Geography Archives: Russia

  • Tunisia, As Expected

    Mass protests have returned in Tunisia, since the 20th of January, in Kasserine, then in Tunis, and in the rest of the country.  As expected, the pursuit of neoliberal policy by the so-called “national unity” government (ranging from Islamists of Ennahdha to leftists, including Bourguibists and survivors of the defunct Ben Ali regime) has not […]

  • Climate Change and the Summit Smokescreen

    Ian Angus is editor of the ecosocialist journal Climate & Capitalism.  He is co-author, with Simon Butler, of Too Many People?  Population, Immigration and the Environmental Crisis (Haymarket, 2011), and editor of the anthology The Global Fight for Climate Justice (Fernwood, 2010). He talked to Phil Gasper about what to expect from the Paris summit […]

  • Red Is the Primary Color of the Rainbow

    This paper was presented at “Color Revolution and Cultural Hegemony,” the 6th World Socialism Forum in Beijing, China, October 16-7, 2015. The term “color revolution” is code.  It is a code for regime change, and the term is often treated as synonymous with activities of the CIA and its assorted vehicles such as the National […]

  • Resisting Wholesale Electronic Invasion of the Fourth Amendment

    National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) Foundation for Criminal Justice dinner, Denver, Colorado, July 24, 2015 A few months ago, I spoke to a group of lawyers in Los Angeles.  I talked about legal ethics.  I mentioned Henry Drinker, author of ABA ethical rules, author of a book that was the basis for the […]

  • Bombs for Peace: A Review

    George Szamuely.  Bombs for Peace: NATO’s Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia.  Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013 (Distributed in the U.S. and Canada by the University of Chicago Press).  Paper.  Pp. 611. In Bombs for Peace, George Szamuely, a senior research fellow at the Global Policy Institute at London Metropolitan University, has produced a revealing and sharply […]

  • The Devaluation of the Yuan

    The Chinese central bank’s decision last week to let the yuan depreciate, in three stages by almost 4 percent against the US dollar, was officially explained as a move towards greater market determination of its exchange rate.  Though this explanation pacified stock markets around the world, China’s devaluation of the currency portends a serious accentuation […]

  • Europe’s Moment of Truth

    Greek Premier Alexis Tsipras’ acceptance of an “austerity package” on July 13, which contained measures rejected by the Greek people in a referendum barely a week before, represents not just an abject surrender by the Syriza government, or a sign of contempt on the part of German finance capital for the Greek electorate; it marks […]

  • Berlin, July 1, 1990 — Athens, July 1, 2015

    In a recent news video I watched people pushing and shoving at a bank entrance.  I immediately recalled another scene, also with people pushing at a bank entrance.  In the older scene people looked eager and gleeful, pushing so hard, I believe, that one man’s rib was broken.  In the recent pictures they looked very […]

  • Marta Harnecker on New Paths Toward 21st Century Socialism

    Introduction by Richard Fidler Among the many panels and plenaries at the Conference of the Society for Socialist Studies, which met in Ottawa June 2-5, was a Book Launch for Marta Harnecker’s latest English-language book, A World to Build: New Paths toward Twenty-First Century Socialism (translated by Federico Fuentes), Monthly Review Press. The featured speaker […]

  • Changing Captains on the Left

    Wealthy, powerful heads of state and other bosses high up in the Bavarian Alps, and the vigorous protests from opposing crowds kept out of earshot downhill, largely stole media thunder this past weekend.  Far lower in altitude and attention, with almost no thunder from the media or otherwise, another meeting was held in less scenic […]

  • Dissecting the Failure of Soviet “Socialism”

    Michael A. Lebowitz.  The Contradictions of “Real Socialism”: The Conductor and the Conducted.  New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012.  222 p. In current discussions of twenty-first century socialism, the work of Michael Lebowitz has a unique merit: it is rooted in the experience of Cuba and Venezuela, where efforts in recent decades to move toward […]

  • Our Right to Be Marxist-Leninists

    The 70th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War will be commemorated the day after tomorrow, May 9.  Given the time difference, while I write these lines, the soldiers and officials of the Army of the Russian Federation, full of pride, will be parading through Moscow’s Red Square with their characteristic quick, military steps. Lenin was […]

  • Our right to be Marxist-Leninists

    The 70th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War will be commemorated the day after tomorrow, May 9. Given the time difference, while I write these lines, the soldiers and officials of the Army of the Russian Federation, full of pride, will be parading through Moscow’s Red Square with their characteristic quick, military steps.… Lenin was a brilliant revolutionary strategist who did not hesitate in assuming the ideas of Marx and implementing them in an immense and only partly industrialized country, whose proletariat party became the most radical and courageous on the planet in the wake of the greatest slaughter that capitalism had caused in the world, where for the first time tanks, automatic weapons, aviation and poison gases made an appearance in wars, and even a legendary cannon capable of launching a heavy projectile more than 100 kilometers made its presence felt in the bloody conflict.

  • Against a New Cold War, For a Rendezvous With Reality

    Speech at the Bundestag, 19 March 2015, in response to Angela Merkel’s government’s statement on the European Council, 19-20 March 2015 Meine Antwort auf Angela #Merkel in der heutigen Bundestagsdebatte zum Europäischen Rat: https://t.co/BFcZNoW2Jx #Griechenland #Ukraine #EU — Sahra Wagenknecht (@SWagenknecht) March 19, 2015 Mr. President, honored ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Chancellor! At your best […]

  • Anatomy of a Hatchet Job: Regarding Women Cross DMZ in CNN’s Situation Room

    A television news program opens with a clip of marching soldiers, an obligatory image when the subject is North Korea.  A voiceover intones: “A bold, ambitious plan apparently sanctioned by Kim Jong Un.  Is he in league with the women’s group to promote peace between North and South Korea?” The program in question is the […]

  • Syriza’s Slip

    The victory of a Left Alliance, Syriza, in the Greek elections on January 25, was a matter of great significance, especially because that victory was based on a promise that Syriza would get rid of the memoranda imposing austerity on Greece by the “Troika” (the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF).  Syriza’s […]

  • Blockupy the ECB, Blockupy the NATO

    I defied my advanced age to board a special train, with a thousand mostly young people, and join in the big “Blockupy” demonstration in Frankfurt am Main, Germany’s big banking city.  The trip, though not the usual four and a half but seven hours, retained till well into the night a spirit of happy anticipation. […]

  • Netanyahu, Censored Voices, and the False Narrative of Israeli Self-Defense

    On March 3rd, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an impassioned plea to Congress to protect Israel by opposing diplomacy with Iran.  Referring to “the remarkable alliance between Israel and the United States” which includes “generous military assistance and missile defense,” Netanyahu failed to mention that Israel has an arsenal of 100 or 200 nuclear […]

  • After the Carnival

    Tsipras-Schleuder #Rosenmontag #Helau #Düsseldorf #Merkel pic.twitter.com/EiRvyRvf7k — Christoph Ullrich (@ullrich001) February 16, 2015 Every year the Rhine region and southern Germany go crazy.  Carnival or Fasching, a cousin of Mardi Gras, officially beginning at 11:11 AM on 11/11 and ending with the Lent period, has been celebrated in Catholic areas since the 1820s — with […]

  • Europe Between the Pit and the Pendulum

    If you have ever read Edgar Allen Poe‘s gruesome stories you may recall feelings of horror like those which made me, still a youngster, cringe and shudder.  I have similar feelings when I hear of bloodthirsty, barely-hidden “concerts” by German Neo-Nazis, which too often lead to violence against subjects of their hatred: hippy-type leftist youngsters […]