Statue of Lenin in Nohra, Germany. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. “Ленин жил. Ленин жив. Ленин будет жить.” “Lenin lived. Lenin lives. Lenin will keep on living.” This popular slogan reflected the central role in Soviet ideology of the Soviet Union’s first leader, Vladimir Lenin, who died one hundred years ago
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Canadian Dimension: Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg on the death of Mikhail Gorbachev
An untitled mural by Georg Lutz, painted in 1990, depicts former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev driving though a crack in the Berlin wall. Photo by Ilias Katsouras/Flickr. Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg discuss the significance of the life of Mikhail Gorbachev and what the deconstruction of the Soviet Union means
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Mikhail Gorbachev’s misunderstood legacy
A cartoon showing Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev looking in dismay at a massive stone hammer and sickle, now shattered into many parts. Illustration by Edmund S. Valtman/Library of Congress. There can be few leaders whose reputation at home differs so widely from his reputation abroad as the last leader of
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Despite its flaws, the Forde Report vindicates Jeremy Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn, former Leader of the Labour Party, speaking at the 2018 Local Elections Launch in Trafford, Greater Manchester, March 22, 2018. Photo by Sophie Brown/Wikimedia Commons. Jeremy Corbyn is one of the most admirable politicians to appear in a Western liberal democracy in decades, a man who genuinely differentiated
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: A breakthrough for the French left?
La France Insoumise leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon at the inaugural convention for NUPES. Photo by Hugo Rota. In a world heading toward more wars, economic crisis, climate catastrophe and the resurgence of the far-right, any success for the left is good news. So the results of the second round of elections
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Obstacles and prospects for a united left in France
Jean-Luc Mélenchon in Toulouse, April 16, 2017. Photo by MathieuMD/Wikimedia Commons. On May 29, the united French left presented a program of 650 propositions, offering a glimpse of what left wing governance could mean in contemporary France. Gathered in the Nouvelle union populaire écologique et sociale (“new popular, ecological and
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: UK Labour Party’s leadership race a test of strength for grassroots democratic socialism
UK Labour Party leadership hopeful Rebecca Long-Bailey looks on as Jeremy Corbyn delivers a speech. Still image from YouTube. As neoliberal centrists seek to use the British Labour Party’s disastrous election defeat to push for a return to Blairism, the left faces the task of electing a new leader who
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Big Capital will use every tool at its disposal to crush socialists like Corbyn
UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in in Glasgow, December 2019. Photo from Flickr. The Labour Party’s election failure in the UK proves that, for the progressive left to succeed, it will have to become considerably more revolutionary. The ‘softly, softly’ approach isn’t working. Since, in some sense, the election
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The Vilification of Jeremy Corbyn
UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks at a rally in Birmingham, December 5, 2019 (Flickr). The vilification of the leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, as an antisemite has intensified in the run up to the December 12 election in Britain. What makes this especially troubling, not
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Labour’s manifesto promises to transform Britain. Why are the middle classes so hostile to it?
UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn at the Party of European Socialists (PES) Council, 2016 (Flickr). This general election is unique in ways that transcend Brexit. Over the decades that I have been observing British politics, never before have I witnessed a consensus so widespread and powerful regarding the country’s
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Corbynism and the Labour Party
Photo by Sophie Brown The leadership of the UK Labour Party by Jeremy Corbyn continues to enjoy enormous popularity across the UK. This even despite continual attacks from the corporate press, the Conservative Party, and opposition from within the Parliamentary Labour Party itself. Indeed, under Corbyn’s leadership, the Labour Party
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Participatory Socialist Economics
Photo by Sophie Brown The Vision of British Labour Shadow chancellor John McDonnell can usually barely breathe a word about nationalisation without setting off a media frenzy, so it’s strange that his most interesting comments yet on the subject passed with so little comment. Speaking in February about the Labour
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Momentum is getting ready to help Labour win the next election – and beyond
Photo by New Statesman Disparaged and smeared for almost two years, Momentum came out fighting during the general election campaign, spurred on by a sense of idealism which ended up bringing us close to sweeping Labour into government on the most transformative manifesto for a generation. We’ve already achieved a
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Is France having a Bernie Sanders moment?
Photo by Rémi Noyon In under two weeks, voters will cast their ballots in the first round of France’s presidential election. Until last week, the outcome was thought to be a foregone conclusion: The candidate of the newly formed centre-right En Marche party, Emmanuel Macron, would go on to the
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: SYRIZA’s Two Months in Government: Difficulties and Challenges
Photo by Ben Folley The First Round of Negotiations Almost a month after the agreement of the 20th of February between the new Greek government, the European Institutions and the IMF, we need to know where we stand. “We” in this case is not the government. It is not even
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