IV367 - May 2005

Well-known left intelllectuals reply to Jürgen Habermas, Günter Grass and Wolf Biermann, who in a Le Monde op-ed had called for leftist and progressives in Europe to vote ’Yes’ in Sunday’s French referendum on the European Constitution.

This spring saw an important movement of high school students in France, first of all in the form of mass demonstrations and then by radical forms of struggle such as blockading schools. For the moment the movement is over. The following article draws a first balance sheet of the movement.

The 60th anniversary of the final defeat of the Nazis is being celebrated all over Europe. But was the war simply a struggle between democracy and fascism? What were the real social and political forces involved?

In April Ecuadorian president Lucio Gutiérrez was overthrown by a mass uprising - the third president of that country in a row to be overthrown. Having been elected in 2005 with 55% of the vote, Gutiérrez saw his support collapse in every sector of the population. Why?

There are 3.8 million Palestinian refugees in Jordan. They insist on maintaining their Palestinian identity and their right to return to the lands from which they were expelled. Here we interview an activist from Baqa’a, the world’s largest Palestinian camp - Yahya Abu Safi from the Popular Committees for the Defence of the Right of Return (PCDRR).

The Egyptian radical left has made some large strides forward in the last few years - defying emergency laws to protest against war, repression and the oppression of the Palestinians, and creating the successful Cairo Conference against Globalization, Imperialism and Zionism.

The appearance of Respect MP George Galloway before a US senate subcommitte has caused a sensation in the US and worldwide, and is another boost for the Respect coalition.

Jan Malewski probes the authoritarian neoliberalism at the heart of the proposed European Constitution.

LCR spokesperson Olivier Besancenot, speaking at a large rally organised by the French Communist Party, argued that a victory for the ’No’ position in the referendum on the proposed European Constitution would be a victory for the left, and could be a new point of departure for anti-capitalist struggles.

Murray Smith replies to Doug Lorimer of the Australian DSP on the issue of internal democracy and public debate in revolutionary parties . Contrary to Lorimer, Smith argues that debating party differences in public was the norm, and not the exception, in Lenin’s Bolshevik Party.