IV379 - June 2006

The insurrectional uprising in the Polish town of Poznan in June 1956 shone a searchlight on the crisis of Stalinism. Preceded by a similar event in East Berlin (in 1953) and followed four months later by the Hungarian Revolution (October 1956), the Poznan insurrection opened the great cycle of the Polish workers’ struggles against the bureaucratic dictatorship (1970, 1976, 1980-1).

A rising tide of homophobia and homophobic attacks, in both Eastern and Western Europe, is leading to plans for a major fightback by LGBT and human rights organisations.

The congress of the Party for Jobs and Social Justice- Electoral Alternative (WASG) on April 29 marked a turning-point in its short history. It was above all the attitude of the new party towards social-liberal policies - and therefore its electoral tactics - that divided the congress.

A young woman who spoke out against Israel’s targetted assassinations policy, and who later befriended a leader of the Palestinian military resistance, has paid a heavy personal price - at the hands of the Israeli state and media.

Britain’s largest trade union has affiliated to the Campaign against Climate Change (CCC), reflecting alarm across the labour movement at the Labour government’s plans to replace its aging nuclear submarines and power stations.

Neoliberalism has produced a new wave of social movements in Latin America and leftward electoral swings. The social movements are protesting the privatization of nature, the commodification of life, and the pillage imposed by neoliberal globalization, together with the illegitimate, unpayable foreign debts passed down from the dictatorships.

The huge Latin American panorama of struggle has given rise to new debates about revolutionary strategy - debates which the Left has not been used to having for some time. How can this enormous generation of struggle, the rejection of neoliberalism and the rise of the Left be consolidated into permanent socialist gains, the power of the popular masses and the defeat of capitalism?

In the March Israeli elections the success of Ehud Olmert’s Kadima party, the collapse of Likud and the relative stability of the Labour Party represents the electorate’s yearning for mainstream politics and stability.

France has just experienced the third confrontation with the government in less than a year. The country had already seen political confrontation on a large scale with the mobilization against the adoption of the European Constitutional Treaty in the spring of 2005.

Greece is witnessing what is probably its biggest student movement ever. In the wake of the highly successful Athens European Social Forum, the movement is witnessing mass mobilisation and a huge level of democratic participation.