Daniel Finn is the features editor at Jacobin. He is the author of One Man’s Terrorist: A Political History of the IRA.
Belgium was a pioneer of industrialization, and class struggle by its workers’ movement created one of Europe’s most impressive welfare states. But with regional divisions now dominating Belgian politics, the country’s long-term survival is deeply uncertain.
The Champions League final is one of the biggest events in world sports. UEFA and the French police turned it into a brutal, dangerous fiasco — and Emmanuel Macron’s ministers are lying through their teeth about what happened.
Tony Blair and New Labour consolidated the economic policies of Thatcherism and fostered a deep cynicism about politics through their lies about Iraq. The crisis of the last decade and its potentially ruinous consequences are their legacy to modern Britain.
Jean-Paul Sartre’s uncompromising opposition to the crimes of empire makes him a taboo figure in French culture. The French political mainstream is still in denial about the bloody history of colonialism.
After the fall of Indonesia’s US-backed tyrant Suharto in 1998, many Indonesians hoped that their country was on a path to genuine democracy. Two decades later, wealthy crooks and war criminals from the Suharto era are still deeply entrenched in power.
Since becoming Labour leader two years ago, Keir Starmer has deliberately cratered the party’s finances by antagonizing its members and union allies. Now he’s asking business tycoons to plug the gap and lock in the party’s status as capital’s B team.
US support for dictatorships and death squads during the Cold War was a moral catastrophe. Some liberal pundits would now like us to repeat that bloody track record, all in the name of the loftiest principles.
The neoliberal economic model has foundered and can no longer generate growth. Governments will be forced to change their approach to economic management, giving rise to more promising conditions for struggle by workers after a generation of retreat.
The Democratic Unionist Party supported the Leave campaign, but they’ve been the big losers from Boris Johnson’s Brexit. The union with Britain isn’t in danger yet, but the DUP now faces the prospect of being overtaken by Sinn Féin in this year’s election.
Under the leadership of Sukarno, postcolonial Indonesia was an optimistic country finding its place on the world stage. Suharto’s 1965 coup drowned that experiment in blood, with US politicians and media cheering on his campaign of mass killings.
Economic crises have reshaped the modern world. Economic historian Adam Tooze tells Jacobin how the coronavirus pandemic will upend global politics and commerce for decades to come.
Keir Starmer has cynically used the Ukraine crisis to pick a fight with his left-wing opponents. The Labour leader’s denunciation of antiwar activists will reinforce McCarthyite attitudes toward dissent and make fresh disasters like Iraq and Afghanistan more likely.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s violent clampdown is the latest episode in a long saga of repression and resistance in Kashmir. The people of Kashmir deserve the chance to determine their own future, free of repression or outside interference.
A revolutionary upsurge after 1918 could have democratized German politics. Instead, the brutal repression used to contain that upsurge strengthened the authoritarian right, divided the German workers’ movement, and facilitated the rise of Hitler.
Fifty years ago today, British soldiers killed 13 unarmed civilians on a civil rights march in Derry. Britain’s most senior judge, Lord Widgery, then published an official report on the massacre filled with lies, giving judicial sanction to murder.
Yemen’s rich and complex history was upended by its catastrophic civil war beginning in 2014. A peace agreement could help Yemenis recover the frustrated hopes of the 2011 uprising — if Saudi Arabia stops demanding victory for its allies.
In the 1980s, François Mitterrand brought the French Socialists to power. A generation later, they’re in danger of extinction — and they brought it upon themselves.
Despite the pandemic’s impact, China has a long road to travel before it can surpass US economic power. Inter-capitalist rivalry is driving tensions between Washington and Beijing, not the personalities of Xi Jinping or Donald Trump.
In studies of the Soviet bloc and its afterlives, Bulgaria has attracted little attention. But the country’s history, from wartime partisan resistance to state socialism to postcommunist collapse, is essential to understanding the history of the 20th century.
France’s collaborationist Vichy regime aided Nazi Germany during World War II. With far-right candidates surging in the upcoming presidential election, it’s clear there are still people in French political life who think that was a good thing.