Lefteast
In 1989, the post-communist elites in the four Central European states of Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia had a supposedly innocent ambition. They wanted to escape from the captivity of the Russian ‘East’ back to the civilized ‘West’, where they sought political and economic equality. Milan Kundera put it best in his 1983 essay on […]
Today’s program of the Socialism 2024 conference, an annual event that takes place in Chicago, will feature an award ceremony of the Daniel Singer Prize for the best article devoted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. LeftEast is proud that two of the awardees, the runners-up Volodymyr Ischenko and Olena Lyubchenko, are our editors. If you […]
The article was originally published by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung here. It is reproduced with permission. In the past decade, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has emerged as one of Europe’s most important — and controversial — politicians: no small feat for the leader of a country whose economic or strategic importance on both European and global […]
In this edition of Free City Radio, we hear from activist Stoyo Tetevenski in Sofia, Bulgaria. Stoyo shares some reflections on social justice organizing today in the Bulgarian context. Free City Radio explores the intersection of social activism and the arts. The weekly program features interviews on contemporary political currents in Montréal, Canada and around the […]
Statement on the adoption of an anti-LGBTI+ law in Bulgaria by Levfem, a socialist feminist organization based in Bulgaria Conservative and far-right forces scored a huge victory on Wednesday, 7 August. In Bulgaria, MPs from all political parties voted in favor of banning the “propaganda” of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. Few MPs […]
Ever since the fall of socialism, Serbia has had virtually no left-wing parties. The legacy of the workers’ struggle and radical politics, reaching to the 1870s, had been up to that point upheld by the League of Communists of Serbia, a national branch of the ruling party of Yugoslavia. In 1990 the League became the […]
August 2nd is known in a number of European countries as Roma Holocaust Memorial Day. It is a significant day in history because 80 years ago on the night of August 2nd, 1944 the Nazis killed the more than 4,200 Roma and Sinti incarcerated in the Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camp in gas chambers, effectively liquidating […]
Editorial note: In late May, at the same time as violent police crackdowns on protests around the elections and the high cost of living in Kenya, hundreds of Kenyan police officers landed in Haiti to ostensibly quell gang violence and restore order. The authors of this dialogue paint a complex picture of the situation beyond […]
Editorial note: Following 25 years of Islam Karimov’s rule, on December 14, 2016, Shavkat Mirziyoyev became the second President of post-Soviet Uzbekistan. Though Mirziyoyev had been Karimov’s prime minister for thirteen years, his ascent to the presidency marked a sharp turn in the Uzbekistan’s political economy, away from the statism of the Karimov era, when […]
Who chooses wars for us? What does it mean that somewhere is peace and somewhere is war? Is this still peace? What kind of peace? Whose peace? Is there really peace until there are wars? So what if wars no longer exist? How can we reach worlds without wars? Can we get there? We have to. Once upon a time there was a world of wars. There was.