Europe

More than half a million public and private sector workers demonstrated on February 5 against proposals to scrap the 35-hour week, while 100,000 school students came on the streets to protest against education reform on February 10. The class struggle in France has suddenly spluttered back into life after more than eighteen months of relative slumber.

We republish this article on the referundum on the EEC Common Market, written by Ted Grant in 1979. The article explains that the struggle against a capitalist common market needs to be linked to the struggle of changing society on socialist lines, as the struggle against the European Constitution today must also be.

We publish this article written by Ted Grant just before the general election in Britian in 1979. The article demonstrates that the Tory policies were doomed to failure because of the sickness of British capitalism and that the reforms offered in the Labour Party programme were unattainable on a capitalist basis. The only way to carry out these reforms and take society forward was the nationalisation of the means of production, and the creation of a planned economy under the democratic control of the working class.

We are publishing this article which appears in the recent edition of the French Marxist magazine La Riposte looking at the prospects of a European Constitution. How have the Communist and Socialist Parties of France responded to it, and what does it mean for the working class?

The bloodshed that took place throughout the former Yugoslavia in the last decade has been interpreted in many different ways by many different bourgeois theoreticians. In an attempt to explain the ongoing war, the media labelled it as “ethnic”, “religious”, “civil” and in some cases even “tribal”. As Marxists we fight against these misinterpretations which flow from a basic misunderstanding of the causes and nature of the wave of violence which hit the Balkans in the nineties.


On January 18, the Danish Prime Minister of the right-wing government, Anders Fogh, announced that parliamentary elections will be held on February 8. Although the established press is very confident that Fogh and his right-wing government will be re-elected, it is not at all ruled out that the Social Democrats may win by a small margin as a result of their demands for measures against unemployment. But if the problems of the Danish working class are to be solved, it is not enough simply to kick the right-wing government out of office.

In the last parliamentary election in 2001 the Danish People’s Party became the third largest party in the Danish parliament. We asked Marie Frederiksen from Socialistisk Standpunkt where the support for the far right comes from and what is the nature of this party.

The “orange revolution” in the Ukraine was given quite a lot of coverage in the western media. The truth of the matter is that this so-called “revolution” was nothing of the kind. It was used to facilitate the passage of power from one wing of the ex-bureaucracy to the more openly pro-imperialist elements within the ruling elite. Goran M. from Belgrade looks at the situation basing himself on a similar experience in Serbia. These events are possible because there is no clear working class alternative being presented to the masses.


A remarkable document written by a Republican Socialist, Ta Power, while in gaol in Ireland in the mid-Eighties. The significance of the conclusions drawn by this young thinker and fighter, who made a careful study of Marxism whilst imprisoned, will not be lost on our readers. Above all the demand that politics and ideology must play the central role in the struggle for national liberation and socialism, in the building of a revolutionary party of the working class, will come as a surprise to many, especially knowing the period and the circumstances in which this document was written. With an introduction by Gerry Ruddy.

A remarkable document written by a Republican Socialist, Ta Power, while in gaol in Ireland in the mid-Eighties. The significance of the conclusions drawn by this young thinker and fighter, who made a careful study of Marxism whilst imprisoned, will not be lost on our readers. Above all the demand that politics and ideology must play the central role in the struggle for national liberation and socialism, in the building of a revolutionary party of the working class, will come as a surprise to many, especially knowing the period and the circumstances in which this document was written. With an introduction by Gerry Ruddy.

The slaughterhouse-workers in Denmark are faced with wage-reductions in spite of the big profits of Danish Crown (the company)!

Fight against all the employers’ demands for wage reductions through the extension of the strike!

NNF (food and allied workers’ union) must support the strike and open up the strike funds! The LO (Danish TUC) must call for solidarity action if no concessions are given!

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Last month, the far right Vlaams Blok changed its name to Vlaams Belang, supposedly to be a “nicer” and “more polished up” version of its former ultra right image. They want to present themselves as a strong conservative party, a “respectable” alternative on which the ruling class can rely to carry out its attacks on the working class. Even in small and peaceful Belgium, all the contradictions are piling up, waiting to explode in one way or another.

The bosses proposed wage cuts, speed ups and longer hours in exchange for not closing the plant. The union leaders called off the strike action, but the workers have overwhelmingly voted to reject the deal with the bosses. Denmark cannot escape the growing mood of militancy spreading throughout the European labour movement.

Voters in the north of Ireland have delivered their verdict on the Stormont Assembly. As we have consistently explained the Good Friday Agreement, and the institutions of devolution associated with it, could never begin to solve the problems facing ordinary working people no matter what their background. Indeed the divide between Catholics and Protestants has never been wider. The election result itself demonstrates a further polarisation in the shape of Paisley's DUP becoming the main Unionist Party, while Sinn Fein overtook the SDLP as the main Nationalist party.