Europe

Over 150 years ago Ireland lost a staggering 13% of its population to death by disease and starvation. How could it be that Britain, which was still the richest and most powerful country in the world, could not prevent this horrific death toll? The answer is simple ‑ the British ruling-classes did not want to minimize the death toll, on the contrary, they welcomed it!

At the University of East Anglia recently Rob Sewell of the Socialist Appeal gave a talk on the Miners strike in Britain 1984-5. The strike was a culmination of the inevitable build up of tension between the ruling and working class. In the post-war period the decline of British imperialism had occured. The Tories of the 1980s were a rabid reaction to that phenomenon, determined to destroy the organised labour movement by taking on its most militant section, the National Union of Miners.

We are publishing here an interesting piece on the Irish trade unions by Peter Black, an active member of the TGWU (now fused with Amicus to form “Unite”) and the Irish Republican Socialist Party. Trade union membership is growing in Ireland, as is the militancy of the working class and Socialist Republicans, in the tradition of James Connolly, can play an important role in providing the militant leadership the Irish workers deserve.

On Saturday, November 17, a massive demonstration of 70,000 workers and youth took place in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. The workers are fed up with low wages, high prices, cuts in services and privatisation. They have had a taste of capitalism and clearly don’t like it.

Last week an important dispute flared up at the Dublin Bus company over new work schedules. Although the strike was called off today, the present article, written last week, gives an idea of the militant mood that exists among Dublin's bus workers.

One year ago today comrade Phil Mitchinson died tragically of a heart attack. He was without doubt a very talented comrade who devoted his time to editing the Socialist Appeal and helping to build our tendency in Britain and internationally. Here Rob Sewell remembers Phil and the role he played.

On Saturday the "Der Funke" Marxist tendency organised a big event with Trotsky's grandson, Esteban Volkov, as special guest, to commemorate and celebrate the 90th anniversary of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Around 200 people came to listen to the speeches in defence of "Red October" and between 400-500 celebrated all night long at the party that was organised after the meeting.

Sarkozy is consciously provoking some of the big battalions of the French labour movement. His strategy is clear: take on the strong sections of the class and, counting on the weak trade union leaders, smash them in order to prepare the ground for an all-out attack on the rest of the class. The stakes are high. With a bold, militant leadership the workers could win.

A Basque Marxist was on a speaking tour of the North of Ireland at the end of October. He spoke to audiences in Belfast, Strabane and Derry mainly composed of republican socialists, but not only. There was keen interest in seeing how the experience of the Basque situation could be applied to the North of Ireland, and vice versa. We make available here a report, originally published in The Plough, the journal of the Irish Republican Socialist Party.

By all appearances the right-wing government couldn't have picked a worse time to call an election. However, if one looks at the situation more closely, one can see that things will only get worse in the future for them.

Over 200 people packed the Workers' Museum in Copenhagen last night, leaving standing room only, in order to hear Esteban Volkov and Alan Woods speak on the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Esteban Volkov, the grandson of Leon Trotsky, and also last living witness to his assassination, spoke in the city where Trotsky made his final public speech in 1932.

Marxists have always maintained that at some stage the intensity of the class struggle affects even the “armed bodies of men” of the bourgeois state. Such an example was the police strike in Britain at the end of the First World War. In the late summer of 1918 the sight of 12,000 furious Metropolitan constables marching on Whitehall sparked panic among ruling circles in Britain. Under the leadership of the National Union of Police and Prison Officers, militantly class-conscious policemen conspired to overturn their role as the subservient body of the State.

On Wednesday the 7th of November a big meeting organised by the Danish Marxist tendency, Socialistisk Standpunkt, will take place in Copenhagen to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. However, 2007 marks another anniversary, and one with special importance for Denmark. It is 75 years since Leon Trotsky held his last public speech in November 1932, which was held at a huge meeting in Copenhagen, where Trotsky was invited by the Social-Democratic Students Association.

Last week the Executive in the North of Ireland presented its budget. It has been presented as a budget that will create jobs, improve services and reduce poverty. A closer look reveals tax concessions and incentives for the bosses and cuts in jobs and social spending and increased taxation for the workers. They are preparing social turmoil in the future.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is occupying the headlines of many newspapers with his comments that Britain failed to act on intelligence that could have prevented the 7/7 London bombings. Beyond the response of the bourgeois media, what is the real relationship between the West and Saudi Arabia?

The recent internal leadership elections in the Flemish Socialist Party revealed a very militant mood in the ranks of the party. The two left candidates Erik De Bruyn and Elke Heirman received an amazing 33.6% of the votes, preparing the ground for the re-emergence of s strong left wing in the party.

In what to many may seem an amazing transformation, the bulk of the old Italian Communist Party, the biggest Communist Party in the West, has fused with a bourgeois party known as the Margherita, to form the Democratic Party. Here we provide the background to how this came about.

Comrade Phil Lloyd has died in Swansea at the age of 74. He joined the tendency led by Ted Grant back in the 1950s. He was a pioneer of the Marxist tendency and played a key role in its development. Alan Woods was one of the youth that that Phil Lloyd helped to recruit and educate. Here Alan remembers the man and fighter.

The crisis of capitalism is even shaking countries like Switzerland. The heartland of international finance, wealth, “neutrality” and social peace has been rocked by a series of strike actions on the part of building workers. With a growing radicalisation of the Swiss working class and increasing intransigence on the part of the bosses, the stage has been set for serious class battles.