International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

1) The last municipal elections represent a new worsening of the political balance of forces for the left and the labour movement. 150 cities of more than 10,000 inhabitants swung from SP or CP-led to the right or far right.

Though the DLF is not standing in the 2014 elections we cannot and will not be silent. We support the vote No Campaign as articulated by Sidikiwe Vukani. This is a step forward in breaking with support for parties that collaborate with or represent capital and its interests. The Sidikiwe Vukani no Campaign must be placed in context. As we mark 20 years since the end of Apartheid and the advent of democracy, there is a deep rupturing of the post apartheid social consensus in the face of intensifying class struggle. The signal for its end is the Marikana massacre and the great mineworkers’ strike and farm workers’ rebellion of 2012/13, as well as the low intensity service delivery revolts that have spread to all corners of the country. It’s not just the negotiated settlement that is rupturing but the legitimacy and effectiveness of the ANC and the Tripartite Alliance as the political guarantor of the 1994 historic compromise. The Vote no Campaign led by some of the most committed and honest leaders of the ANC and the SACP is further evidence that Zuma’s ANC has become too ghastly to contemplate.

With 15,000 members, two elected Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) in Québec’s provincial parliament, [1] and about 10 percent in the polls, Québec Solidaire (QS) is now a well-established force in a shifting political landscape. A party uniting different currents and sensibilities on the left, it has emerged in the context of a series of mass mobilizations against austerity policies and imperialist wars. It embodies the enormous potential of those movements as well as their limitations and contradictions.

Last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change started the publication of its 5th Assessment Report (or AR5), initially showing the work by the Working Group I, which deals with the physical basis of climate change. Now, the AR5 process continued with the publication of the “Summary for Policy Makers” by the Working Group II, concerning "impacts, adaptation and vulnerability."

This statement was issued by the People’s Liberation Faction and the Revolutionary Left Current in Syria on April 14, 2014.

This contribution was submitted to the February 2014 IC on behalf of the British section.

This contribution was submitted to the February 2014 IC meeting by Dimitris and Monos, the IC members for Greece, on behalf of the Greek section OKDE-Spartakos.

This discussion paper for the IC meeting in February 2014 was submitted by Alan Thornett from Socialist Resistance Britain.