- Prospects For a New Left in South Africa
- Workers’ Party of Belgium and Europolitics
- Malaysia Socialist Party Joins Forces With Youth Party
- Portugal’s Left Bloc
- Chile Communist Youth
- Philippines Partido Lakas ng Masa
- Sudanese CP
- Veteran Myanmar Activist Speaks
- Free Boris Kagarlitsky
- Communism is Freedom
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Prospects For a New Left in South Africa
Editorial Collective / Amandla! (Johannesburg)
The Left exists. It is present in many of today’s struggles. But over time it has become quite marginal and isolated. With gross levels of inequality and social polarisation continuing, together with neoliberal assaults on poor and working-class people, there will need to be a new cadre of activists sensitive to a constantly evolving new left politics.
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Workers’ Party of Belgium and Europolitics
Marc Botenga and Loren Balhorn / Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Berlin)
The Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB/PDVA) is one of the European Left’s lesser-known success stories. Although its leaders may not be as famous as Pablo Iglesias, Alexis Tsipras, or Jeremy Corbyn, the PTB’s consistent rise to a mass party with national influence in only 15 years is arguably one of the most remarkable trajectories of any left-wing party on the continent.
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Malaysia Socialist Party Joins Forces With Youth Party
Peter Boyle / Green Left (Sydney)
The Socialist Party of Malaysia and the Malaysian United Democracy Alliance (MUDA) have agreed on an electoral pact for the upcoming state assembly elections on August 12. This pact, announced on July 15, commits the two parties not to stand candidates against each other and to campaign on five key shared concerns, including a rejection of race-based politics.
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Portugal’s Left Bloc
Jorge Costa and Dick Nichols / Links (Sydney)
Costa, a Left Bloc leader, covers developments in Portuguese politics since the Socialist Party was returned to government in 2015, the Bloc’s changing relation to it, the rise of the far right in the form of Chega! (Enough!), the Bloc’s relations with the Portuguese Communist Party, and the challenges facing the party as it returns to growth with an influx of a generation of younger activists.
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Chile Communist Youth
Taroa Zúñiga Silva / Alborada (London)
Bárbara Navarrete is secretary-general of Chile's Communist Youth. Fifty years after the coup, left activists oscillate between hope in a government led by former student leaders, and devastation at the defeat of a new constitution in 2022. They also have to contend with the rise of the right wing, which now holds offices in the legislature, including the presidency of the Senate.
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Philippines Partido Lakas ng Masa
Sonny Melencio and Federico Fuentes / Links
Melencio, chairperson of the Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Labouring Masses, PLM) discusses the current state of global imperialism, the looming threat of a US-China war and what approach the left should take to regional peace, security and anti-imperialist solidarity.
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Sudanese CP
Pavan Kulkarni / Peoples Dispatch (New Delhi)
The fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which entered its third month on June 15, resumed on June 21. Fathi Elfadl, national spokesperson of the Sudanese Communist Party, argued that the ceasefires were mainly helping the warring parties recoup. See also this more recent report on the conflict.
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Veteran Myanmar Activist Speaks
Khin Nadi / The Irawaddy (Yangon)
Veteran democracy activist Ko Mya Aye, a former 88 Generation student leader and now a leader of the political organization Federal Democratic Force, gives his views on the current situation in the country more than two years after the coup attempt, as well as on federalism and the junta’s use of jailed leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to conduct hostage diplomacy.
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Free Boris Kagarlitsky
Links
Below the international petition (which readers are encouraged to sign) are statements by: Russian Socialists Against War, Rabkor (Russia), Russian Socialist Movement, Posle (Russia), Socialist Alliance (Australia), Party of the European Left, Transnational Institute, Counterpunch, Canadian Dimension, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, and others.
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Communism is Freedom
Søren Mau / Verso Books (London)
The fundamental condition of communism is that the basic conditions of the life of society are brought under democratic control. New institutions would need to be built, which would take over many of the functions we usually associate with the state today, and would also manage and oversee the economy. What is at stake here is thus a wide-ranging and comprehensive expansion of democracy.
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