By Winfried Wolf
Winfried Wolf is a writer living in Berlin who for many years was an activist in the Trotskyist Fourth International. He was an independent member of the German parliament on the Party of Democratic Socialism list from 1997 to 2002. This article first appeared in Labour Focus on Eastern Europe.
This statement was issued by a meeting of the European Anti-Capitalist Left on December 5, 2004.
European Union governments are trying to impose a constitution designed behind closed doors on 450 million people. This socalled constitutional treaty has taken the place of a constituent process based on a mandate coming out of open democratic debates and sovereignty of the peoples of Europe.
This constitution is dangerous.
It consecrates the absolute primacy of the "free market". It legally forbids any infringement of private property and market relations. It refuses to give any legal status to social gains won on a national level through a century and a half of workers' struggles.
By Allan Green
Allan Green is a member of the National Executive of the Scottish Socialist Party and a member of the Editorial Board of Links.
CONTENTS
What happened with the second vote
SSP achieved a relatively stable, committed vote
Different layers support SSP and Greens
Conclusions on the second vote
Left election results in England and Wales
The role of the party in this success
The entire Scottish Socialist Party can be justifiably proud of our performance in the Holyrood elections on May 1. The vision, principles, courage and commitment of the party over four years have produced an election outcome that will permanently change the face of Scottish politics.
By Allan McCombes
Alan McCombes is a member of SSP National Executive and was the coordinator for the party's 2003 election campaign. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Links.
For the complacent ruling establishment, the spectacular rise of a new left opposition in Holyrood came like a snowstorm in the Sahara.
Right up until literally the midnight hour, the SSP, the Greens and the independents had been ignored, or at best patronised, by the mainstream media.
Nothing prepared the political commentators for the shock of witnessing the big four parties lose one and a quarter million votes across the two ballots; or for the lurch to the left across Scotland and the election of seventeen radical anti-establishment MSPs.
The centre right continues to rule Scotland through the Lib-Lab coalition. But the political centre of gravity in Scotland has shifted decisively to the left.
There is now a clear red gulf separating Holyrood from Westminster. Scotland has become the political Achilles heel of the UK capitalist state.
By Tommy Sheridan
Tommy Sheridan was the first member of the SSP elected to the Scottish Parliament, in 1999.
The election of six socialist MSPs represents both a massive advance for and a huge challenge to the socialist movement in Scotland.
Undoubtedly the ability of the SSP to link its socialist activity within the Scottish parliament to its socialist program outside parliament has played a major role in promoting the party in relation to anti-poverty, pro-trade union, pro-peace and anti-war campaigns.
The way the party was able to take the abolition of poundings and warrant sales campaign out into the communities and bring pressure to bear back inside the parliament was a model for uniting parliamentary and extra-parliamentary activity. A similar and even broader exercise was conducted in relation to the free school meals campaign. Even though the end result was unsuccessful, the party still managed to pressure thirty-five MSPs to vote for a significant anti-poverty and pro-health measure.
The events of September 2000 in Prague marked a turning point. When the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund planned their annual meeting for the Czech Republic, they hoped for a peaceful gathering in the only eastern European country where hatred of neo-liberalism has not yet become a mass phenomenon.
By Laszlo Andor
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.
Interview with Bernadette McAliskey
This interview appeared in the May 1999 German-language Irland Almanach, edited by Jürgen Schneider. It was conducted on April 6, 1999, in Coalisland, County Tyrone, by Ralf Sotscheck, Irish and British correspondent for the German daily newspaper Die Tageszeitung. Bernadette McAliskey, a leader of the Northern Ireland civil rights movement of the 1960s, was a Westminster MP in the early 1970s and is a long-time human rights activist.
You stated some time ago that the peace process cannot and will not lead to the achievement of the just and democratic ideals to which people gave their liberty and their lives. Do you reject the peace process, or what's your position now?
I still have exactly the same analysis of the peace process. I think that over the period of time in which it has been played out, the analysis has proved to be correct. I do not take any great joy in that.
By François Duval, LCR National Leadership -- February 28, 2008 -- In January, a vast majority of the delegates at the 17th national congress of the LCR [Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire; Revolutionary Communist League] approved a new political perspective: the building of a broad anti-capitalist party.
Interview with the LCR's Olivier Besancenot, conducted by the Swiss revolutionary socialist newspaper SolidaritéS
SolidaritéS: Is there in the history of the French or international workers' movement precedents for the construction of a new ``anti-capitalist party'', as initiated by the LCR congress?
Besancenot: We do not claim to be inventing anything. But it's true, this project is rather unique. First, it is unusual for a political organisation that has not been discredited -- and has even experienced some success -– to pose the problem of its disappearance! Of course, this is not about assessing the profit and losses of the history of the political current that the LCR represents. But instead, to write a new page, with others. With many others.
And neither is it about a merger between political movements, even if we are ready to discuss with all those who might be interested in this project. In fact, this project is based on an analysis of a new situation, in particular the extent of the crisis of the workers' movement.