Archive for the ‘International Viewpoint’ Category
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 »For the right of Ukrainians to decide their future! Complete withdrawal of Russian troops! Stop the war!
Statement by the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International
The first duty of internationalists is to support and solidarize with the resistance of the Ukrainian people
Sources : https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article65758 and https://fourth.international/en/566/europe/505
The unjustified and atrocious Russian invasion of Ukraine decided by Putin on 24 February 2022 and the war it provoked have already caused over 100 000 deaths for each side, half of those in Ukraine of civilians. The suffering of those in Ukraine and Russia who have lost family members and friends is commensurably immense, through war crimes, rapes, kidnapping of children and continuing Russian bombing in civilian zones.
The first duty of internationalists is to support and solidarize with the resistance of the Ukrainian people in both their direct opposition to this bloody invasion and the self-organization of society in ways that help the population to survive, with particular support to those laying the basis for a future more just society by defending anti-capitalist policies, and the feminist and lgbt networks.
Read the rest of this entry »France : Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA -New Anticapitalist Party) Divides Down the Middle
The congress of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (New Anticapitalist Party) took place on 9-10-11 December. It resulted in a separation of the party. The first statement published was adopted by the platform winning 48.5% of the votes. The second by the platform obtaining 45.5% of the votes.
Read the rest of this entry »“Wallace’s sympathy for Iranian regime strips bare his faux radicalism” Critique of speech delivered by an Irish Member of the European Parliament, Mick Wallace (Ireland South) – Justine McCarthy, Irish Times, December 9 2022
Two Irish MEP’s Mick Wallace (Ireland South) and Clare Daly (Dublin) have created a serious problem for themselves, the left in Ireland, and the left abroad. They analyse international conflicts using a politically poisonous method.
This politically poisonous method stalks the mainstream radical left and established anti-war organisations. That poison has a name : Campism. Justine McCarthy accurately observes that the Ireland South MEP is using “victim blaming… the lowest form of defence”. Many readers have not heard the term campism, and do not know what it means. Other readers do know what it means, but do not want us to learn anything more – because they know they use a less obvious version of the same poison and see nothing wrong with this chosen political method. Mick Wallace has given us a chemically pure example of this political poison by denouncing the feminist inspired uprising in Iran. Other practicioners on the left prey on ignorance and prejudice by – for example – refusing to engage in active solidarity with Ukraine – the victim of a violent imperialist, ethnic cleansing, and genocidal Russian invasion.
Pierre Rousset wrote an extensive article on this subject in October 2014. It is recommended reading today.
War in Ukraine – a view from Greece – “Support the Ukrainian people in their resistance against the war!”
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has divided opinion on the left in all parts of the world. Here is an interesting contribution from Greece. Source : https://tpt4.org/2022/06/09/support-the-ukrainian-people-in-their-resistance-against-the-war/?fbclid=IwAR2MG80aYrYE17qsDzgSVrVao4Do8wy-Ga4rfNRpkTsPexhGPIaiVal0LsE
War in Ukraine – a view from Greece
Support the Ukrainian people in their resistance against the war!
by Tassos Anastassiadis
[Αναδημοσίευση από το International Viewpoint, 1/6/2022]
[Το πρωτότυπο, στα ελληνικά, στο site μας και στο site της Αναμέτρησης]
Tassos Anastassiadis is a member of “Anametrisi”’s leadership and also a member of the TPT-“4” (part of the Greek section of the Fourth International). Anametrisi (=confrontation), founded in March 2022, is a product of radical left recomposition process in Greece these last years. [1] This text was submitted to the leadership of Anametrisi on 19 May 2022. The original Greek text is published on Anametrisi’s site.
Positions on the Ukrainian war and our stand
1) The Russian invasion of Ukraine is an “imperialist” attack. [2]. Analyses may differ on the source of this “imperialism” [3], on the extent of its dynamics, on the causes of this particular invasion, and even on its function in the capitalist world arena. But what is fundamental is that it is an unjust war of the strong against the weak. [4] And in particular, it is a “national” type of oppression – that is a challenge at gunpoint to the right of a population to exist as a political entity and to decide for itself and freely about its own existence.
2) From this point of view it is a matter of principle [5] for the left to take a clear position on the war being waged: It must place itself on the side of the weak, those who are under attack and fighting back i.e. on the side of the Ukrainian people. The right of a people, a population, a nation, to define itself is a fundamental component of an emancipatory programme.
3) This means that in this war the left cannot be indifferent: it is not a “war” that is simply taking place somewhere out there, without subjects and without responsibilities. It is a military attack and there is contestation and resistance to it. The left must take a stand against the war being waged by Russia, and consequently, in favour of those who oppose it, basically the Ukrainian people but also the Russian left. That means in favour of the war being waged by the Ukrainian people.
Read the rest of this entry »Evasions on the Left Over Ukraine – Conor Kostick, Independent Left (Ireland)
This is a strongly recommended article. The author is an experienced anti-war activist, an Irish historian and writer living in Dublin. He is the author of many works of history and fiction.. For more information read the information at this link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conor_Kostick?wprov=sfti1. https://www.leftarchive.ie/people/2778/ Some of Conor’s political writings are here : https://www.leftarchive.ie/people/2778/
Wars are not light topics that can be dispensed of with simple formulas. I, for one, cannot imagine how the success of Russia would further the cause of democracy and socialism around the world. If you do, then say so, openly, so it can be debated in public. But don’t falsify tradition and history and hide behind pathetic slogans. To paraphrase Marx, we Marxists disdain to conceal our views and aims.
John Ganz, Ben Burgis’s Bad History: Jacobin’s anti-Jacobins
There is a type of left argument around the war in Ukraine which has arisen in the West. It is one that condemns Putin’s invasion, but refuses to offer practical support to the people of Ukraine in resisting that invasion. It is the position one can read in Jacobin, or in statements by Chomsky, Corbyn, and the Stop the War Coalition in the UK. In Ireland we have the same type of response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine from People Before Profit and the Socialist Party of Ireland.
I will use the label Evasionist Left for this approach. It’s not clear how representative this trend is internationally, as many on the left do pro-actively support the resistance in Ukraine, e.g. parties such Razem in Poland; those associated with the Fourth International like Left Bloc and the Danish Red Green Alliance; and the main left party in Japan, the Japanese Communist Party.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 