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.