Germany
Jonathan Sperber's new bio seeks to bury Karl Marx, not praise him
Karl Marx, A Nineteenth Century Life
By Jonathan Sperber,
Liveright Publishing, 2013
Germany: Far-left Die Linke becomes third biggest party in parliament
Members of the left-wing Die Linke celebrating their victory over the Greens, and the demise of their rivals the FDP.
John Riddell: Five precedents for understanding Egypt’s July coup
General L.G. Kornilov, Moscow, August 1917.
By John Riddell
The role of the united-front tactic
Australian protest against the US war on Vietnam.
Germany: Red Pepper interviews new Die Linke co-leader Katja Kipping
Emma Dowling speaks to Katja Kipping, new co-chair of Germany's Left Party (Die Linke)
November 2012 -- Red Pepper -- With 76 seats out of 622 in parliament, Die Linke is Germany’s fourth-largest party. It was founded in 2007 in a merger between the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) and the Electoral Alternative for Labour and Social Justice (WASG). Members of the PDS were predominantly East German and many had also been members of the Socialist Unity Party, the former ruling party of East Germany. WASG, meanwhile, was predominantly West German and made up of trade unionists and social movement activists, as well as social democrats who had left the German Social Democratic Party.
John Riddell: Lars Lih and Ben Lewis reveal Zinoviev at his best
Zinoviev and Martov: Head to Head in Halle
Edited by Ben Lewis and Lars T. Lih,
Tariq Ali: The rotten heart of Europe (video)
May 15, 2012 – Tariq Ali's keynote lecture on the state of Europe presented at the annual
Greece: 'For an anti-austerity government of the left'
By Socialist Resistance (Britain)
How revolutionaries of Lenin’s time resisted austerity
Towards the end of 1921, an attempt was made to shift the burden of debt to the working class through higher sales taxes. The German Communist Party opposed this, demanding instead an increase in the tax on wealth and the seizure of assets.
Introduction by John Riddell
April 26, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/johnriddell.wordpress.com -- Economic collapse drives workers into hunger and destitution. Foreign powers extort huge payments, forcing the national economy toward bankruptcy. The government forces workers to pay the costs of capitalist crisis.
This description of Greece in 2012 applies equally to Germany in 1921.
How should a workers’ party respond to such a breakdown? The proposals of the German Communist Party (KPD) included a simple approach to fiscal policy: tax those who own the country’s productive wealth.
The KPD was then a member of the Communist International, whose leadership included V.I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky and Gregory Zinoviev.