Portside

1. New Generation of Left Activists
2. Ukraine’s Left on the Anti-Corruption Protests 
3. Crackdown in Georgia
4. Party Alliance in Czechia
5. Serbia’s Student Movement
6. Occupation at Warsaw University
7. Reading Albania’s Election
8. The Roma Narrate Their Own Story
9. Russia: New Forms of Struggle
10. Remembering the Partisans

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New Generation of Left Activists

Áron Rossman-Kiss / New Internationalist (Oxford)

The East European movements at Lab-Left emerged against the odds. On the one hand, the shadow of the Soviet bloc still looms large in the region – including the way these regimes destroyed leftwing alternatives and reforms from within. On the other, structural constraints make the emergence of any leftwing alternative a significant challenge. 

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Ukraine’s Left on the Anti-Corruption Protests 

Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières (Paris)

On July 23, protests against the government’s unwillingness to fight corruption, triggered by the adoption of bill No. 12414, took place in Kyiv and other cities. The Social Movement (Sotsialnyi Rukh) joined the unprecedented wartime rally of nearly 10,000 people on Ivan Franko Square.

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Crackdown in Georgia

Clément Girardot / Equal Times (Brussels)

“When we talk about Georgian Dream, we’re really talking about one man: Bidzina Ivanishvili. At a certain point, he had a choice – to genuinely step away from power or to consolidate it through an authoritarian regime. He chose the latter,” says Vakhushti Menabde, founder of the Movement for Social Democracy, a new political party formed in February 2025 following the recent wave of protests.

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Party Alliance in Czechia

Danny Bate / Radio Prague International

The Czech centre-left Social Democracy party, today known for short as SOCDEM, signed a memorandum of cooperation with Stačilo!, a party that incorporates the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia. The move, undertaken to strengthen the parties’ chance of electoral success, has met with severe criticism from some Social Democrats.

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Serbia’s Student Movement

Vladimir Simović / Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (Berlin)

Three defining features of the movement stand out, the first being its commitment to direct democracy. The second key feature is its active effort to connect with other segments of society. Finally, the movement is ideologically pluralistic, yet mature enough to recognize that foregrounding internal differences at this stage would only weaken its cohesion.

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Occupation at Warsaw University

Mikołaj Ratajczak / Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières

The occupation of the Warsaw University student government building has been going on for a month. The strike is led by students associated in the youth committees of the National Trade Union Workers’ Initiative and the Student Housing Initiative, as well as non-members.

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Reading Albania’s Election

Jani Marka / transform! Europe (Vienna)

Altogether, there will be four parties and two coalitions in the new parliament with 140 seats to be constituted in September: Socialist Party (83 seats), Democratic Party and its coalition (50), Social Democrat Party (3), Opportunity Party (1), Coalition Initiative Albania Becomes (1), and Lëvizja BASHKË (1). The latter three are new parties founded in the last 2 years. 

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The Roma Narrate Their Own Story

Madeline Potter / Literary Hub (New York)

The Roma are often described as an ethnic minority, but many Romani communities view “Roma” as a broad racial identity, stretching all the way back to our Indian ancestry. Indeed, to look at the Roma as one ethnicity is to disregard the veritable mosaic of Romani subgroups. 

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Russia: New Forms of Struggle

Kirill Medvedev / Posle (Berlin)

Of the approximately 300 protest campaigns across 40 regions that took place in Russia in 2024, the majority were devoted to environmental and urban planning issues, whether fighting deforestation, new penal colonies, or landfills. The most high-profile and potentially explosive campaigns arise when ethnic minorities’ self-determination comes into play alongside environmental concerns. 

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Remembering the Partisans

Zlatko Janković / Jacobin (Brooklyn)

The Western Balkans was the only place in Europe where resistance movements defeated the Nazis without having to rely on Allied troops. Any progressive future for the region will have to build on the proud legacy of this mass liberation struggle.