The latest twist in the vaccine deployment saga has exposed the contradictions within the European Union and the limits of the capitalist market to deal with a crisis. In the last few days, we have witnessed the beginning of a clash both between the EU and the UK, and within the EU in something that reminds us of the debt crisis of 2011 and 2012.

The Netherlands is a European country where relatively little happens. By outsiders, it is often seen as sober, efficient and stable. The first month of 2021 however already saw the resignation of the third Rutte government and the most violent riots for 40 years. Meanwhile, the labour bureaucracy is moving against the left.

Yesterday, there was a series of rallies in Greece, mainly composed of students and teachers, against the reactionary measures that the New Democracy government is trying to pass in the universities and in the schools. More than 4,000 demonstrators came out in the streets of Athens. There were also demonstrations in Thessaloniki and other cities in Greece defying the ban imposed by the government.

Big protests broke out in Russia on 23 January in response to the arrest of oppositionist Alexei Navalny by Putin’s regime. While we have no illusions in liberals like Navalny, our Russian comrades intervened in these protests against political repression by Putin’s gangsters (which will hit working-class and socialist movements hardest), and raised a revolutionary Marxist banner.

21 January 2021 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Communist Party of Italy. To mark the occasion, we publish a translation of an article by Francesco Giliani, which deals with Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks and how the author has been abused by those who claim to speak in his name. Read the original in Italian here.

For decades, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has been considered the largest, most-stable and most-influential bourgeois party in Europe. But the CDU is now in crisis and subject to a process of polarisation and emaciation. The election of Armin Laschet as the new party leader does nothing to change this.

Yesterday, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte narrowly survived a vote of no-confidence (156-149), but he’s not out of the woods yet. He is without a majority in the upper chamber, and opposition leaders are still seeking his resignation. His authority is in tatters and his coalition is hanging together by a thread. This article, published by our Italian comrades last week, explains the crisis embroiling the Conte coalition in the run-up to this vote.

Just before Christmas, outgoing US Attorney General Bill Barr announced additional charges relating to the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. This announcement is clearly politically motivated, and is symbolic of how the entire investigation has been focused on imperialist interests, rather than a genuine desire to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Under pressure from Keir Starmer and wealthy donors, Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard has stepped down. The right wing wants to expunge all remnants of Corbynism from the party. But this will only hasten the right's decline.

Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán secured his third successive term in the 2018 general election. Now, for the first time since 2010 polls show that the “united opposition” would defeat his party if an election was held today. According to the survey conducted by one of the best known Hungarian pollsters Medián, Fidesz support fell by 6 percent in a single month to 34 percent in December, while the opposition added 2 percent and took over Fidesz at 36 percent. 

The general strike of the winter of 1960-61 destroyed in practice all the myths of the ‘bourgeoisified’ working class in Belgium and in Europe. For five weeks, a total of 1 million workers made the bosses and their state tremble. In this article we look back at those dramatic events.

“This autumn, too many people have neglected to follow advice and recommendations." This was the explanation for the deadly wave of coronavirus sweeping over Sweden given in late November by Prime Minister Stefan Löfven in an address to the nation. While shifting blame to the general public, he was conveniently silent about the government's responsibility for decades of cuts to healthcare, understaffing in the elderly care sector, and lacklustre testing capacity. Now the government has been forced to introduce several measures that they for a long time argued against. But it is all too, little too late.

Public outrage over the meagre rations offered to hungry children, along with the recent intervention by Unicef, have again brought the burning issue of UK food poverty to the fore. Capitalism cannot feed those in need.

Results from the general secretary election for Unison (Britain's biggest trade union) show the enormous potential strength of the left, if united. The left wing must now look ahead and fight for a majority on the union NEC – a key step in transforming the labour movement.

Since the start of the pandemic, the Tories have ignored teachers regarding making schools safe, instead pushing to open schools in the interests of the bosses’ profits. Now the teachers have forced a Tory retreat, thanks to mass militant action.