainian activist and academic Yuliya Yurchenko.
This is her take on the behaviour of the British “Stop the War Coalition”, which has parallels in Ireland and other parts of the globe :
Yuliya Yurchenko, a Ukrainian senior lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Greenwich, described the attitude of the ‘anti-war’ left, “who somehow manage to simultaneously recognise Russia’s right to ‘defend its interests’ while denying the right of Ukrainians to defend their very lives or assert their national self-determination”, summing this up memorably as “the anti-imperialism of amoral idiots”.
These issues have erupted inside a British trade union, the University and College Union (UCU) which has a reported membership of about 120,000 people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_and_College_Union . The report below makes for often ghastly reading. All the same, effective left-wing solidarity with Ukraine is essential – we urge readers to engage.
Article Source : https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article66925
Many academics in both Ukraine and the UK are horrified by the Putin-enabling posturing of far-left factions within the UCU
Read the rest of this entry »Revolutionary, peasant leader : Hugo Blanco (1934 – 2023)
Article Source : https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article66912
Hugo Blanco, the Peruvian revolutionary, peasant leader, former member of parliament, fighter for the rights of indigenous people and for the environment, has died after a short period of acute illness. [1] He was born in 1934 in Cusco in Peru, in the indigenous heartland, and he constantly returned there. At the same time, throughout his life he was always on the road, living in several countries, repeatedly deported by those in power whom he criticised. As late as in March he arrived once more in Sweden, yet again because of political turmoil after a coup in his home country. He died, as he had wished to, close to his two daughters in Sweden, Carmen and Maria.
For many years, Hugo was a member of organisations affiliated to the Fourth International, first in Argentina where he arrived as a young student and then after his return to Peru in the late 1950s. That is where he participated in and played a leading role in the campesino movement against the cruel, neofeudal latifundista reign in the Peruvian Andes. The peasants’ demand for land was met with brutal repression. Hugo took part in the forming of armed self-defence. In one confrontation a policeman was killed. Hugo was put on trial in a military tribunal and the prosecutor argued for a death sentence, but in the end he was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Read the rest of this entry »Dramatic Coup – Putin Régime in Trouble, June 24 2023 – Cedar Lounge Revolution Site a great news source; Short Sharp Ukraine Message “abandon false neutrality’ to ‘put an end to evil’ of Putin’s regime”; Family of Belarus Dictator Lukashenko’s Fled to Turkey (Unconfirmed Report)
A consistent left-wing pro Ukraine solidarity ray of light in Ireland comes from the Cedar Lounge Revolution, who are well-known to the authors who write for this blog: Here is their take on the attempt by the Wagner Group of Prigozhin to overthrow the Putin regime : if you have useful credible information to add, feel free to chip in : https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2023/06/24/whats-that-they-say-about-rostov-on-don/
Here is a fascinating live report issued by the credible Irish war reporter Orla Guerin :
Orla Guerin tweeted a link to this article by Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies from King’s College London.
“This coup is being led by the boss of the Wagner mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin. At first the smart money was on his failure because the full weight of the Russian state is against him. Before he made his moves, he was declared a traitor, his offices were raided, and his bases shelled. But the Russian state is inept and decrepit. If the aim was to catch Prigozhin unawares and shut him up it failed, because he appears to have had some notice of what was being prepared for him and so took his own initiatives. If you are going to move against your opponents you need to be decisive. Prigozhin got away (like Zelensky in February 2022).”
https://samf.substack.com/p/prigozhins-mutiny
“Actually were Putin a US agent of influence he could hardly have done a better job” WorldbyStorm, the Cedar Lounge Revolution Blog.
John Meehan June 24 2023
Watchword :
Ukraine calls on international community to ‘abandon false neutrality’ to ‘put an end to evil’ of Putin’s regime
Ukraine’s foreign minister has called on the international community to “abandon false neutrality” and give his country the weapons it needs to “put an end to the evil” of Putin’s regime.
Posting on Twitter, Dmytro Kuleba said it was time to “give Ukraine all the needed weapons; forget about friendship or business with Russia”.
Those who said Russia was too strong to lose: look now. Time to abandon false neutrality and fear of escalation; give Ukraine all the needed weapons; forget about friendship or business with Russia. Time to put an end to the evil everyone despised but was too afraid to tear down.— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) June 24, 2023
Has Belarus Dictator Lukashenko, Putin’s Puppet, Fled to Russia?
Unconfirmed Report :
The plane, while over Russia, turned off the transponders, and turned them back on only over Kalmykia.
The plane of the self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko landed in the Turkish city of Bodrum on the night of June 24 .
“The business jet of the family of the self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko flew out of the country and is now in the sky over Turkey,” reports Radarbox .
The Bombardier Challenger 850 airliner with tail number EW-301pj took off from Minsk at 00:01 and landed in Bodrum, Turkey at 05:15. We add that the plane, while over Russia, turned off the transponders, and turned them back on only over Kalmykia.
Recall that hundreds of Belarusian citizens who left the country after the mass protests of 2020 are allegedly undergoing combat training in Poland in order to overthrow the Lukashenka regime.
Update : The private plane of the self-proclaimed president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, landed in Turkiye on the morning of June 24. It is worth noting that the day before, the Minsk dictator spoke on the phone with the Kremlin murderer Vladimir Putin.
The two dictators discussed the confrontation between the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the Wagner PMC.
This follows from statements by Russian media and the Telegram channel Belarusian Gayun.
The Lukashenko family plane landed in Turkiye at 5 a.m. on June 24. The government business jet EW-301PJ, which took off from Minsk at 00:01, landed in Bodrum, Turkiye, at 5:15 a.m.
The network notes that the plane flies there quite often. In addition to the dictator himself, the business jet is used by his family members.
However, the fact that on the eve of the flight to Turkiye, Lukashenko spoke with Putin on the phone is more revealing. Russian propagandists said that the Kremlin dictator informed Lukashenka about the situation in Russia, in particular about the confrontation between the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and the Wagner PMC. https://ukranews.com/en/news/940720-after-talking-to-putin-lukashenko-sends-his-personal-plane-to-turkiye
2023 Congress of the The Bloco de Esquerda [Portuguese Left Bloc/ BE] – “two years of intense challenges that tested the coherence of its political project.”
On the electoral and political level the The Bloco de Esquerda [Portuguese Left Bloc/ BE] has similarities to the People Before Profit (PBP) formation in Ireland. In January 2022 the BE suffered a significant electoral reverse in a Portuguese General Election, going from 19 to 5 deputies. The circumstances are described below.
A significant welcome political difference between the BE and the PBP is that the BE is in favour of solidarity with Ukraine, resisting the genocidal Russian imperialist invasion which began in February 2023.
Article sources : https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article66868 and https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article8135
The Bloco de Esquerda [Portuguese Left Bloc/ BE] held its 13th Congress after two years of intense challenges that tested the coherence of its political project.
Internally, the defence of a free and public National Health Service, the defence of the end of the labour laws of the Troika and the fight against real estate speculation led the Bloco de Esquerda to vote against a State Budget without a trace of left influence.
Read the rest of this entry »In honour of Esteban Volkov (1926-2023) – Long live the memory of Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition’s struggle against capitalism and Stalinism
Sources : http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article66877
https://fourth.international/en/566/latin-america/527.
[Photo by Leon Trotsky House Museum / CC BY-NC 2.0]
As we bid farewell to Don Esteban, who died on June 16 at the age of 97, we pledge not only to support the continuity of the work of the Leon Trotsky House Museum in Mexico, but also to continue collaborating with his life’s mission: to preserve and spread the political legacy of his revolutionary grandfather.
On Friday, June 16, Don Esteban Volkov, Leon Trotsky’s grandson, died in Mexico. He was the last living witness of the last years of his grandfather’s work and assassination, committed by the Stalinist agent Ramon Mercader on August 21, 1940, in the house where the family of the exiled Russian revolutionary lived in Coyoacán. The building was transformed by Don Esteban in 1990 into the Leon Trotsky House Museum.
It is a very important chapter in the history of the left in the 20th century that closes with his passing, because Don Esteban was more than a grandson. He was a conscious guardian of the legacy of struggle, of the theoretical production and of the political resistance of his relatives and compatriots of the Left Opposition of the Soviet Union. Hence the importance of his life, of his tireless voice in remembering Stalin’s purges and persecutions of an entire generation of pre and post-1917 revolutionaries; in the tireless work to preserve documents, objects, and family memories; in the struggle to refute the smear campaigns that Trotsky, even after his death, and the Trotskyists faced for decades.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 