The significance of the far-right win in Thuringia
Merilyn Moos discusses the historical significance of results in the regional elections in Germany
The revolutionary theatre of Bertolt Brecht
Australian socialist Tess Lee Ack celebrates the life and work of the revolutionary playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht.
Review | Shows at the Whitworth Gallery Manchester
Colonialism, art, the museum logistics chain. Gareth Dale reviews this month’s shows at the Whitworth.
Climate protest: London stands with Lützerath
A corporate polluter is demolishing a village to expand a coal mine
Lützerath: solidarity with climate activists under attack
Climate activists fight to stop the destruction of a German village and the expansion of German coal.
Mikhail Gorbachev: twin portraits of a failed reformer
Gorbachev was neither a liberal man of peace nor an incompetent who trashed Russia
Germany’s Namibia Genocide Apology: the limits of decolonising the past
What are possible international ramifications of the Namibian-German agreement?
Flooding in Germany is a man-made disaster
Trade unionist and climate organiser Mark Bergfeld discusses the economics and politics of the floods in Germany since mid-July which have killed over 180 people.
Berlin Rent Cap overturned, but housing movement has bigger plans
The Rent Cap in Berlin has been overturned by the Federal Constitutional Court. But the policy was created by centre left politicians to undermine a renter led movement to expropriate the cities’ largest landlords. How did this policy come to be? What did it attempt to do? And what does it’s defeat mean for renters and radical housing struggle in Berlin?
Revolutionary Reflections | New Frankfurt and the Housing Question
1920s Frankfurt, in the wake of the 1918 German Revolution, established integrated housing, healthcare and education that is still impressive today.
Autonomous space in Berlin: Liebig34, eviction, and gentrification
The violent police eviction of Berlin’s iconic Liebig34 space is the latest event in a never-ending battle between the city’s radical-left counterculture, and the forces of state-aided gentrification.
revolutionary reflections | Class struggles in the 1989 revolution
For the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we publish a translation of Volkhard Mosler’s analysis of the class composition of the East German regime and the opposition movement to it.
Review: A Jewish Communist in Weimar Germany
Merilyn Moos reviews a new biography of Werner Scholem, an uncompromising revolutionary to the end.
Review: The Order of the Day
The unfolding catastrophe of the 1930s is illuminated in new ways in a disconcerting new book by Éric Vuillard, writes Brian Parkin.
‘I was, I am, I will be’ – 100 years after the death of Rosa Luxemburg
The deaths of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht have haunted the imagination of the left for a century.
A homosexual Christmas in 1905 Berlin
Colin Wilson presents an account of a “uranian” Christmas, written by a leading campaigner over a hundred years ago.
Fighting for socialism today
Author and socialist, David McNally, reflects on the tasks of socialist organising in dangerous times.
After the Heß demo – why do the Berlin police protect (some) Nazi marches?
Police in Berlin recently enabled a neo-Nazi demonstration to march through the multicultural Friedrichshain district
‘But we will stand upright’ – migrant hunger strike in Athens
Migrants awaiting reunification with their families in accordance with EU law have been on hunger strike in Greece and Germany for several days. Ida-Sofie Picard and Will Searby report from Athens. The hunger strike in Syntagma square has been ongoing for eight days now. In Lesvos migrants have been on hunger strike for 15 days. […]
Islamophobia in Europe: fuel for the far right
As the encroachment of far right parties grows throughout Europe, with the deployment of overtly racist rhetoric creating those who are deemed ‘real’ Europeans and those deemed a threat, Seb Cooke argues an authentic movement against fascism can only come from working class resistance. The far right and fascists of Europe were celebrating on Sunday […]
Ende Gelände – direct action against climate change
“We cannot seriously tackle climate change or provide global social justice without overcoming capitalism, its obsession with growth and its mechanisms of exploitation.”
revolutionary reflections | The KPD and the United Front during the Weimar Republic
This article by Marcel Bois was originally published in a collection of essays in German by Marx21 on the German Communist Party (KPD). It sets out the history of the United Front in Germany from the years 1920 to 1926. The United Front was a tactic developed by the Communist International in the early 1920s and this […]
revolutionary reflections | On ‘The Crisis in German Politics’ – A Response
In December revolutionary reflections published a piece on the crisis in German politics today, which looked at the rise of the Alternativ für Deutschland and the challenges this poses for Die Linke. In this piece Loren Balhorn provides a response based on his experiences within Die Linke and German left politics. I welcome Adam Blanden’s […]
revolutionary reflections | The Crisis in German Politics and the Rise of the Radical Right
2016 has been a year in which right – wing and authoritarian agendas have been in the ascendant. With the French and German elections next year we will see if this trend continues. By focusing on the case of Germany, Adam Blanden puts forward an argument for the left to counter-pose the right with a […]
Review – Sex and the Weimar Republic
Colin Wilson reviews Sex and the Weimar Republic: German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis by Laurie Marhoefer. This book offers a glimpse of a different kind of LGBT politics. Today we’ve made advances, but in the context of neoliberalism. In the Weimar Republic – Germany from 1918 to 1933 – there also existed a […]
Extract: Order reigns in Berlin
On the 97 anniversary of Rosa Luxemburg‘s murder, Jonas Liston introduces an extract from her final article “Order Reigns in Berlin“. In November 1918, a revolt of German sailors and soldiers sparked a mass workers’ revolution that would see the establishment of democratic workers’ councils, the end of World War One and the abdication […]
Sexism is not an imported product
Dozens of women were sexually harassed on New Year’s Eve in Germany. But rather than connecting the events to everyday sexist violence in Germany, the political and media establishments have focused on the nationalities of the alleged perpetrators argue Silke Stöckle and Marion Wegscheider. Originally published in German by marx21, translated into English by Kate Davison. […]
A homosexual Christmas in 1905 Berlin
Colin Wilson rediscovers a forgotten chapter of LGBT history in this account of a “uranian” Christmas, written by a leading campaigner over a hundred years ago. Magnus Hirschfeld was a doctor and a leader of the German LGBT movement from the 1890s to the 1930s.The text translated here is an excerpt from one of his earliest books, […]
Migration FAQ: why now?
Nick Evans answers some common questions around the migration crisis Why now? More people around the world were forcibly displaced in 2014 than ever before in recorded history. Of those 59.5 million people, 19.5 million were classed by the UN as refugees. The overwhelming majority of those refugees were hosted in developing regions, but unprecedented numbers have […]