Europe

The PSOE has won a decisive general election victory after a heated and bitter campaign in which the right wing Popular Party mobilized the forces of reaction, using language that was reminiscent of the period before the Civil War in the 1930s. Alan Woods in Madrid looks at the meaning of this result.

On February 23 three comrades of the International Marxist Tendency attended the Republican Socialist Youth Movement's (RSYM) winter day school in Belfast. Jim Daly, Sean McGowan and Bernadette McAliskey spoke on various aspects on the question of Republicanism and Socialism and the role of the working class. Francesco Merli spoke on Venezuela. There was keen interest in the ideas of Marxism and the school bodes well for the development of the RSYM. A HOV speaker also took part in this year’s Connolly Festival on February 22 and 23, while Labour Youth organized another talk on Venezuela in...

Alan Woods was invited to speak at Eton, the most prestigious private school in Britain (known as a "public" school in English), by the school's Orwell Society. Alan gave a very clear explanation of why society needs to be changed and why the only direction it can go in is socialism. We believe the points raised and the answers given provide a very good outline of what Marxism stands for today.

Officially Putin's right hand man, Medvedev, has won the Presidential elections with over 70% of the vote on a turnout of more than 70%. But no one seriously believes this. Many Russians have commented on the meaninglessness of the elections. Putin will remain the boss. However, for all the pomp that surrounds Putin there is a strong undercurrent of hatred against capitalism. The fact that the CPRF yet again showed that it is the only opposition to the Kremlin, confirms this.

As background the Presidential elections we publish an analysis of the December parliamentary elections. These reflected political consolidation following on from economic stabilization after the financial crisis of 1998. These new relations are now in turn leading to a reaction. The modest gains of the CPRF reveal both the potential for an organized opposition to Russian capitalism and the path that this opposition will take in the mass organizations.

We have received a very interesting interview with A. Etmanov, the leader of the trade union of Ford (Saint Petersburg). This reveals many things, not just about the Ford strike but about the state of the Russian workers' movement, the struggle of the trade unions and their attitude towards capitalism and the political parties.

A debate in the British Parliament on the nationalisation of Northern Rock, involving John McDonnell MP, has revealed that billions of pounds are to be diverted away from the intended purpose of preventing a banking collapse, into the pockets of the Rock's management. It seems the directors of Northern Rock had set up a financial institution called Granite, the real purpose of which was to carry out tax evasion!

The second edition of Alan Woods' book on Ireland, Ireland: Republicanism and Revolution, has just come out, the first edition having sold out. It is now available again to order from Wellred Books.

There has been a lot of media hype about the big rally in Belgrade last week after the announcement that Kosovo had declared its "independence". But the real mood in Serbia, especially among the working class, is very different. There are indications that the workers are tired of the nationalism and chauvinism being pumped out by the Serbian bourgeoisie and in particular are fed up with all the bourgeois parties. What is missing a political expression of the working class.

We are publishing an eyewitness account from Belgrade of the violence that broke out after Kosovo announced its independence from Serbia. In spite of the media footage the vast majority of the masses ignored the small number of demonstrators! The working class responded quietly, treating the rioters with nothing but fear and disgust! Hardly anyone is prepared to come out and support the Serbian bourgeois... Its credibility is wearing as thin as the patience of the masses.

Last year's strike at the Russian Ford plant marked an important turning point for the Russian labour movement. The Russian economy is growing and this has strengthened sections of the working class. With this growing strength comes a militant mood. At some point this will lead to a wider movement of the Russian working class and with it will come important political repercussions.

How do you lose £3.7 billion? Down the back of the sofa? Meet Jérôme Kerviel. He lost £3.7 billion of his employer’s money, Société Générale, a French bank. Is it actually a good argument for capitalism that the whole world can be screwed up because of a solitary rogue trader? Is the system really so precarious that one crook can send world financial markets into freefall?

"The London police on strike. After that, anything can happen", said Sylvia Pankhurst in 1918. The ground is certainly shifting in Britain. There has been a continual build up of public anger at the government's attempt to impose a 2% limit on public sector pay. The Police are getting a paltry 1.9% rise, in effect a pay cut. They were furious and making all kinds of threats against the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown.

New Labour fears that if Northern Rock collapses large sectors of the financial system could follow. And that would reverberate throughout the economy. Recession is on its way. A financial collapse could be the trigger. The right thing to do is nationalise Northern Rock, and with it take over the whole banking system.

Since 1979 UK child poverty has doubled. In 2006, 3.8 million children were living in poverty in homes on less than 60% of average income. Although this is a fall of about 600,000 since 1998, this still leaves 500,000 children above the Government's own target. This is not the whole picture either - poverty in the whole population is increasing.

Towards the end of last year we witnessed the collapse of another attempt to create a party to the left of Labour. The RESPECT party, which was founded in 2004, was the latest effort to establish an electoral alternative to Labour. It succeeded in winning an MP, George Galloway, as well as a few dozen councillors up and down the country. However, the whole project soon went pear-shaped.

Tommy Sheridan is facing yet another fight in his colourful career as Scotland's best known socialist. He has been arrested on suspicion of perjury arising from his widely publicised defamation case against the News of the World for which he was awarded £200,000 damages.

It is fashionable today among some on the left to refer to some golden age of "old labour". They use this to argue that in the past it was a workers' party but now it is no longer. The Blairites on the other hand claim that the party was too "left-wing" to be elected. But there has never been such a golden age. If you look at the record of Labour governments, they have all been responsible for cutting living standards and carrying out an imperialist foreign policy.

Andrew Glyn died from a brain tumour on 22 December 2007.  He was 64 years old.  A fellow of Corpus Christi College in Oxford since 1969, he was a leading socialist economist for all that time.

In 1970, just like today, the Labour Party seemed dead from the neck up. After six years of desperately disappointing government, Labour had been unceremoniously bundled out of office. The Tories were back, aiming to put the boot in to the working class.