Month: December 2015

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A voice from Russia’s truckers’ protest

Communist Party Duma deputy Konstantin Rodin meets protesting truckers in Moscow Oblast, 4 December. Photo: (c) Grigory Sysoev / visual RIAN

by Nikolai Ovchinnikov from openDemocracy, Dec. 9, 2015

Truckers across Russia have descended on Moscow to protest a new freight tax which will threaten their livelihood. Vladimir shares his story of life behind the wheel.

Since mid-November, Russia’s long distance truckers have been protesting against a new freight tax on trucks over 12 tonnes. The tax is 1.53 rubles (£0.01) per kilometre until March 2016 and 3.73 rubles (£0.04) per kilometre thereafter. The official reason Russia’s Federal Transportation Agency (Rosavtodor) gives for the new tax is to pay for the road damage it says 12-tonne trucks cause.

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Theory

Subversive Festival: Balkan Forum – Situations, Struggles, Strategies

THE BALKAN FORUM Situations, Struggles, Strategies (Bijeli val, Zagreb, 2014). Click on image to download .pdf

Note from the LeftEast editors: with the kind permission of the Subversive Festival organizers we publish the .html versions of the Subversive Festival’s outputs “Balkan Forum: Situations, Struggles, Strategies”. A .pdf version can be downloaded by clicking on the image of the book collection here or from the website of the Forum’s principal sponsor, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Southeast Europe, which also provided the annotation of the volume. Please click on the images below to follow the link to each article.

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Between institutional and non-institutional forms of democratic organizing: Towards revolutionary change

THE BALKAN FORUM Situations, Struggles, Strategies (Bijeli val, Zagreb, 2014). Click on image to download .pdf

 

This is the fourth and final instalment of contributions from the working groups that were set up by the Balkan Forum. The democratisation and participation working group consists of: Arlind Qori, Gal Kirn, Tadej Kurepa, Agon Hamza, Iva Ivšić and Suzana Kunac (coordinator).

Introduction

We build upon the conclusions of The First Balkan Forum – held in Zagreb (2012) during the Subversive Forum – that there can be no real democracy in the political, social or economic spheres if there is no workers’ control over the means of production in the workplace.

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Taking Glazyev’s Plan Seriously

MINSK, BELARUS. OCTOBER 10, 2014. Russian president Vladimir Putin, presidential aide Sergei Glazyev (R-L front) and foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (background) at a session of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council at the level of heads of states at Minsk's Palace of Independence. Mikhail Metzel /TASS Белоруссия. Минск. 10 октября. Советник президента РФ Сергей Глазьев, президент России Владимир Путин (слева направо на первом плане) и министр иностранных дел РФ Сергей Лавров (на втором плане) в перерыве заседания Высшего Евразийского экономического совета на уровне глав государств во Дворце Независимости. Михаил Метцель/ТАСС

Despite its anti-neoliberal character, Sergei Glazyev’s proposed economic reforms are in the interests of elites and not the population.

Sergei Glazyev, the Russian economist and adviser to Putin, is increasingly in the news. He often speaks of “urgent measures” to help overcome the crisis, jump start economic growth and propel a technological leap forward. Liberals simply dismiss Glazyev’s proposals as half-baked ideas that will quickly ruin the country. Many shades of patriots, including “red conservatives,” give Glazyev more support, but do not particularly interrogate his ideas.