French elections – first round
The results of the first round of the presidential elections in France
mean that the second round will be fought out between Nicolas Sarkozy
and the Socialist Party candidate, François Hollande.
International
European crisis deepens
All the talk about the European crisis finally “turning the corner” has gone up in smoke as crisis ruturns big time to Europe.
[HoV] London commemorates 10 years of the defeat of the coup
On April 12th, around 70 people
gathered at a Hands Off Venezuela meeting at Bolivar Hall in London to
commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the defeat of the
counter-revolutionary coup against Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela.
The meeting served as the premiere of ‘Cuarto Poder’, a documentary
summarising the negative portrayal of the President Chavez in the
Spanish media and the reasons for this negative bias.
Venezuela: ten years after the peoples’ victory over the coup – expropriate the conspirators!
Ten years after the defeat of the coup
in Venezuela by the revolutionary mobilisation of the masses it is
worth looking back at the forces that were behind the coup, the reasons
why it was defeated and what happened afterwards, as those events hold
the clue to the class dynamics of the Venezuelan revolution.
Presidential elections in France: Massive support for Mélenchon
The most striking feature of the presidential election campaign in France is the massive support shown for the Front de Gauche
(Left Front) under the leadership of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Long before
the campaign was really underway, there were clear signs that the most
conscious and active layer of the working class was mobilising around
the Front de Gauche.
Easter: The Battle for Ideas
This year as every year there will be
marches and commemorations attended by the various strands of Irish
socialism and republicanism to mark the anniversary of the Easter
Rising. There will be a remembrance of those who fell in the struggle
for national liberation and socialism in 1916, during the War of
Independence and since then. Attention is already being given to the
possible events to mark the centenary of the rising in 2016
Ireland: Easter 1916-2012
At Easter every year in every parish
in Ireland and in many places around the world Irish Republicans gather
to pay homage to those men and women who died in the struggle for
independence. This year, 2012, will be no different. However, whereas 50
years ago there was only one Republican Movement, today there are at
least seven different republican traditions that have emerged out of the
northern struggle.
Venezuela: October presidential elections crucial for the revolution
On Sunday February the 12, the
long-awaited opposition primary elections took place in order to select
the candidate who will face Hugo Chavez in the presidential elections
due for October this year. Cápriles Radonski, the present governor of
Miranda state won a clear victory with 62% of the vote, compared to only
28.9% for his contender Pablo Perez, present governor of Zulia state.
No to all Household Taxes! Link the struggle to the defence of the Public sector
Last Saturday’s rally in Ireland organised by the Campaign against Household and Water
Taxes (CAHWT) demonstrated clearly that the opposition to the Household
Taxes is likely to be a major thorn in the side of Fine Gael and Labour
over the next period. The immediate problem for the Department of the
Environment, Community and Local Government however is not the 3,000
people who attended the rally at the National Stadium and those who
attended the other rallies. It’s the fact that only 328,201 households
have registered for the Household tax, from a total of more or less 1.6
million.
Splits in the Chinese ruling class
The cliché that ‘a week is a long time in politics’ can sometimes seem
inapplicable to China, with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP)
vice-like grip on the political life of the country. But the truth is
that such a system is, for all its appearance of serenity, actually more
like a pressure cooker. Dramatic political events and factional turmoil
can spring up as if from nowhere and in these moments the stage-managed
consensus can suddenly unravel.
In Defence of the Syrian Revolution: The Marxist position- Part Two
Much confusion exists on the left as
to the real nature of the Syrian regime because of what it was in the
past.
In Defence of the Syrian Revolution: The Marxist position – part one
It is a year since the Syrian masses
rose up against the Assad regime. Since March 2011, the Syrian people
have faced the open brutality of the state in wave after wave of mass
demonstrations, strikes and civil disobedience. These movements arose in
response to the stifling dictatorship, and against the massive
inequality, unemployment and poverty in Syrian society.