The people of Crimea have voted in overwhelming numbers and by an overwhelming margin to leave Ukraine and to federate with Russia. The majority population in Crimea speaks Russian, identifies with Russia and was formally a part of Russia until the region was...
Why we continue to defend the Soviet Union
The following is a talk given in the Keynote Plenary of the Nov. 13-14, 2010, National Conference on Socialism sponsored by the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The Soviet Union went out of existence 19 years ago next month. Some progressive people argue that given...
Kyrgyzstan: The national question and imperialism
The Central Asian Republic of Kyrgyzstan has become the scene of a bloody conflict. Estimates of the casualties vary widely, with the country’s interim president estimating up to 2,000 deaths. As many as 275,000 people have fled the conflict areas, hoping to make it...
Anniversary of Berlin Wall demise gives workers no reason to cheer
The results of a BBC poll, released Nov. 9 in the midst of the Berlin Wall media circus, found that only 11 percent of people globally believe free market capitalism "works well." The poll helps get to the truth behind the pageantry and propaganda put forward by the...
True and false in Obama’s D-Day speech
"So when the ships landed here at Omaha [Beach], an unimaginable hell rained down on the men inside," President Barack Obama said as he spoke in Normandy on June 6th, the 65th anniversary of "D-Day." This was certainly true. On that day in 1944, U.S., British and...
The role of leadership in revolutionary struggle – Lenin’s April Theses
The article below was first published in Socialism and Liberation in April 2005. The 1917 Russian Revolution was the first time in history that the working class seized and held power, organizing a workers state in the interest of the vast majority of toilers rather...
Russia, Georgia, and independence in the age of imperialism
The U.S. government and media have portrayed the latest conflict between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia and Abkhazia as a resumption of Russia’s Soviet-era "domination" over the smaller, beleaguered country of Georgia. But in fact, on Aug. 8, the Georgian...
Why the U.S. backs Kosovo ‘independence’
While the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and developments in Venezuela, Pakistan and Palestine have dominated the world news, another crisis has been building in southeastern Europe. There, the U.S.-NATO-backed "independence" of Kosovo, a predominantly Albanian...
“Gold Flower:” Socialist revolutions and women’s liberation
In 1949, the story of a young woman named "Gold Flower" became known around the world as an example of the path toward liberation taken by millions of Chinese women. Civil war was raging between the Communists and the bourgeois nationalist Kuomintang forces led by...