Tensions are high in Thailand as a political crisis that has been simmering for years is reaching boiling point. Last week a judicial coup ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and several of her ministers. Ben Gliniecki analyses the latest developments and the revolutionary potential in Thailand.
The holding of the referendums in eastern Ukraine represents a new and potentially dangerous twist in the Ukrainian crisis. The representatives of the people of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions say 89% and 96% respectively voted in favour of self-rule. Alan Woods analyses the significance of the referendums and the responses of Putin’s Russia and the Western media.
Sunday 11th May saw referendums in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. We publish here an article by Jorge Martin, written in advance of the referendum, which analyses the situation in the region, including the activities and involvement of fascist paramilitaries on the one side and the growing role of the working class on the other.
Ukraine’s acting President Turchynov admitted that his forces were “helpless” to quell the unrest in Eastern Ukraine, as the pro-Russian insurgency is on the rise. Now the goal would be to prevent the pro-Russian insurgency from spreading in the Kharkiv and Odessa regions. This amounts to a declaration of defeat.
India is hyped as being very modern, yet in the midst of the towering buildings and corporate plazas there are huge swathes of ghettos overflowing with intense poverty and misery, where human beings are forced to live in bestial conditions of unhygienic and filthy dwellings. The artificial glitter and the facade of modernity fails to conceal the primitive social and economic conditions that prevail across India.
This Easter, as every year, socialists and Republicans across Ireland will commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising. Yet with only two years to go until the centenary, the aim of the Workers’ Republic that James Connolly appears as far off as ever. Fightback – the Marxists in Ireland – comment on the continuing crisis of capitalism in Ireland and the response from Labour and the small forces to their left.
Ukrainian president Oleksandr Turchynov declared earlier this weak that a full-scale operation will be launched to regain control over Eastern Ukraine. Later, the same man announced a date for a referendum in Eastern Ukraine. Others are talking about UN peacekeepers coming in. This contradictory flip-flopping indicated the insoluble mess the Ukrainian authorities have got themselves into.
With the upcoming European elections on 22nd May, we publish here an analysis of the European Union and the euro crisis by Claudio Bellotti – member of the National Executive of Rifondazione Comunista in Italy and member of the editorial board of Falce Martello, the paper of the Italian Marxists – which examines the limitations of the pro-EU position put forward by the left reformists across Europe.
In the recent municipal elections in France the right wing did well, mainly at the expense of the Socialist Party, which pays a heavy price for carrying out draconian austerity measures at national level. Here we publish an article by Jérôme Métellus, a member of the Communist Party in Paris and also of the Editorial Board of La Riposte, the journal of the Marxist wing of the Communist Party.
In the last week, Crimea has officially become part of the Russian Federation. The western powers, despite a series of veiled threats, have been able to do nothing to stop this process. Francesco Merli examines the latest developments in Russia and Ukraine, which expose the declining influence of US imperialism and its European allies.
We republish here an article by Gerry Ruddy, originally written for the Red Plough, which looks at the politics of Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein, who have accepted the capitalist system and ignored the class question in relation to the north of Ireland.
Tomasz Pierscionek looks at the background and development of the events in Ukraine, where the situation has progressed rapidly with a complex interplay of forces, including competing imperialist powers. Socialists cannot support either the US or Russian backed “solutions”. Only a movement of the working class, in Ukraine and internationally, can provide a real solution to the people in the Ukraine.