Lefteast
(source: WdW Review) In January 2014 the world held its breath and observed the opening of the Winter Olympics in Sochi. The spectacular opening ceremony, “Dreams of Russia,” was not simply a technical triumph but also a marvel of national history building. The depicted historical events acquired connections and a certain mutual continuity, building a […]
“For more than twenty years have the wage workers of this country begged and prayed their masters, the factory lords, to reduce their burdens. It has been in vain.” – this proclamation could easily have come from a 1st of May rally in 2015, as it remains equally relevant today. But it dates back to […]
Ivan Ovsiannikov is a member of the St. Petersburg Interregional Union: “Workers Association” “As far as anti-workers laws are concerned, the main one is the de facto ban on striking in labor law. In practice, it is impossible to conduct strikes because of the bureaucratic procedure involved. Or rather, to strike, one must work outside […]
Note from the LeftEast editors: “Where is the line between us?: cautionary tales from now” was the title of the 3rd Garage international conference which brought to Moscow practitioners and thinkers from the fields of art, history, and sociology to examine the evolving positions toward the East/West axis in a post-socialist world. The speakers revisited […]
Charles Davis talks to Ilya Budraitkis on Salon.Com . Here we present the interview. The whole lengthy material can be accessed on the Salon website. Obviously the biggest story in Russia and here in the United State is the recent assassination of Boris Nemstov. Here in the West, Russia right now is portrayed as sort of a police […]
Note from the LeftEast editors: this interview with political analyst Luke March (University of Edinburgh) was made by Artem Koretsky and Rouslan Kostiouk. It has originally been published by RabKor collective in Russian. RK: In May there will be parliamentary elections in the UK. After the last general elections in 2010, your country has faced an […]
This piece, by Ben Neal, was originally published on the British socialist website, Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century. At least 50,000 people marched in Moscow last Sunday in memory of the slain liberal opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, who was shot dead two days previously on a bridge just steps away from the Kremlin. The […]
Note from editors: The following editorial was published on the Russian leftist website Open Left in response to the murder of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov on Friday 27 February 2015. We demand a transparent investigation and an immediate end to propaganda that incites hatred. It’s difficult to say just yet how the Friday-night murder of […]
Three weeks ago the Left celebrated Syriza’s victory. The plot has thickened since, and it will surely intensify further by the 28th of February when the EU-IMF bailout is due to expire. As the Greek drama unravels, it is those who are most supportive of Syriza that will judge it most critically. Asked by LeftEast’s […]
Note from the LeftEast editors: There was once a time when utopias were a significant cultural form of the left. Nowadays, our political imaginaries have run dry. The societies we can conceive of, even the changes we consider possible to our present state pale in comparison to what the socialists of the early 20th C […]