IVP620 - September 2026

“Absolutely, I hold on to hope, hope rooted in the new generation and its capacity to invent new forms of struggle, as we have seen recently with the Moroccan Gen Z movement, an extraordinary moment, with thousands of young people mobilising and using modern technology to coordinate their action. I make a crucial distinction between optimism and hope, they are not the same thing at all. Optimism is the belief that the best outcome will happen. Hope is the belief that a better outcome is possible, with no guarantee attached. I can keep hoping, while recognising that today the balance of evidence weighs heavily toward pessimism.”

On 6 September a new Landtag was elected in Saxony-Anhalt. Saxony-Anhalt is the smallest of the territorial Länder by population, with 2.1 million people. It was clear in advance that there would be considerable changes. At the last Landtag election in 2021 the AfD, which the Saxony-Anhalt domestic intelligence service has classified as confirmed right-wing extremist, took over 20 per cent. In the run-up to this election the standing of the federal government of CDU and SPD reached a low point, as the opinion polls had made foreseeable. Accordingly the task for all the other parties was at least to prevent an absolute majority for the AfD, in percentages as well as in seats.

The passing of Gloria Steinem, the most celebrated of the US “second wave” feminists of the 1970s, provides an opportunity to consider both her life and work. Some on the left, such as Jenny Brown writing in Jacobin, have condemned Steinem as a “neoliberal” who used and misused the women’s movement, disdaining the movement’s radical wing, to advance her own career as self-proclaimed leader.

After the results of the Saxony-Anhalt elections on 6 September the discussion on perspectives for the German left is even more important. In this prescient analysis, written shortly before the election, Thies Gleiss outlines the roots of the crisis.

Despite an increasingly trying war, Ukrainian society continues to hold on and fight. On the front, the Ukrainian army has managed to break through enemy lines in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia. All these advances are in addition to the 540 km² already gained this summer. But a mass mobilization is being prepared in Russia, although it is officially denied on the eve of the Duma elections, from 18-20 September. It could mean several hundred thousand new recruits, to compensate for the enormous human losses on the front. More than 110,000 young Russians have left for Georgia to escape it.

“In 2018, Mikhail Lobanov won a seat in Russia’s parliament, soundly defeating one of Putin’s most well-funded candidates in an upheaval reminiscent of some of the recent democratic socialist wins in U.S. races. But rather than take this seat to uphold independent, democratic socialist, and anti-war politics in the Russian government, his seat was stolen through electoral fraud, and police harassed, arrested and beat him and raided his home, driving him out of the country.”

In Gaza as in the West Bank, the situation has been catastrophic throughout the summer. As elections begin in Israel and Palestine, the challenge remains for us to relaunch mobilization and international solidarity.

“The United States is playing the role of sponsor to establish peace between gangs, while removing the prospect of Libyans deciding the future of their country themselves by profoundly renewing the political offer.”

“We are fighting for the release of all political prisoners. We think that every peace negotiation between Ukraine and Russia should include a point for the release of all political prisoners, on both sides. In Ukraine there are also political prisoners, so victory would mean the release of everybody.”

The Red-Green Alliance’s negotiation team managed to secure some impressive commitments in the newly formed government’s policy programme. In order to realise these commitments, we must now mobilise the opposition and the left-wing movements.