Poland’s Solidarity trade union was one of the most impressive workers’ movements in postwar Europe. It rocked the foundations of an autocratic regime, but it took a wrong turn as the Eastern Bloc started to crumble.
Seventy-five years ago today, Vietnam launched a bid for national freedom with its Declaration of Independence. The French colonial regime answered with brutal repression, kick-starting thirty years of destructive conflict.
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.
The novelist Albert Camus is omnipresent in French cultural life, from TV shows to comic books, magazine covers and one-man shows. Camus-mania isn’t just a literary phenomenon: it draws on a deep well of political revisionism and colonial nostalgia.
France waged a brutal colonial war in Algeria during the 1950s. But a group of writers clustered around Jean-Paul Sartre’s journal Les Temps modernes played a courageous role, exposing French war crimes and supporting the right of the Algerian people to self-determination.
Next year's French presidential election looks set to be dominated by Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, with the Left struggling in the polls. We have to unite or face certain defeat.
Four decades ago, Poland’s communist system faced the challenge of a powerful independent workers’ movement and eventually drove it underground. Understanding Solidarity’s fate during and after communism is essential for making sense of Polish politics today.
Emmanuel Macron’s administration has used the pandemic as a pretext to create police powers extending far beyond any rational response to COVID-19. It’s the latest in a long line of French governments using moments of national crisis to shred basic civil liberties.
Thirty years ago today, the Soviet Union collapsed. Twentieth-century communism should be understood in all its complexity, as revolution and regime, a spur to anti-colonialism and an alternative form of social democracy.
Western governments are being called on to send more weapons to Ukraine — an arms buildup that will only escalate a potentially disastrous conflict. What we really need is a comprehensive peace settlement for the region.
Bitcoin was not just a consequence of public disillusionment during the 2008 financial crisis — it was also a response to neoliberal monetary policies that saw money as somehow above politics. But questions about monetary policy are questions about democracy.
Czechs’ expressions of support for Ukraine have drawn on their country’s own history of foreign occupation. Yet their political response also marks a shift in the country, as a once pro-Putin president slams Moscow and a right-wing premier welcomes refugees.
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.
Born 100 years ago today, Italian communist Enrico Berlinguer grew up under Fascist dictatorship. In postwar decades, he became leader of Europe’s biggest Communist Party — and an iconoclastic champion of a democratic path to socialism.
For years, Jean-Luc Mélenchon has faced endless accusations of “divisiveness” and “extremism.” Today, his left-wing movement is more popular than ever — and it’s because it didn’t shy away from taking on French elites.
The EU’s handling of recent crises has shown its lack of respect for democratic choice. This isn’t just a problem of having to take emergency measures: it’s the result of a decades-old project to remove economic decisions from popular control.
When he became the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev wanted to democratize the USSR without embracing free-market capitalism and end the Cold War without enabling US domination. The world is still haunted by his inability to achieve those goals.
Hold your applause for luxury brand magnate Bernard Arnault, the billionaire who just surpassed Elon Musk as the richest man in the world. He may not be taunting the Left on social media, but he’s just as much an emblem of grotesque inequality.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise claimed to replace old political parties using ad hoc structures based on “consensus.” But battles over its post-Mélenchon future have pitched this model into crisis — and show the need for real democratic structures.
Once a major national force, today’s French Socialist Party finds itself outcompeted by both the radical left and neoliberal president Emmanuel Macron. But last month’s congress shows many leaders would rather kill the party than sign up for radical policies.