Lefteast
“…History, rather, is an alternative process in which socialism has a great chance because there are no other real alternatives to capitalism. This is the reason why Marx is so reviled in Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, in the absence of a socialist perspective, humankind might face total self-destruction. This is also a realistic alternative.”
This book review was originally published by New Left Review. Darko Suvin, Splendour, Misery and Possibilities: An X-Ray of Socialist Yugoslavia. Haymarket Books: Chicago 2018. How is it, asks Darko Suvin, with Brechtian directness, that socialist Yugoslavia started out so well, yet ended up so very badly? In answering that question he has produced an extraordinary work […]
We are publishing this article in cooperation with the Serbo-Croatian web portal Bilten. In the “Offenders in Gabrovo!” Facebook group, natives of the eponymous Central Bulgarian town comment upon all sorts of irregularities: they lambaste the owner of a car parked on the wrong side of the street, mobilize to replace a broken lamp post, […]
This article comprises a report on the proceedings of a conference held in Tbilisi, Georgia on 11-14 October 2018, co-organized by a number of foundations as part of the Transnational Institute’s New Politics project. In the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, the world finds itself in a new era of political turmoil. If […]
We are publishing this article in cooperation with the Serbo-Croatian web portal Bilten. Recently, relatively new political actors in Romania announced their intention to run for the upcoming elections of a new European Parliament. Their profiles could not be more different but they share nonetheless a common feature that neatly expresses the systemic and terminal […]
A Heated Discussion at the GoEast Film Festival If I could summarize the discussion titled “What Went Wrong in the Nineties” held at the GoEast Film Festival in Wiesbaden, Germany, in April, I would draw on the name of the festival itself to call it: “Go West!” Bringing together an eclectic mix of professionals, the […]
This is Éva Gönczi’s translation of an article that first appeared in Hungarian in the journal Népszava on April 21, 2019. Here György Heimer interviews well-known sociologist József Böröcz on the luster and pitfalls of the European Union, at a time when that institution has become the object of great polarization in Hungary and across […]
Venezuela has been at the center of heated left-wing polemics for some time now. As tensions rise in the border regions of the country and self-appointed “interim president” Juan Guaido calls for ever more militant action, including even armed rebellion, concerns grow over the possibility of a foreign intervention. As with previous such interventions, legitimacy […]
Just before Polish teachers suspended their strike to allow for exams, Philippe Alcoy interviewed Dagmara. She gave us an insider view on the causes of the historic struggle of Polish teachers as well as on the solidarities of pupils and parents. From the French: Celine Cantat. Dagmara Zawistowska-Toczek has been a primary and secondary school […]
This article was first published in Jacobin. In Sunday’s election Ukrainian voters dealt a decisive rebuttal to the post-Maidan establishment. Yet well-organized nationalist forces represent a time bomb under the new president-elect. American readers won’t be too surprised by a tale of an inexperienced candidate winning against the establishment’s pick. But in the case of […]