Europe

The right to demonstrate, to strike, to trial by jury in Britain are all elementary civil liberties, yet most of them have already been whittled away. Now the so-called “war on terror” is being used to destroy what little is left. This assault on our democratic rights is not a secondary matter. The democracy afforded us by capitalism is restricted, but we can no more ignore the attacks launched on our political rights than we can attacks on our jobs, wages and conditions.

On Wednesday October 19 the “Action Committees for Free Education” organised successful school student strikes in Vienna, Linz, Wels and Vorarlberg. The strikes were a success and clearly show that the youth movement against the education policy of the government is moving forward.

On Friday, October 7, there was a massive general strike in Belgium, the first for 12 years, called by Socialist ABVV-FGTB union. In spite of all attempts to make it fail, the workers came out in great numbers both in Flanders and Wallonia. Since then the pressure has built up. Strikes have broken in different parts of the country. The Christian union has now been forced to back the movement and a new general strike is being prepared for October 28. Class struggle is back on the agenda in Belgium, and with a bang.

This letter gives a glimpse of life in westernised, capitalist Latvia. Wealth at one end of society, while 70% of the population is classed as poor.

Danish and Iranian labour movement activists picket the Iranian Embassy in Denmark protesting against the repression of workers in Iran. This was part of the “The Workers of Iran Are Not Alone” campaign.

Over one million workers and youth participated in the mass demonstrations during the national day of action in France on October 4, in which some 100 000 marched in Paris. This new high point in the recent history of the workers’ movement is a further indication of the explosive social and political situation that exists in France. The day of action, which included public sector strikes, was supported by all the main trade union organisations.

The Conservative Austrian government has been introducing severe cuts in spending on education, reducing university places, introducing fees and so on. This coming Friday (October 7) the government will get a taste of the students’ anger. Action committees have sprung up and called a day of action.

The idea that Brown has been secretly opposed to privatisation, to the war in Iraq, to the Labour government’s assault on civil liberties ‑ but keeping quiet through ‘loyalty’ (to his career that is, not to the Labour Party or working class Labour voters) ‑ is patently absurd. Both should go.

“I was a member of the British Labour party for some years and seeing that old man being manhandled the way he was out of the Labour conference made my blood boil and almost brought me to tears.”

On Thursday 8 September, Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko fired Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko and her cabinet. After all the hype of the “orange revolution” it is business as usual in the degenerate world of Ukrainian politics, a den of thieves who have a flair for stabbing each other in the back.

The tragedy of the Ukrainian workers is that all the parties, including the Socialist and Communist Parties, have links with business groups, and are the mouthpieces for these business interests. This article, originally written in Russian in February, gives some useful background information to what is happening now in the Ukraine.

The 2005 Labour Party Conference marks a significant shift in the situation in Britain. It deserves careful study by Marxists and by every trade union and Labour activist. It was chiefly marked by a sharp conflict between the Party leadership and the trade unions

Anyone who doubted the wider implication for civil liberties of Blair’s ‘anti-terror’ legislation need look no further than the Labour Party Conference in Brighton. 82-year-old Walter Wolfgang, who fled Nazi Germany in 1937, was roughly manhandled out of the hall by a pair of heavies