“We Could Not Provide Any Credible Alternatives to NATO”: Interview With Finnish Leftist Henrik Jaakkola
Initially, Left Alliance (Vasemmistoliitto/Vänsterförbundet) was fiercely against Finland joining NATO to the point of making it a condition of your participation in the government. What was the reasoning behind V’s security policy back then? Not only was our party Vasemmistoliitto against Finland joining NATO, but so was also the overwhelming majority of both Finnish citizens […]
2004 and on: ‘Oligarchic Democracy’ and Crises
In this chapter of his book, The Making and Unmaking of the Ukrainian Working Class: Everyday Politics and Moral Economy in a Post-Soviet City, Denys Gorbach offers an overview of Ukraine’s politico-economic landscape. He puts the economic transformations over the last thirty years in the political and cultural context. The first part covers the 1990s […]
Land Reform and Agriculture in Ukraine During Wartime – Interview with Dr. Natalia Mamonova
What is the state of agriculture during wartime in Ukraine? What effects does the land reform have on the future of the country? And what a socially and ecologically just approach to postwar recovery of agriculture can look like? We discuss these and other questions with Dr. Natalia Mamonova – Senior Researcher at RURALIS, Institute […]
What happened to Ukraine’s May 9, Victory Day? A discussion with Ukrainian historian Georgiy Kasianov
Since Ukraine's declaration of independence, there have been shifts in various policies concerning the observance of May 9, whether as Victory Day or Memorial Day. How was Victory Day marked during the tenures of the first two presidents, Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma? Was there ongoing discourse regarding the commemoration and celebration of this occasion? […]
Preventing schools and hospitals from being closed: how local communities forced the government to reckon with their interests
Reforms in education, healthcare, as well as the decentralization reform, have caused serious changes in the social sector, since the closure and “optimization” of a significant number of schools and hospitals was meant to be a part of these reforms, especially in rural areas. However, such unpopular changes can be successfully stopped when the community […]
Right to Food: Food Sovereignty, War, and Environment
As a result of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the situation with food security has worsened around the world. Those countries on the periphery that are dependent on food imports from Ukraine and Russia, are now facing the threat of hunger. Food security is also affected by the global environmental crisis, which has unpredictable effects […]
Anna Kuliscioff: The Extraordinary Life of a European Socialist
It went largely unnoticed that this year marked the 170th anniversary of a woman whose name was once known to many: revolutionaries and police officers in various European countries, medical specialists and labor lawyers, labor movement activists and parliamentary politicians, anarchists and Marxists, feminists and anti-fascists. She was a member of the inner circle of […]
The Maidan Shooting: Conspiracy Theories and Unanswered Questions
A decade ago, the Euromaidan protests successfully toppled the Yanukovych government. Paradoxically, nobody faced justice for the bloodiest attack against the protesters, the mass shootings of people who went up Instytutska Street on 20 February. All the killed supporters of Euromaidan became immortalized as the Heavenly Hundred, with their names and photos being publicly displayed […]
“Selectivity in International Criminal Law Has Always Been a Major Problem”: Interview With Patryk Labuda
Patryk Labuda has a Ph.D. in international law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He currently works on the ‘Memocracy’ project at the Polish Academy of Sciences, where his research focuses on shifts in the global legal order and relations between the 'Global South' and 'Global East', especially Eastern Europe […]
International (In)Security: How the Global System is Disintegrating and Why the Left Cannot Stop It
We live in the time of rapidly escalating “frozen” military conflicts. Ukraine, Palestine, Yemen, Armenia, Sudan: status quo seemed immovable in these places, but now the “red lines” are crumbling while the front lines are coming to life. Within a few days, as a result of aggression and occupation, entire nations are plunged into a […]
