The main goal of trade unions is to remind everyone that governments serve the people, not vice versa
Every year left-wing and trade union communities celebrate Labour Day – the day of resistance and solidarity in fighting for peace and worker’s rights. In Ukraine we constantly have discussions around this date’s meaning and importance. May Day as a day off not for picnics but for demonstrations of left-wing and trade union solidarity. We […]
Eastern Europe’s Tragedy. How the Spheres of Influence Policy Amplifies Reaction
Should the Left support the division of the world into imperialist spheres of influence? A year ago, the very posing of such a question would have surprised me, since the answer seems obvious: of course not. Unfortunately, the apparent sympathy with Russian aggression against Ukraine by many on the Western left has shown that this […]
Hillel Ticktin: I have not met any Marxist in the Soviet Union
Among the many Western Marxists who have attempted to understand and politically define the Soviet Union, Hillel Ticktin is perhaps the most interesting. Unlike many other theorists, whose reflections on the subject were often deductive speculation based on fragmentary data, Ticktin set out to thoroughly analyze the political economy of "real socialism" based on what […]
Ilya Budraitskis: Left-Wing Dissidents Were the Link between the Pre-Soviet Socialist Tradition and the Post-Soviet One
A few years ago, your collection of essays Dissidenty sredi dissidentov (Dissidents among dissidents) was published. The central issue in it was the history of left-wing dissidents in the USSR. The book will be published by Verso in 2022. How did you become interested in this topic? I found this topic interesting back at the […]
Between Drahomanov and Marx: The Political Life of Lesya Ukrainka
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, socialist views were more the norm than the exception among the younger generation of Ukrainian cultural and political figures. Many Ukrainian activists of the first half of the 20th century gained their first experiences in political participation, journalistic writing, and encounters with police repression within the […]
1917—2017
Редакторська передмова Сьогодні світ відзначає великий ювілей: рівно сто років тому відбулося збройне повстання в Петрограді, за результатами якого владу взяла партія більшовиків, розпочавши процес, що трактувався ними як соціалістична революція. Навіть сто років потому багато питань, що стосуються цієї події, викликають гостру полеміку. Чим була Жовтнева революція як подія? Яка природа того суспільства, що утворилося внаслідок її розвитку? Наскільки актуальний її спадок для […]
Literary Magazines for Socialists Funded by the CIA, Ranked
Patrick Iber In May of 1967, a former CIA officer named Tom Braden published a confession in the Saturday Evening Post under the headline, «I’m glad the CIA is ‘immoral.’». Braden confirmed what journalists had begun to uncover over the previous year or so: The CIA had been responsible for secretly financing a large number of “civil […]
LA COMMUNE (DE PARIS, 1871) [Статья режиссёра фильма]
Парижская Коммуна 1871 года — краткий исторический обзор Март 1871 года: Адольф Тьер, глава Временного национального правительства, встревожен революционной активностью Парижской Национальной гвардии — вооружённых ополченцев (прим. 260 батальонов), организованных предыдущим правительством для защиты Парижа от пруссаков в последние дни провальной Франко-прусской войны. Социальные проблемы Парижа ужасают. К ним добавляется массовая безработица и то, что […]
Twenty years after the wall fell
One of our editors, Volodymyr Ishchenko, interviewed by British newspaper “The Commune” What was the society that existed before 1989-91, and was its collapse the historic victory of capitalism over communism? There are a lot of rather boring discussions in the left-wing movement on “class nature” of USSR, whether it was “state capitalism”, a “degenerated […]
Break out the wall. Зачем сносят заборы в Крыму
Замуровали, демоны! Стены, заборы, заборы, стены. Дорога к благодатному морю на ЮБК зачастую превращается в длительный марш-бросок на выживание. Петляя зигзагами под палящим солнцем, вы идете вдоль сплошных стен, направляющих вас лишь по одному заданному пути. Есть в этом что-то тоталитарное a-la the Wall – все потоки передвижения граждан могут происходить лишь по строго установленному […]
