By Laszlo Andor

• 1981
• 1989
• Ten years after

Among state socialist countries, Hungary distinguished itself from the 1960s by introducing comprehensive economic reforms. These reforms, together with the so-called Prague Spring of Czechoslovakia, were typically interpreted as attempts to establish "socialism with a human face". A major feature of this new face was that the New Economic Mechanism[1] abandoned the Stalinist bias for forced accumulation and heavy industry, and improved the conditions of consumption and agriculture.

• The legacy of clientalist populism
• The PRD
• The Zapatistas: a left turn?
• The armed 'left'
• Independent Unionism
• Barrio and pueblo politics: the frentes
• Trotskyist groups
• Conclusion: problems of the Mexican Left

The left in Mexico is a huge and incredibly diverse phenomenon and one which is potentially extremely powerful. It encompasses tens of thousands of tenacious, devoted and often very brave men and women, fighting against a state which, despite the democratic space created in the past 20 years, still routinely responds to its worker and peasant opponents with disappearances, assassinations, imprisonment and torture. Every critical point made here has to be seen against that background.

Not long before the European elections, in which the social democratic vote collapsed, two of the most authoritative social democratic leaders, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder, published a letter in which they formulated the principles of the so-called "new centre" (neue Mitte). These principles could be summed up as arguing that the traditional ideas of social democracy (redistribution, a mixed economy and state regulation in the spirit of Keynes) needed to be replaced by new approaches in the spirit of neo-liberalism.

True, the authors of the letter took their distance from neo-liberalism itself, stating that they did not share its illusions that all problems could be solved through market methods. At the same time, they proposed to solve the problems of world trade by liberalising it further. Instead of solidarity, they called for increased competition, and instead of job creation, for preparing young people better for life under the conditions of a constantly changing market conjuncture.

• The doctrine of natural difference
• The importance of Darwin
• Engels and human evolution
• Women's historic defeat
• The test of evidence and time
• Evidence for the subordination of women
• Why were women dispossessed?

By Malik Miah

Malik Miah is a member of the Editorial Board of Links and of the US socialist organisation Solidarity.

• Engels and Marx
• Lenin's view
• Lenin on the right of nations to self-determination
• What is self-determination?
• Nationalism of the oppressed
• Notes

In Links Number 13, Norm Dixon writes: "The struggle of oppressed nations for national liberation remains one of the most burning issues in the world today". And therefore "socialists need to understand the national question if they are to make sense of the world, provide leadership and correctly determine their attitude and response to many international events".

By Alan McCombes

Alan McCombes is the editor of Scottish Socialist Voice, the newspaper of the Scottish Socialist Party.

• Nation and class
• Crucial questions
• Distinctive history
• Scottish National Party
• Socialists
• Coming battles
• Footnotes

For socialists, internationalism has always been a sacred principle. "The workingmen have no country", declared the founders of scientific socialism 150 years ago.

By Max Lane

• The development of Timorese society
• Strategies for the struggle for socialism
• Cooperatives and politics
• Mass action
• The concept of the party

The Socialist Party of Timor (PST) is still a small party, with around 500-600 committed activists, now mostly based in branches in several East Timorese towns. It has received another 2000-2500 applications for membership in recent months. Its leaders acknowledge that the organisation is still in a very early stage of development and is not yet consolidated.

By Terry Townsend

• 'There will be no Timor to save'
• The response of the left
• Criticism
• Were there alternatives?
• Sowing illusions in imperialism?
• Role of the UN
• Is it incorrect to call on the capitalist state to use force?
• Nature of the UN
• An avenue for imperialist retreat

January-April 2000 -- The streets of what is left of Dili, the capital of East Timor, were packed on October 31, 1999, as tens of thousands of people joined a procession led by Catholic Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo. Ostensibly to mark the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, the procession was the culmination of two tumultuous months that brought the brutal 24-year-long Indonesian occupation and annexation of East Timor to an end.

East Timor: The left and military intervention

Much in this issue continues the topic "socialism and nationalism", which was the theme of Links number 13, where we expressed the hope that the discussion would be ongoing in future issues. The topic is still, of course, far from exhausted.

In the recent past, the most dramatic eruption of the national issue into world politics occurred in regard to East Timor, the referendum on independence or autonomy, and the violent aftermath. In this Links, we carry