David Broder is Jacobin’s Europe editor and a historian of French and Italian communism.
British politicians increasingly seek to silence criticism of wars abroad by emphasizing the need to “respect our boys.” But, veteran Joe Glenton tells Jacobin, many recruits who’ve seen the British army from the inside aren’t happy about being used to launder its image.
Philippe Rio from Grigny, south of Paris, has been voted the world’s best mayor. He told Jacobin about the local social programs that have made his Communist administration a global success story.
A decade since the 15-M protests rocked Spain, the country has its first left-wing coalition government since the 1930s. But as Íñigo Errejón tells Jacobin, today it’s the nationalist right, not the heirs to 15-M, who are dominating the political agenda.
French media is saturated with the fascist pundit Éric Zemmour and his absurd, racist talk of a “great replacement” of France’s white population by immigrants. Now, he’s weighing a bid for the presidency — and his talking points are already dominating the debate.
Burkina Faso revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara was murdered on this day in 1987. Joséphine Ouédraogo recounts her time as a minister in his government — and their final meeting before he was ousted in a bloody coup d’état.
For decades, Italy had the West’s largest Communist Party. A key part of the party’s communications to the masses of Italians were its comics, dedicated to resisting the right-wing influence of priests and fascists.
In Spain, a center-left coalition government faces opposition not just from right-wingers and business leaders but from parts of the judiciary and police. For Pablo Iglesias, it’s time the Left pushed back against right-wing dominance in the state machine.
The auto parts firm GKN is laying off thousands of workers across Europe, sparking a series of strikes and protests. And rather than helping workers, the European Union is helping the company offshore their jobs.
Working people can be won to support radical action on climate change — so long as decarbonization is tied to a vision of shared prosperity for all.
In his first article since withdrawing from frontline politics, Podemos founder Pablo Iglesias argues that Spain’s resurgent nationalist right is a threat to basic democratic freedoms.
For decades, the parties of labor have been slowly replaced by the parties of the educated. A Left that doesn’t acknowledge this as a problem has already been defeated.
The fall of the USSR in 1991 left Cuba mired in economic crisis and increasingly vulnerable to hostility from Washington. For the revolution to survive, it had to draw on its own domestic legitimacy — including its independence from the Soviet model.
Austrian socialist Julius Deutsch was a key figure in Red Vienna’s workers’ sports clubs. Founder of the Schutzbund workers’ militia, Deutsch and his comrades used the class pride built on the sports field to mobilize against rising fascism.
Soldiers’ and police unions’ calls for action to save France from chaos show how fascist ideas have spread within the state. For decades, neoliberal governments have increased these repressive bodies’ powers — and today, they’re preparing the ground for a Le Pen presidency.
The Liberal Democrats’ by-election victory in a seat long held by the Tories has fed talk of an electoral pact between Labour and the Lib Dems. But Labour needs to be rebuilt as a party of the working class — not just another brand of vaguely defined progressives.
Turin was once Italian labor’s most famous heartland, inspiring a young Antonio Gramsci to become a Communist. Today, Gramsci scholar Angelo D’Orsi is bidding to win the mayor’s office — by mobilizing the working-class voters that the neoliberalized center-left abandoned.
Former UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke to Jacobin about the fight for a Palestine free from occupation and why the Biden administration needs to end its military support for Israel.
Today marks 150 years since the start of the Bloody Week, when the French army drowned the Paris Commune in blood. For Karl Marx, the Paris revolution was the greatest working-class uprising in his lifetime — and a model for what socialism might look like.
Nour Alshaer is a Palestinian student living in the besieged Gaza Strip. She told Jacobin about the desperate conditions in Gaza and how Israeli airstrikes have killed several of her loved ones.
Last month, former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi formed a new government whose top ministries were handed to unelected technocrats. Now his “government of experts” has outsourced its economic plan to private management consultants McKinsey — without voters having ever had any say in the matter.