Portside

1. Requirements for a Global United Front
2. Setbacks in UK and India Elections
3. France: The Mayor Who Banned May Day
4. Hondurasgate
5. China’s System
6. Latin America Reports
7. ‘People’s Peace Summit’ in Tel Aviv
8. Linke Congress
9. South African CP Calls the Left to Conference
10. Kagarlitsky: Socialism is a Prospect, Not a Utopia

Requirements for a Global United Front

Farooq Tariq / Links (Sydney)

Anti-imperialism directed toward the US is a direct threat to US hegemony over violence. But we cannot afford to reduce the socialist project to the point where a capitalism with a human or anti-imperialist face becomes acceptable or even desirable. In the long run, we must work toward building movements and parties that are anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist.

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Setbacks in UK and India Elections

Left Democratic Front Voted Out in Kerala   K.J. Jacob / Asian Age (Delhi)

What’s Next for CPI(M)   C.J. Atkins / People’s World (New York)

The Great Shift In the UK   Michael Goodier, Carmen Aguilar García and Alexandra Topping / The Guardian (London)

Labour’s Failure   James Butler / London Review of Books

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France: The Mayor Who Banned May Day

Anna Maria Merlo / il manifesto Global (Rome)

In Liévin, one of the municipalities in the former mining basin south of Lille, the newly elected mayor from the National Rally (RN), Dany Paiva, canceled the traditional May Day ceremony, which also commemorated the 42 miners who died in a 1974 explosion. The RN has consistently voted on the side of business owners since entering the National Assembly in significant numbers.

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Hondurasgate

Leonardo Buitrago / El Ciudadano (Santiago de Chile)

The release of audio recordings under the investigation known as ‘Hondurasgate’ has uncovered a covert operation linked to Trumpism aimed at undermining the governments of Gustavo Petro in Colombia and Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico, involving a network allegedly financed by the Honduran government and foreign allies.

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China’s System

Owen Schalk / Canadian Dimension (Winnipeg)

Few questions provoke more confusion—and sharper disagreement—on the left today than whether China is capitalist or socialist. The country’s hybrid system combines extensive state control with deep integration into global markets. But answering this question shapes whether China is seen as a counterweight to Western capitalism, a participant in it, or something else entirely.

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Latin America Reports

Argentina: ‘A Very Difficult Reality’   Agustín Gulman / TRT World (İstanbul)

Bolivia: Social Movements Mobilize Against Privatization   Olivia Arigho-Stiles / Jacobin (Brooklyn)

Brazil’s Turn to the Left Continues   Vitória Genuino and Pablo Castaño / Jacobin

Chile in Conflict   Damaris Astete Marchant / Amandla! (Cape Town)

Mexico: ‘The Poor Come First’  Claudia Sheinbaum and Bruce Hobson / The New Liberator 

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‘People’s Peace Summit’ in Tel Aviv

Upside   Meron Rapoport / +972 (Tel Aviv)

Downside   Samah Watad / +972

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Linke Congress

Kerstin Palzer and Moritz Rödle / Tagesschau (Hamburg)

[Note: This article is in German. To read in English, use the translation app located in the address bar at the top of your web browser.]

Die Linke, Germany’s largest party to the left of the center-left SPD, has doubled its membership this year. At its federal party conference in Chemnitz, it intends to outline its future direction and discuss how to integrate the new members.

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South African CP Calls the Left to Conference

Eric Mthobeli Naki / The Citizen (Johannesburg)

The South African Communist Party (SACP) is forging new allies in the left movement, a move seen as another step towards broadening its ideological base away from the ANC. Recently, the SACP invited the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo) to discuss the consolidating of the left. Both parties agreed on holding the SACP-initiated Conference of the Left on 29-31 May.

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Kagarlitsky: Socialism is a Prospect, Not a Utopia

Boris Kagarlisky / Spichka

Institutions of democratic planning will make it possible to transform and shape the economic structure in a coordinated and purposeful way, not only in the interests of the majority but for the development of humanity.