Habits of colonial thought mislead many to assume that democracy originated in Europe, either in ancient Greece or through the emergence of a tradition of rights. But this is partly the retrospective fantasy of colonial Europe. From anti-colonial revolt to trade union strikes, people’s often forgotten struggles to establish basic dignity against despicable hierarchies are as much the authors of democracy as those who preserved their aspirations in written texts still celebrated in our time.
In 1973, workers in the industrial port city of Durban embarked on a series of strikes, marking an end to a period of relative quiescence that came on the heels of tremendous state repression. The strikes began a process of unionisation that, within a decade, became the foundation of a wider mass democratic movement that mobilised millions of people in workplaces, communities, and educational institutions into the forms of counter power that brought apartheid to its knees. This dossier returns to the workers whose political contribution was, in the end, decisive.
This dossier examines the history of Christianity and the rise of fundamentalism in Latin America, from looking at its emergence in the United States and how it has served as a tool of an imperialist project to its insertion in politics in the region today and its misogynist, anti-communist, and anti-democratic manifestations.
In an interview with R. Chandra, this dossier discusses the strategic role of activist research in the All India Democratic Women’s Association’s fight against caste oppression, patriarchy, and economic exploitation. AIDWA’s survey and the campaigns that they generated deepened members’ understanding of the reality of caste oppression. In research, activists found a powerful tool to substantiate and systematise their own experiences on the ground, gain newer and broader insights, and understand the anatomy of gender oppression among different sections of women.
The asymmetrical power of the Global North over the Global South is expressed through a new logic of subordination and peripheralisation. Rather than being exclusively a question of the unequal exchange of manufactured goods versus primary goods, it is the control over the process of offshoring and the asymmetrical integration of different regions into global production networks that give rise to substantial distributive differences, even in the context of accelerated industrialisation processes in the periphery.
With the failure of capitalism to address the basic questions of our times, the obstinate facts of hunger and illiteracy that stare us in the face, it has become more urgent than ever to recover traditions that are grounded in a scientific approach and have a sincere desire to confront the dilemmas of humanity. Unpacking the traditions of national liberation Marxism in ten theses, dossier no. 56 unearths the foundations of revolutionary praxis that would allow for more factual assessments of our times, a closer rendition of contemporary imperialism that can advance the construction of a socialist world.
Four decades ago, thirty-two Telugu people became martyrs in the fight to build a people’s steel plant in the Indian city of Visakhapatnam. Today, faced with an Indian government that wants to privatise the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, the people and workers have united in the fight to retain their steel plant in the public sector. Our dossier no. 55 tells a heroic tale of spirited survival in the face of state-induced demoralisation.
Based on an analysis of the current global landscape, this dossier brings the work of Antonio Gramsci to the trenches of social struggles today, reinforcing the central role of the Battle of Ideas. Towards this end, it features an interview with Neuri Rossetto, a national coordinator of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), and sheds light on contemporary social struggles that are planting seeds of hope towards building a new world.
Dossier 53 discusses the land question in South Africa, looking at the role of white farmers who have long benefited from the labour of exploited Black farmworkers.
Beginning with a historical account of the plight of farmworkers, it argues that those who work the land deserve to be its primary beneficiaries, but, instead, they have been excluded from the profits and stability of owning land for generations. Faced with this reality, dossier no. 53 discusses what a land reform agenda that centres the perspectives and needs of farmworkers would look like.
On 2 May 1942, hundreds of China’s leading writers, artists, and communist leaders gathered to discuss the key cultural questions of the time. The historic Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art lasted for three weeks. Why did tens of thousands of artists and writers travel to the remote town of Yan’an during those years? Why was culture so central to the political construction? How did intellectual developments help bring the Chinese people and nation to revolution? Eight decades later, what relevance does the Yan’an spirit hold, especially for artists, writers, and intellectuals who seek to serve the people’s struggles today?
The decline of the US empire, a geopolitical transition already in full swing, and the shaping of a multipolar world open up a new series of possibilities and discussions for Latin America and the Caribbean about the region’s possibility for autonomy in a transition away from dependence on capitalist countries that accounts for the needs of the majority.
Nela Martínez (1912–2004), Ecuadorian activist and fighter for the people, was a key figure in the struggles of the working class and women. A communist and internationalist militant, she participated in the formation of the Ecuadorian Federation of Indians and played a central role in the Glorious May Revolution. A member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ecuador, she led the creation of women’s organisations such as the Ecuadorian Women’s Alliance and the Revolutionary Union of Ecuadorian Women. Her political biography intertwines women’s struggles with anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist struggles.
On 25 February 2021, the Chinese government announced that extreme poverty had been abolished in China, a country of 1.4 billion people. This historic victory is a culmination of a seven-decade-long process that began with the Chinese Revolution of 1949. This study looks into the process through which China was able to eradicate extreme poverty as a fundamental step in constructing socialism.
‘Risen from the Ruins’, the first edition of the new series ‘Studies on the DDR’, follows the foundation of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) after World War II and traces its development from an anti-fascist democratic state to a socialist one. The study investigates the DDR’s economic efficiency, accomplishments, and contradictions, while also outlining central aspects of its socialist society such as collective organization in state-owned enterprises, the planned economy, and internationalist solidarity.
This study looks at the life and legacy of Kanak Mukherjee, a fighter for the people and people’s struggles who was born in undivided Bengal, India, in 1921. The rich trajectory of her activism teaches us about the history of women organising in local, national, and international struggles that linked women’s rights to anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggles throughout the twentieth century.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated existing social, political, health, and economic crises. It is often women who bear the brunt of the cataclysmic shifts in daily life, from the increasing care work of children, the elderly, and the sick to skyrocketing incidences of gender-based violence, as women and LGBTQIA+ people are quarantined with their abusers. This study looks into the challenges that have been sharpened by the pandemic — in particular, how the current crisis has impacted women across the world — and presents a list of people’s feminist demands as we strive for a path forward.
In this report, we look at Cuba, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Kerala (India) to investigate how these socialist parts of the world have been able to handle the virus more effectively.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States government has put its tremendous resources towards heightening aggression against its perceived adversaries – notably, against Venezuela – from heightening sanctions to a foiled invasion to leveraging its stronghold over international institutions like the IMF. This study takes a deep look at the US-led hybrid war against Venezuela, debunking the false narratives created to support this attack.
This is the first in a multiple part series of studies on CoronaShock. It is made up of three articles on how China identified the novel coronavirus and then how the Chinese government and Chinese society fought against its wider diffusion, as well as an interview with Li Zhong, an artist from Shanghai.
The world that we live in today is characterised by great social and political upheavals, with workers facing overwhelming attacks from neoliberal politics. The policies of neoliberalism and neofascism put immense pressure on women, who become the primary and principal targets of precariousness, oppression, and exploitation.
