Lefteast
One of Warsaw’s major railway stations, working as an information point for Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s invasion, was full of people. It was early May, and the crowds had shrunk as the number of those crossing the Polish-Ukrainian border had decreased. Yet, there was a dire need for volunteers speaking Ukrainian and Russian ready to provide […]
A few thousand migrants piled up on the Polish border were enough to create one of the worst crises between Belarus and the EU. A reactionary “game” against a background of growing geopolitical tensions. This article originally appeared in French in Revolutionpermanente.fr on Nov. 12. Since last August, the eastern borders of the European Union […]
Popular among the anti-communist dissidents in Poland, Mury (English: Walls) was a protest song written by singer songwriter Jacek Kaczmarski in 1978 to the music composed by a Catalan, Lluís Llach. Mury/Walls was an anthem of those yearning for political freedom and civil liberties. “Pull the teeth of the bars from the walls! Tear off […]
Note from LeftEast editors. The article is a reprint: it originally appeared at JewishCurrent on April 1 2021. Translated from Polish by Sean Gasper Bye. ON MARCH 8TH, 2021, International Women’s Day, I drew a lightning bolt on my mask in red lipstick, put a thermos in my backpack, and went out […]
Note from LeftEast editors. The present text is simultaneously published in Polish in Kultura Liberalna. An earlier version of this text in English, including the author’s original letter to The New Yorker, used incorrect pronouns for Masha Gessen. The present text has been corrected. On Saturday, March 27, I first learned of a little controversy […]
The coronavirus pandemic has revealed who our society depends on for survival. It was those working in logistics, health care, trade, the post office, and other ‘essential’ industries that saved many economies from collapse and ensured the functioning of entire societies. Yet, years of living in poor conditions, working in unsafe workplaces where our lives don’t mean anything, years of alienation and marginalization of workers in public sphere have left quite a mark on working class abilities for mobilization. Those who managed to organize across the workplace’s walls and borders started to build transnational structures a long time ago. During the pandemic we could see that it wasn’t for nothing. We have to continue transnational organizing as labour and tenants movements on everyday basis. If we only start to do it when a crisis hits it can be too late.
Interview conducted by Philippe Alcoy and originally published in Revolution Permanente. Translated from the French by William Coker. Poland has seen enormous demonstrations unfold since October 22 when the Constitutional Court decided to ban abortion in almost all cases. It has been a big movement launched by women and the youth, but which different sectors […]
by E.A.S.T. – ESSENTIAL AUTONOMOUS STRUGGLES TRANSNATIONAL On the 22nd of October, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal declared abortion for foetal malformation – one of the few remaining grounds for legal abortion – unconstitutional. By doing so the Tribunal is paving the way for an almost complete ban of abortion in Poland. During the global pandemic, […]
A lecture given by Paul Stubbs to the Open Learning Initiative of the Central European University on the 16th of May looking at the various ways through which social policy as a technical discipline ignores political economy. “The articulation of modes of governmentality that combine heteronormative familialism, repatriarchialization, nationalism, ethnicized demographic renewal and anti‐immigrant sentiments […]
1989, Thirty Years Later Thirty years ago, the end of history was rumored to have begun. Though that thesis now looks quaint to say the least, the events that prodded it have left a deep and lasting impression on much of the world, perhaps most of all on central and eastern Europe, where the “transition” […]