https://internationalviewpoint.org/ International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow. en SPIP - www.spip.net https://internationalviewpoint.org/local/cache-vignettes/L144xH25/siteon0-da713.png?1745245334 https://internationalviewpoint.org/ 25 144 https://internationalviewpoint.org/We-Asked-Geopolitics-and-the-Left-Part-I-Russia-the-West https://internationalviewpoint.org/We-Asked-Geopolitics-and-the-Left-Part-I-Russia-the-West 2018-07-07T10:37:12Z text/html en Rossen Djagalov Russia <p>The latest wave of confrontation between Russia and the West—from the Skripal affair and the following diplomat expulsions and sanctions on Russia to the gassing of Douma residents most likely perpetrated by the Assad regime and the resulting US-UK-French bombing raids on Syria–rarely left the front pages of mainstream media. LeftEast has until now resisted the topic: it is not quite our fight. Not to sound nostalgic, but if the original Cold War, for all the devastation of its proxy wars and the dictatorships it bred, created conditions that sometimes favored the processes of decolonization, the victory of the Civil Rights movement in the United States, and the rise of the welfare state in the West, this New one has been an unadulterated race to the bottom that can only impoverish the public sphere and hurt ordinary people. But the level of media hysteria and ruling-elite bellicosity, both in Russia and Western countries, has reached such proportions that our silence has become increasingly untenable. It also raises the broader question of the left's relationship to geopolitics—a topic we will explore next week. To put our finger on the pulse of leftist thinking about the tensions between Russia and the West, We asked four comrades. Here are their responses:</p> - <a href="https://internationalviewpoint.org/-IV522-July-2018-" rel="directory">IV522 - July 2018</a> / <a href="https://internationalviewpoint.org/+-Russia-+" rel="tag">Russia</a>