“Living Together Shouldn’t Put Us at War With One Another or With the Earth”
The only just future is one in which every person is given the chance to flourish — without exploiting other people or the planet.
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Anti-Zionism Is Not Antisemitism
Just days after he was warmly applauded by a Zionist group for delivering a stunningly antisemitic speech, Donald Trump issued a cynical “antisemitism” decree meant to stamp out campus criticism of Israel. It’s just the latest episode in Zionism’s long history of allying with antisemites.
When “Anti-Populism” Makes the Far Right Mainstream
The French media has started lumping far-right leader Marine Le Pen with a host of other “populists,” left and right. But calling Le Pen just another populist helps her detoxify her party — and mainstreams the racist right.
Storming France’s City Halls
Amid the collapse of France’s historical parties, Emmanuel Macron is presiding over the most unstable political climate in decades. As municipal elections loom in March, the forces of the Left are showing rare signs of unity — feeding hopes they can turn social revolt into a challenge for the presidency itself.
“Either We Defend Social Solidarity, or French Society Will Break Down”
This winter France has seen the biggest strike wave in decades, as workers resist planned pension reforms. As Communist MP André Chassaigne told us, the strikers aren’t just opposing Emmanuel Macron’s neoliberal policies — they’re fighting to save the French social model itself.
Read Vivian Gornick’s Romance of American Communism
Based on interviews with former Communist Party members, Vivian Gornick’s The Romance of American Communism is a book full of emotional people who struggle to talk about their emotions. It shows how Party commitment gave everyday life an epic dimension — and made political defeats into personal traumas.
“Different Policies Wouldn’t Have Prevented Coronavirus — But They Would Have Improved Our Response”
Just months after emergency room staff went on strike to protest their lack of resources, Paris’s hospitals are having to skimp on masks and thermometers. We spoke to frontline health workers about how they’re coping with the pandemic — and how years of underinvestment is making their job harder.
The Outrageous Optimism of Jean-Paul Sartre
The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre died forty years ago today. Sartre’s philosophy and political values can still inspire struggles for freedom today.
Why We Need Cooperatives for the Digital Economy
Platforms like Airbnb claim to be building online “communities” — even as their business undermines the real communities in cities. But the history of cooperatives shows that it really is possible to democratize the services we use — so long as it’s connected to a wider redistribution of power in society.
The Left in Lockdown
We’re living through a bewildering moment for socialists. We talk to radical organizers Adolph Reed, Barbara Smith, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Jodi Dean, and Jane McAlevey about how they’re staying politically engaged under quarantine.
Emmanuel Macron’s Weak Pandemic Response Is a Bad Omen for His Promises on Climate Action
Like the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change is a threat to all humanity. But it’s working-class people who are suffering most — and faced with both crises, Emmanuel Macron’s government is not taking concrete action to help.
The First Woman to Lead a Political Party Was an Italian Communist
Born this day in 1889, Camilla Ravera led the Communist Party of Italy through its first difficult years under Fascist tyranny. Her story shows how a generation of women became political leaders — by tying their liberation to that of the working class as a whole.
Werner Scholem, a Jewish Communist Murdered by the Nazis
This day in 1940, the Jewish communist Werner Scholem was murdered at Buchenwald concentration camp. A champion of socialism and democracy, his life was intimately tied up with the dramatic defeat of the interwar German left.
We Don’t Live in Weimar Germany
Liberals say that socialists who don’t support Joe Biden are “like the German Communists who refused to fight Hitler.” The analogy doesn’t hold up — and it’s also historically illiterate.
Amadeo Bordiga Was the Last Communist to Challenge Stalin to His Face
Founder of the Communist Party of Italy in 1921, Amadeo Bordiga is little known today, even among scholars of that country’s Marxist traditions. Fifty years after his death, the first English-language collection of his writings shows why Bordiga shouldn’t be overlooked.
Socialists Fought For and Won Our Basic Democratic Rights
The myth of our democratic rights is that they were handed down to us from on high by liberals. But the ruling class resisted extending the franchise at every turn — and socialists were the ones who fought them for the right to vote.
How 1968 Marked a Shift for Rossana Rossanda’s Radical Politics
Sunday saw the passing of Rossana Rossanda, a lifelong communist, anti-fascist partisan, and cofounder of il manifesto newspaper. In this extract from her memoirs, she explains how the upheavals of 1968 marked a radical shift in her political engagement, as both the Prague Spring, and worker and student revolts in Italy drove an enduring split in Communist Party ranks.
Why the East Germans Lost
Thirty years since German reunification, the “new states” from the former East still suffer the effects of mass deindustrialization and emigration. But if reunification hasn't delivered the promises of 1990, socialists should recognize why most East Germans didn't defend the old system — and why welfare and public services aren’t enough to build a viable socialist society.
Greece’s Golden Dawn Aren’t Just Nazis — They’re Violent Mafiosi, Too
After a trial lasting over five years, tomorrow will see the verdict on murder and racketeering charges against 68 members of neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn. A lawyer representing some of the victims explains why Golden Dawn is a mafia organization — and why justice demands a guilty verdict.
Karl Kautsky Was Once a Revolutionary
Lenin’s famous denunciation of Karl Kautsky as a “renegade” has long discouraged Marxists from actually engaging with the German-Austrian socialist’s writings. But if the Bolshevik leader sharply criticized Kautsky’s retreats, this was also because of his great admiration for his earlier work — a revolutionary Marxism that lay decisive stress on the battle for democracy.