Egyptian left answers the state's attack
The Egyptian military's December 16 attack on protesters provoked outrage.
December 23, 2011 -- Socialist Worker (USA) -- The military regime that has ruled Egypt since the fall of Hosni Mubarak has taken a harsh turn toward repression, symbolised by this month's barbaric attack against protesters outside the cabinet's headquarters.
Now the generals and their allies are singling out the Revolutionary Socialists among other leading voices of Egypt's left. In a pattern that activists say is consistent with past propaganda campaigns, the regime is trying to whip up a hysteria about the group, using videotape of a meeting at which leading members talked about the need for Egypt's mass movement to break the power of the state and the army. Clips from that meeting showed up on the Interior Ministry website, and on television stations run by the state and by hardline Islamists, known as Salafists, who now support the military.
In this statement, the respond to the smear campaign. [Below that, a range of political forces on the left also offer their solidarity.]
China: Misery in Santa's workshop -- inside China's toy factories
A 2004 film shows that little has changed.
[For more discussion on China's economic and political development, click HERE.]
December 23, 2011 -- A new report by Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) reveals the terrible working conditions endured by workers who produce many of the toys that will be enjoyed by children in the Western world this Christmas.
In Guangdong province, from where 70% of China’s toys are exported, migrant workers’ official basic salary is around 850-1320 yuan a month (US$134-208), the statutory local minimum wage. The minimum wage is barely enough for self-subsistence.
[For more discussion on China's economic and political development, click HERE.]
The following petition, organised by the Hong Kong-based coalition Left21, explains the background to, and demands of, the rebellion by the people of Wukan.
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Boris Kagarlitsky: A very peaceful Russian revolt
Tens of thousands protest in Bolotnaya Square, Moscow, December 10, 2011. Photo by Andrey Kolganov.
By Boris Kagarlitsky
December 21, 2011 -– Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The calls by the “moderate left” for passively following behind the liberals are supposedly based on the need to “work among the people”, to go where the masses are. But how, and with whom, are the forces of the left to set out after these ardently pursued masses? With badly printed leaflets full of abstract slogans?
United States: #Occupy activists and the Democratic Party -- a debate
For more on the #Occupy movement, click here.
By Dave Duhalde and Dan La Botz
December 4, 2011 -- Against the Current -- Below is a debate between David Duhalde of the Democratic Socialists of America and Dan La Botz of Solidarity that was first published on the website Talking Union.
Where is the beef? An open letter to Dan La Botz on DSA and the Democrats
Dear Dan,
Durban’s climate zombie tripped by dying carbon markets
Patrick Bond interviewed by the Real News Network on December 19. He explained the failure of the carbon markets. Go HERE for a full transcript.
[For more on the COP17 Durban climate talks, click HERE.]
By Patrick Bond
Ανατέμνοντας τους αριθμούς για τον υπερπληθυσμό
[In English (Αγγλική εκδοχή σε) at http://links.org.au/node/2520.]
Τι μπορεί να αναμένεται από τις συνομιλίες του Ντάρμπαν;
Νίμο Μπάσεϊ. Photo: Right Livelihood Award Foundation.
What happened to the gravediggers?
By John Rainford
December 3, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- In his survey of developments in Western Marxism from the time of the Russian Revolution, Perry Anderson sets out a number of questions for enquiry into the future of historical materialism. These questions, which range from the structure of bourgeois democracy and revolutionary strategy to the contemporary laws of motion of capitalism, are not directly taken up here. This paper focuses on how his precondition for their solution, “the rise of a mass revolutionary movement, free of organisational constraint, in the homelands of industrial capitalism”1 might be realised.
Anderson notes that almost all of the theorists of historical materialism, beginning with Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, have been intellectuals from the “possessing classes” – and indeed of higher rather than lower bourgeois origin. Antonio Gramsci, with an exceptional background of poverty, was nevertheless born at some distance from the working class.2 What follows is an attempt, in the Gramscian tradition, to test Anderson’s assertion that in the long run, the future of Marxist theory lies with theorists produced by the industrial working class.3
Occupy and the tasks of socialists
"Out of clouds of pepper spray and phalanxes of riot cops a new generation of revolutionaries is being forged, and it would be a shame if the Peter Camejos, Max Elbaums, Angela Davises, Dave Clines and Huey Newtons of this generation end up in separate “competing” socialist groups ... Now is the time to begin seriously discussing the prospect of regroupment, of liquidating outdated boundaries we have inherited, of finding ways to work closely together for our common ends. "
For more on the #Occupy movement, click here.
By Pham Binh
Russia: An awakened sense of dignity; December 10: A new page in history
Bolotnaya Square, Moscow, December 10, 2011. Photo by Andrey Kolganov.
South Sudan: Africa's newest communist party
By Kerryn Williams
December 16, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Africa’s newest communist party has been born with the formation of the South Sudan Communist Party. On June 28, the SSCP was formally launched at a press conference in Khartoum. On July 9, the Republic of South Sudan officially came into being after seceding from Sudan.
The new party was established by the former section of the Sudanese Communist Party in the south, and also involves returning southern SCP members who fled to the north of Sudan during the civil war.
The party includes former SCP members who joined and were active at all levels in the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), now the ruling party of South Sudan.
Preparation for the new party began after the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed, which ended the three-decade-long north-south civil war and paved the way for the January 2011 referendum on independence.
Long road to independence
The new South Sudan state faces enormous challenges after a long and difficult road to winning independence.
While the most recent phase of the war in the south, from 1983-2005, caused the death of some 2 million people, the conflict and the suffering of the people of South Sudan long predates this.