Leftist Movements

This contribution draws on ethnography conducted in Istanbul to
analyse the Museum of Shame, an amateur exhibition dedicated
to the memory of leftist militants who were victims of state
violence following the 1980–1983 military coup in Turkey. This
museification is the work of a group of ex-revolutionaries and can
be considered a cultural practice that challenges statist
historiography and creates a mnemonic community. By exhibiting
the possessions of murdered militants, it inscribes their personal
experiences into collective frames and fosters intergenerational
transmission. Its temporality reflects the ethos of the revolutionary
fighter, turning mourning into a political statement. However,
though this museum practice allows the community to become
an agent of history, it is unable to encompass the varying
experiences of ex-militants. Its aestheticization of violence and its
moral injunctions limit the extent of social solidarity and advance
essentialisms that contribute to the construction of marginality
from the inside.

The paper investigates one of the most complex cases of visualizing leftist ideology from a critical, but nevertheless definitely leftist point of view within the Eastern Bloc – the case of László Lakner. Whatever way Lakner's art can be related to several neo-avant-garde artistic strategies that ironically appropriate leftist symbols, in Lakner's work, signs and symbols of communist ideology seem to be more than mere appropriated elements of a criticized visual and ideological system. Lakner was consistently looking for a system-critical, but leftist standpoint from the middle of the 1960s until his emigration in 1974. In this paper some examples of Lakner's activity from this period are presented and the paper explores how he evoked documents and central figures of leftist movements, and how he used the iconography of socialist painting in a very peculiar way. The question whether some of his artistic strategies could be related to Marxist philosophy is also considered. The title of the paper refers to a conceptual drawing of the same title by Lakner that can be seen and read as an ambiguous tribute to Karl Marx.

近20年來，有關新加坡和馬來西亞左翼歷史的文獻和創作大量湧現，突破長久以來的噤聲和禁忌，形成一股記憶文化現象。冷戰體制鬆動後，左翼歷史的記憶文化翻攪出被壓抑的聲音，也是對當前全球化社會的反應。本文關注歷史詮釋和情感記憶的交織面貌，通過記憶政治的分析來說明當代創作者如何以不同媒介記憶歷史，反映自我認同。本文聚焦三種記憶左翼歷史的現象：相競記憶、記憶重整和世代記憶，討論新馬兩地的左翼歷史如何成為「記憶之場」。第一部分探討新加坡左翼歷史敘事成為國家記憶戰場的背景，其中記憶左翼歷史是解構黨國史的必要途徑。第二部分說明後革命時代的前馬共戰士通過記憶的重整，將馬共鬥爭和當下華人公民抗爭結合起來，以延續革命並尋求歷史認可。第三部分分析世代記憶的傳輸，討論新世代青年創作者如何記憶歷史；這當中懷舊想像和族群焦慮形塑了記憶的呈現。這三種「記憶文本」在反思和批判冷戰思維的同時，也揭示了歷史過去的核心問題仍不斷形塑著當下的記憶之場。
The past two decades saw the emergence of publication of historical materials and production of creative works about the leftist history in Singapore and Malaysia. This new culture of remembering manifests a breakthrough in the long-standing silence and taboo, and it is also a response to the current state of the society in the post-Cold War era. This essay focuses on the intertwined aspects of historical interpretation and affective memory. It examines the politics of memory by which contemporary cultural producers remember history through different mediums, and, to a certain extent, reflect their self-recognition. This essay analyses three different aspects of the remembrance of leftist history: memory contestations, memory reorganization and generational memories. It discusses the ways in which leftist history in Singapore and Malaysia has become a “site of memory.” The first section explores the Singapore context in which leftist history has been a site of battlefield in articulating national memories and deconstructing the party-state history of Singapore. Secondly, the essay illustrates the ways former Malayan communist party members reorganize their memories in contemporary times by connecting the communist struggles with the minority rights struggles in the Chinese community in Malaysia. It argues that this is the comrades’ approach to continue their struggles and to seek for historical recognition, though it is not without problems. The third section analyses the transmission of generational memories, exploring the ways young documentary filmmakers remember leftist history. It shows how nostalgic imagination and ethnic anxiety help formulate the representation of these memories. All of these “memory texts” reflect upon and critique on the Cold war mentality, while at the same time reveal the fact that some core problems in the historical past still very much resonates in the site of memory today.

James Joyce is widely known for his radically experimental sense of style. What makes his works so difficult and complicated is rooted in the fact that he is one of the most prominent figures of literary modernism. Marking his transition from realist to modernist literature, it was his first novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) where he started to challenge traditional norms of writing in both form and content. Moreover, among Joyce’s works, it was the first unabridged translation and the first novel translation into Turkish. Therefore, the discussion around Joyce’s introduction to the Turkish culture repertoire as a modernist writer was held around this particular work. This interdisciplinary research pursued a sociocultural approach to translation within the historical context by combining Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and Itamar Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory. Firstly, genesis of the habituses of human agents were reviewed as the first Turkish translation of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was initiated by the owner of De Yayınevi and Yeni Dergi, Memet Fuat, and done by Murat Belge in 1966, exactly fifty years after its publication. Secondly, the position of the literary field within the field of power was scrutinized. Accordingly, in the 1960s, there was a relatively free atmosphere in Turkey due to the new constitution and the rights and freedoms it provided. It was found out that the rise of the left during that period paved the way for the establishment of De Yayınevi and Yeni Dergi and then the radicalization of the left led to the closure of them. Thirdly, the structure of literary field itself was examined to demonstrate the general dynamics and tendencies and to contextualise De Yayınevi and Yeni Dergi in a wider frame. When the publishing activities and policies of them were scrutinized in the light of paratextual and extratextual materials, it was revealed that Memet Fuat put a specific emphasis on modernist works, whether indigenous or translated. Thus, they both addressed a special kind of audience with their mostly translated modernist content of which Joyce’s work was a part and operated with an intellectual mission rather than commercial motives. In this respect, Memet Fuat engaged in deliberate culture planning activities with a specific agenda that aspired to keep up the Turkish reader with the modern contemporary world. Finally, despite criticism and ostracism he received, by actively promoting modernist literature in a time when social realist literature dominated the literary field and offering new options to the Turkish culture repertoire by mainly publishing translated works in the 1960s, Memet Fuat emerged as a controversial agent of change.

12 Eylül 1980 Askeri Darbesi siyasi suçluyu kapatma pratiklerinde dönüm noktasına işaret etmektedir. Bu süreçte, askerileşen cezaevleri siyasi mahkumlara emsaline rastlanmamış, basit işkencelerden öte kompleks tredmanların uygulandığı bir baskı aygıtı halini almıştır. 1981 yılında açılan Metris Cezaevi, bu tredmanların en aktif şekilde uygulandığı cezaevlerinden biridir. 15 günde bir 3 numara saç traşı, sabah 6’da uyanıp akşam 22’de yatma zorunluluğu, er dahil bütün askeri personele “komutanım” şeklinde seslenilmesi, sayımların içtima şeklinde alınması vb. uygulamalar görülmüş olup, bunların yanı sıra, kadın mahkumların erlere aratılması ya da aramaların erlere seyrettirilmesi, dayak, falaka, askı, mazgal ve kapı altlarından mahkumlara pornografik fotoğrafların atılması, soğukta bekletme, koğuşlara basınçlı su sıkma, ışıkları yakıp söndürme suretiyle psikolojik işkencenin yanı sıra mahkeme belgeleri ve savunma notlarını kaybetme, dilekçeleri mahkemeye göndermeme, kitap yasağı, mektup, telgraf haklarını kısıtlama ile avukat ve ziyaretçi görüşünü yasaklama gibi “idari tecrit” tabir edilen uygulamalarda bulunulmuştur. Siyasi suçluların askeri mahkemelerde gayri nizami yargılamalarını takip eden tutukluluk dönemlerinde cezaevleri artık bir direniş mekanı olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. 1980 Askeri Darbesi’ni takip eden dönem sadece cezaevleri için değil, siyasi mahkumlar için de bir dönüm noktasını teşkil etmiştir. Bu evrede, siyasi mahkumlar örgütlülüklerini muhafaza edebilmişler, böylece baskıcı cezaevi politikalarına karşı direniş gösterebilmişlerdir.
Metris Cezaevi mahkumlarının direnişleri amaca göre farklılık göstermiştir. Cezaevi operasyonunun yaklaştığının hissedildiği dönemlerde barikat kurma gibi daha şedit direnişler sergilenirken, idari tecride karşı ölüm oruçları, bu dönemdeki başka bir direniş şekli olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Ölüm orucu, mahkumiyet esnasında bedeniyle siyaset yapmaktan başka seçeneği kalmamış homo sacer’in elinde kalan son şeyle siyasi katılım gösterme şekli olarak karşımıza çıkmıştır. Özellikle tek tip elbise uygulaması, mahkumların kimliksizleştirme politikasına karşı siyasal özne olma niteliklerini koruma bağlamında katlanılamaz bir dayatma olmuş, tek tip elbiseye karşı başlatılan 1984 ölüm oruçlarında dört mahkum hayatını kaybetmiştir. Direnişlerin sonuç verip kazanımların sağlanması halinde cezaevi şartlarının iyileşmesi ve eylemin kazanım sağlanamadan sönümlenmesi halinde şartların eskinden kötüye gitmesi, direnişin rasyonel bir siyasi katılım olarak görülmesine yol açmıştır. Ayrıca bu yıllarda, cezaevleri direnişlerinde hayatlarını kaybeden mahkumlar, Türkiye solunun tarih yazımında feda anlatılarına konu olarak gelecekteki solcuların siyasallaşmasında rol oynamışlardır.

Lebanese state institutions have shown increasing signs of fragility and unreliability in recent years. Considering that prominent political elites have been in office for decades, it is fair to hold them responsible for the state’s failures and poor governance, and one would imagine that Lebanese people would want to hold them accountable. Nonetheless, despite their poor performance, Lebanese citizens continue to re-elect these same parties and leaders. This thesis seeks to examine why is that so, and why political activists and progressive opposition groups who try to challenge the situation have been failing to undermine elite control over state power in the postwar period. By combining findings from past scholarship on sectarian dynamics with interviews with Lebanese activists, I argue that dominant patterns in voting behavior are a result of complementary and self-enforcing institutional and repressive mechanisms that thwart the emergence of alternative political forces. The institutional structures of the sectarian system are first explored to underscore the social and political realities characterizing citizens’ relationship with the state. The lived experiences of secular and cross-sectarian alternatives to the political and ideological rule of traditional elites are then highlighted and include insights from the electoral campaigns of Beirut Madinati (2016) and Kulluna Watani (2018). This thesis concludes with a discussion on the future of progressive anti-sectarian resistance in the country.

Loadenthal, Michael. “Leftist Political Violence: From Terrorism to Social Protest.” In Terrorism in America, edited by Kevin Borgeson and Robin Valeri, 36–74. New York, NY: Routledge, 2018.
---------------------
• Terrorism is a difficult to define label, and its application controlled by state authorities (e.g. Executive, courts, legislature, police, military). It is typically used to denote forms of political contestation that challenge the government in symbolic, rhetoric, and practical terms. Because of this patterned application, terrorism fails to adequately describe acts, and instead is a means of defaming a particular tactic, strategy, organization, ideology or individual.

• The labeling of leftist violence and rightist violence is done irregularly with leftists frequently labeled and prosecuted as terrorists and rightists typically described and framed through other discourses such as extremism.

• The first wave of global terrorism is often associated with the rise of individual anarchists targeting heads of state in the 19th century, and while this era saw kings and presidents slain by leftists, it promotion of propaganda of the deed declined by World War II.

• The 1960s saw a landmark rise in networks and organizations of Marxist-Leninist and other leftists adopting violent means (e.g. bombing, armed robbery)—frequently labeled as terrorism—in their opposition to the War in Vietnam, national liberation (e.g. Puerto Rico), and the larger socio-political environment framed as US-led imperialism.

• In the 1980s, when the Marxist-Leninist vanguards declined, they was replaced by a rising tide of clandestine animal liberation networks, and by the 1990s, the addition of environmental campaigns of sabotage, vandalism and arson—labeled by the government as “eco-terrorism.” Though these networks did not employ lethal means, due to the frequency of their attacks and their large financial cost, they were quickly cast as domestic terrorists and a premier target for further criminalization through the rhetoric of terrorism.

• Around the millennium, the left engaged in a series of large-scale counter-summit street protests. Following the attacks of 9/11, these leftist tactics were further criminalized through a rhetorical association with terrorism, and thus a movement on the rise was quickly curtailed.

• Following the discursive shift equating civil disobedience and disruptive protestors as “terrorists” occurring after 9/11, in the early months of 2017, legislative and policing practices have demonstrated a renewed desire to recast demonstrators as an existential danger to the state and national security—this time by framing “demonstrators” as “rioters” if property destruction occurs within the demonstration.

Akbayan Citizen’s Action Party’s participation in the Aquino administration is fueling continuing tensions not only between and among its leaders and members but also between the party and its allied social movements. What does this reveal about the nature and dynamics of leftist group participation in Philippine politics? This study is a reappraisal of the contested democracy framework, nuancing it with the Goldstone-Desai framework on social movement consolidation. By reviewing Akbayan’s official party documents and archival studies of Philippine social movements, as well as interviewing key informants and engaging in participant observation, I recount how Akbayan’s alliance with the Liberal Party (LP), leading to its role as coalition partner of the administration of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, exhibits the limitations of formalizing coalition networks into a uniform political party. The leadership of the party, in their pursuit of electoral victory and bureaucratic appointments, appears to deviate from the aforementioned intent of their allied social movements to address the sociopolitical issues they carry. The anti-administration stance of Akbayan’s labor ally, the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL), the less-optimistic views of the rural-poor organization Kilusang para sa Repormang Pansakahan at Katarungang Panlipunan (KATARUNGAN, Movement for Agrarian Reform and Social Justice), and the boltingout from Akbayan of their rural sector ally, the Pambansang Kilusan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka (PAKISAMA, National Confederation of Small Farmers’ and Fishers’ Organizations) are highly illustrative examples. The party leadership, their allied movements, and their members vary in the priority they give to government-based tactics to address such issues. This, in turn, explains the dissonances and tensions between the network of Akbayan, and why other leftist parties continue to pose real challenges to their efforts. These tensions could explain why, despite their constant presence in national politics, Akbayan’s capacity to effect change remains challenged in the context of a dynamically evolving status quo of patronage politics in the country to date.

Turkey has experienced a heterogeneous collection of social movements and protests. While scholars have given substantial attention to coups in this context, it remains unclear if the Turkish Armed Forces have ever defected in favor of civilian mobilization during periods of political instability. In large-N databases on defection, cases in Turkey are either disproportionately skewed towards coups or are fully absent of observations on defection during resistance campaigns. In this study, we analyze cases spanning 1959-2017 to trace patterns of defection. Through triangulating qualitative evidence from memoirs of former military officers, media reports, and interviews carried out with multi-generational political actors, our analysis reveals that three instances of defection occurred in times of mass mobilization, two of which were vertical and one horizontal. Alongside three other instances of defection that occurred during coup attempts, these results illustrate the highly dynamic nature of defection in the Turkish context and the general interrelated processes of mobilization, defection, and coups.

Tikri held up pictures of political prisoners who were in the jails of India. Today [Dec 10 2021], despite their victory over the Modi government, farmers are still occupying the protest site and demanding the release of political prisoners. Their powerful action demonstrates that the farmers are making connections between various struggles.

Les quatre textes suivants tentent de répondre aux hypothèses avancées par Emilio Quadrelli dans
un article publié par la revue britannique Mute. On peut le trouver en anglais sur Internet:
http: //www.metamute.org/en/Grassroots-political-militants-Banlieusards-and-politics
Intitulé «Les banlieusards, les militants de base et la politique», ce texte de Quadrelli se fonde sur
plusieurs interviews de «guérilleras noires (1)» suite aux émeutes de novembre 2005, interviews
publiées dans le journal Il Manifesto, en Italie. Les questions discutées dans cet article sont
complexes et devraient être maniées avec prudence et méthode. La passion et la haine nourrissent
la lutte de classe, ce qui n’a rien d’étonnant vu que le capitalisme est un système social sans pitié qui
doit être détruit par la violence. Mais si l’on souhaite présenter une analyse politique globale, on
doit dépasser sa révulsion et sa haine pour ce système et étudier sérieusement comment il
fonctionne et comment il pourrait être, éventuellement, abattu.
Il nous a semblé utile de critiquer les idées que défend cet anthropologue radical et surtout les
mythes qu’il propage à travers ses interviews, car ils sont dangereux pour ceux qui les prendraient au
sérieux.
«Emeutes et contes de fées pour radicaux» s’attache aux erreurs, aux exagérations, aux
déformations contenues dans l’article de Quadrelli comme dans les propos des personnes
interviewées dont les noms sont indiqués par des initiales (MT, MB, etc). Une bonne partie de ces
erreurs auraient pu être évitées si notre anthropologue radical avait consulté d’autres sources pour
mettre en perspective les analyses de ses interlocuteurs, ou s’il n’avait pas seulement cherché à
confirmer ses propres rêves ou fantasmes. Mais après tout, il n’est pas le seul à refuser de faire
«l’analyse concrète d’une situation concrète».
Dans son article, Quadrelli règle ses comptes avec certains intellos féministes, altermondialistes,
proches de Toni Negri ou de la gauche caviar, qu’il ne cite même pas nommément. Quadrelli aurait
été mieux inspiré, et son travail plus utile, s’il s’était intéressé à tous ces spécialistes des sciences
sociales, qu’ils se prétendent neutres ou objectifs, altermondialistes, proches du PS ou du PCF, qui
ont mené une véritable «émeute de papier» (l’expression est de l’un d’eux, Gérard Mauger, qui
connaît bien ce milieu puisque c’est le sien), qui ont multiplié les colloques, les livres collectifs et les
articles et qui ont surtout proposé leurs services et leurs bons conseils à l’Etat pour une «police de
proximité», une «meilleure» justice, une politique urbaine plus «sociale» et plus de «diversité» dans
les élites politico-médiatiques.
Notons enfin que la révérence de Quadrelli vis-à-vis de la «lucidité» de Michel Foucault, référence
actuelle de nombreux militants libertaires ou anti-autoritaires, est plutôt amusante. En effet,
Foucault a successivement eu des illusions sur le parti stalinien français (PCF), les maospontanéistes
(2) des années 70, la révolution islamique de Khomeiny, la CFDT (tout comme, pour
ce qui concerne ce syndicat, Cornelius Castoriadis). Foucault pensait que le Parti socialiste ne se
montrait pas suffisamment radical à cause de son alliance avec le PCF (ce qui souligne l’étendue de
ses illusions sur la social-démocratie) et il déclara qu’il aurait donné des conseils au gouvernement
socialiste si ce dernier lui avait demandé son opinion sur des questions comme les prisons ! Ce qui
est plutôt comique lorsque l’on sait que Foucault passe aujourd’hui pour LE penseur antiautoritaire.
Si sa participation courageuse à la lutte contre le système pénitentiaire français dans le
cadre du GIP (Groupe d’information sur les prisons) doit être saluée, et si certaines de ses analyses
peuvent être utiles pour comprendre quelques aspects des institutions étatiques modernes (asiles,
prisons, Ecole), on peut se permettre d’éprouver quelques doutes sur sa «lucidité» politique.
«Forces de répression et guérilla urbaine» s’attache à décrire sommairement les forces de
police en France, parce qu’un «guérillero urbain doit avoir une grande capacité d’observation. Il doit
être bien informé sur tout, en particulier sur les mouvements de l’ennemi (3)» a écrit un Brésilien
«blanc» qui pratiqua la lutte armée sur le terrain, et pas dans le monde virtuel.
«Quelques hypothèses sur la lutte armée et la guérilla» esquisse de façon très sommaire et
schématique quelques pistes pour un bilan des différentes formes de lutte armée dans l’ex-monde
colonial et les métropoles impérialistes.
«La racialisation des questions sociales mène à une impasse» tente de répondre à l’usage
(hypocrite ou délibéré) de pseudo-concepts liés aux vieilles notions imaginaires des «races» dans le
discours politique de la gauche et de l’extrême gauche.
Malgré la virulence des critiques ici formulées, il est évident que l’essentiel du travail reste à faire,
tant sur le plan pratique que théorique. Mais il serait catastrophique que les jeunes révolutionnaires
d’aujourd’hui répètent les mêmes erreurs que celles commises dans les années 60 et 70 – comme
semblent le souhaiter Quadrelli et ses «guérilleras noires».
Y.C.

This study identifies the way in which Brazil was able to achieve significant economic and social development during the Presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva from 2003 to 2010. The element which makes the achievement of this development extremely interesting is the fact that it was engineered by a traditionally radical Leftist party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT – Workers’ Party) within the context of the globalized world economy. Throughout much of its existence, the PT has called for a radical socialist transformation of Brazilian society. However, once it came to power, it not only rejected radical positions, but acquiesced fully with the constraints placed upon it by global capital. Thus, in addition to describing the process of development in Brazil, this study also attempts to account for the way in which it was achieved. This is done by postulating that the Lula (as he is commonly referred to) administration was successful in solidifying Brazilian economic fundamentals, as well as in significantly reducing poverty and inequality in one of the most unequal societies in the world, because it adopted Third Way economic and social policies. It is argued that, even though there were few clear indications from the government that it regarded itself as following the Third Way, a practical examination of Lula’s economic and social policies indicate that they overwhelmingly conform to the prescripts of the Third Way.

Türk-Yunan Nüfus Mübadelesi ile Balkanlardan Türkiye’ye gelen Roman tütün işçileri hem Balkan coğrafyasının tütün üretim birimlerinde şekillenen politik kültürün Türkiye’ye taşınması hem de Türkiye’de yoksullarla buluşan bir sol siyaset geleneğinin şekillenmesi noktasında önemli bir rol oynamışlardır. Bu makale günümüzde büyük ölçüde unutulmuş durumdaki bu insan grubunun Türkiye siyasal yaşamına katkılarını sosyolojik ve tarihsel boyutları ile tartışmayı hedeflemektedir.

The Roma tobacco workers who came Turkey with Turkish-Greece Population Exchange made a significant contribution to the transferring of the political culture emerged in the tobacco production areas of the Balkans to Turkey and shaping of the tradition of the leftist politics which can touch the poor in Turkey. This article aim to discuss the contributions of this people, who are mostly forgotten today, to the politics of Turkey with the sociological and historical dimensions of the issue.

This is the transcript of a panel discussion held on November 5, 2009 at the University of Chicago's International House to mark the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. I was joined on the panel by Maziar Behrooz, Associate Professor of History at San Francisco State University and the author of Rebels with a Cause: The Failure of the Left in Iran; Kaveh Ehsani, (now) an assistant professor of International Studies at DePaul University and a contributing editor of the Middle East Report (MERIP); and Chris Cutrone of the Platypus Affiliated Society, which organized the forum.

The Earth Liberation Front is a radical environmental movement that developed from the ideological factionalization of the British Earth First! movement of the 1990s. Its ideological underpinnings are based in deep ecology, anti-authoritarian leftism highlighting its critique of capitalism, a commitment to non-violence, a collective defense of the Earth, and a warranted feeling of persecution by State forces. In its current form, the Earth Liberation Front is a transnational, decentralized network of clandestine, autonomous, cells that utilize illegal methods of protest by sabotaging and vandalizing property. The small unit cells are self-contained entities that can operate without the support of external entities such as financiers or weapons procurers. Tactical and operational knowledge is developed and shared through commercially available books written by the broader environmental movement throughout the last four decades, as well as inter-movement publications produced by the cells and distributed through numerous sympathetic websites. Membership in the Front can be understood as occurring on two levels, the covert cell level and the public support level, both of which operate in tandem to produce and publicize acts of property destruction. At the cell level, individuals conduct pre-operational reconnaissance and surveillance, develop and construct weapons systems, carry out orchestrated attacks, and announce their actions to support groups and media while maintaining internal security and anonymity. At the aboveground level, support entities help to publicize attacks carried out by cells, respond to media inquiries and other public engagements, identify and coordinate aid to imprisoned cell members, and develop and distribute sympathetic propaganda produced by, and in support of affiliated individuals. This case study uses the history of the Earth Liberation Front‟s United States attacks as its unit of analysis, and seeks to outline the ideology, structure, context and membership factors that constitute the movement.

This is a final draft. Please cite only the published  in Gregory R. Smulewicz-Zucker and Michael J. Thompson, Radical Intellectuals and the Subversion of Progressive Politics: The Betrayal of Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 211-236.

Pragmatische Wende in der neuen russischen Kunst Russische Aktionskünstler wie Pavel Pavlenskij oder die Gruppe Pussy Riot haben mit ihren spektakulären Aktionen international Aufmerksamkeit erregt. Dieser "heroische" Protest wurde jedoch-nicht zuletzt aufgrund seines Scheiterns-bereits seit Mitte der 2010er Jahre von einer neuen Form des Widerstands gegen das autoritäre Regime abgelöst. Gruppen wie Partizaning und ZIP setzen nicht mehr auf Konfrontation mit der Staatsmacht, sondern auf Transformation der Gesellschaft-mit den Mit-teln partizipativer Kunst. Es geht ihnen etwa um eine neue Deutung und humane Gestaltung des Stadtraums. Viele Projekte greifen ästhetisch und politisch die sowjetische Kunst aus den frühen 1920er Jahre auf, fügen sich aber auch in die engagierten Performances der globalen Do-It-Yourself-Bewegung und der westlichen minimalistischen Kunst der 1960er Jahre sowie in den globalen Trend zur "relationalen Ästhetik". Die Unifizierung der politischen Ordnung und öffentlichen Meinung in Russland hat in den letzten zwei Jahrzehnten zu einer (Re-)Politisierung von Kunst und Literatur geführt. Im Jahr 2019 kann man bereits auf eine längere Entwicklung alternativer Kultur in der "Putin-Ära" zurückblicken und einen Vergleich zwischen der heutigen regimekritischen Kunst und dem spätsowjetischen Underground wagen. 1 Seit den 2000er Jahren stellen sich bedeutende Künstler mit ihrem politischen und ästhetischen Programm wieder der Staatsmacht entgegen. Sie tun dies mit performativen Analysen, dezidierter Nichtbeteili-gung oder provokativen Anti-Verfahren. Aufgrund der oft restriktiven, zentral gesteuer-ten (Kultur-)Politik sehen sie sich wie schon zu sowjetischen Zeiten in der Rolle intellek-tueller déconstructeurs des Staates und des-heute allerdings wesentlich heterogeneren-Mainstreams. In einer Situation, in der politische Kritik nur bedingt möglich ist oder keine breitere Wirkung entfalten kann, übernehmen ästhetische Aktivitäten-wie schon so oft in der Geschichte Russlands-die Rolle einer alternativen Öffentlichkeit. Auch wenn diese Öffentlichkeit in Russland meistens marginal bleibt, unterwandert die enga-gierte Kunst dominante Deutungsmuster und konterkariert die vom Regime geförderten Tendenzen zur politischen und kulturellen Isolation.-

The Hong Kong 2019 riots redefined the domestic threats posed by the Black Bloc militants paralysing authorities for larger parts of 2019. Are foreign conspiracies at work, left wing extremists or democratic forces misunderstood. The paper examines the complexities of Gene Sharps theoretical work on collapsing the state order and lessons drawn.

В данной статье выделяются и характеризуются основные цели, этапы и динамика секретного сотрудничества между антихортистской венгерской левой оппозицией (преимущественно социал-демократами и т.н. «октябристами») и чехословацкими властями. Хронологически работа ограничивается периодом т.н. «консолидации» в Венгрии осуществленной под руководством премьер-министра И. Бетлена (1921–1931 гг.). Статья основаны на анализе новейшей венгерской, чешской и словацкой историографии, а также изучении архивных фондов в Праге и Будапеште. Статья заключает, что несмотря на авторитарные черты политической системы в Венгрии в 1920-х гг. левая оппозиция, разделенная на эмигрантское и «домашнее» крыло, неоднократно активизировала свою борьбу против режима Хорти-Бетлена. Эта деятельность последовательно подпитывалась поддержкой со стороны чехословацкой дипломатии. Наиболее тесное сотрудничество между антихортистскими группами и Чехословакией развилось в 1919–1921 гг. и в 1930–1932 гг. на фоне кризисов послевоенных лет и Великой депрессии. После 1921 г. влияние демократических сил на политические процессы в Венгрии значительно уменьшилось и после ликвидации левой эмиграции в конце 1920-х гг. венгерский антихортистский фронт сузился до оппозиционных фракций парламента в Будапеште. Выводы данной статьи позволяют переоценить причины конфликтов в официальных межвоенных венгеро-чехословацких отношениях.

This paper aims to define the main objectives, periods and dynamics of the secret relations that the democratic Hungarian opposition held with the government of Czechoslovakia. The paper focuses on the Prague contacts of Magyar Octobrists and social democrats, hostile to the authoritarian regime of Miklós Horthy (1919–44) and active both within the country and in exile. Covering the period of the so-called consolidation of the Horthy’s regime under Prime Minister István Bethlen (1921–31), the paper argues that the anti-Horthyist movement was consistently encouraged by Czechoslovak political and diplomatic circles. The influence of democratic forces on Hungarian politics was strongest in the early interwar years, but it greatly diminished throughout the 1920s. Mobilizing yet unknown documents from the archives in Prague and Budapest, the paper concludes that the collaboration between leftist groups and Prague was particularly intense during the political turmoil in 1919–21, and the Great Depression. The paper aspires to re-evaluate the causes of interwar tensions between Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

А.О. Пеганов. Связи венгерской демократической оппозиции с Прагой (1919 – 1931 годы) // Новая и Новейшая история 1 (2018): 26–42.

The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) has carried out acts of political violence and ‘economic sabotage’ characterized  by a pattern of behaviour reflecting tactical and targeting selections, communications strategies, and geographic  location. The movement’s attacks typically focus on the destruction of property located in ‘soft targets’ associated  with commercial and residential construction, the automotive industry, and a variety of local, national and  multinational business interests. These sites are routinely targeted through a variety of means ranging from  graffiti to sabotage to arson. Geographically, the movement has focused its attacks in the United States and  Mexico, and, to a limited extent, countries on the European, South American and Australian continents. The  findings presented in this article were developed through a statistical analysis of the movement’s attack history  as presented through its above-ground support network. This is discussed in critical contrast to assertions about  the movement’s alleged terrorist behaviour found in most academic and government literature. This study seeks  to present an incident-based historical analysis of the ELF that is not situated within a logic of securitisation. In  doing so, it challenges traditional scholarship based on statistical findings.

The following interview is an email exchange with the author, which was conducted as a follow up to the School for Politics and Critique 2019: Municipal Organizing and Left-wing Environmental Solutions. The questions were prepared by Katerina Kolozova and Zdravko Saveski.

Taylor, Blair. “Refusing the False Choice Between Individual and Collective Liberation: Interview with Blair Taylor.” Interviewed by Katerina Kolozova and Zdravko Saveski. Identities: Journal for Politics, Gender and Culture, Vol. 16, No. 1-2 (Summer - Winter 2019): 32-37.

Dans cet entretien accordé en mars 2017, Wendy Brown discute de sa critique du néolibéralisme à la lumière du phénomène populiste récent, et des enjeux de la reconquête des possibles démocratiques, lesquels exigent une conception non totalisante de la subjectivité. Propos recueillis et traduits de l’anglais par Jean François Bissonnette.

Conjunctural analysis is useful in many fields but has special theoretical and practical significance for critical political economy and left strategy. For the pursuit of politics as " the art of the possible " depends heavily on correct conjunctural analysis and is practised by most successful political forces. Its central role for left politics is seen in the analyses of Hall, among many others. For Lenin, the central focus of political analysis and action is the concrete analysis of a concrete situation (1920: 165) oriented to the correlation of forces. And, for Althusser, the key concept of a Marxist science of politics is the conjuncture: " the exact balance of forces, state of overdetermination of the contradictions at any given moment to which political tactics must be applied " (1970: 311). A sound conjunctural analysis depends on: (a) an appropriate set of concepts for moving from basic structural features to immediate strategic concerns; (b) the spatio-temporal horizons of action that define the conjuncture; (c) a clear account of medium-and long-term goals that should guide strategy and tactics in the current moment; and (d) ethico-political commitments that set limits to acceptable action in particular contexts on the grounds that the ends do not always justify any means. Moreover, because one's strategy depends on the likely responses of other key social forces, one must map their conjunctural analyses too. There is scope for infinite reciprocal regress here but it is lower in periods of relative stability that promote stable expectations or, conversely, in the face of urgent crises calling for immediate action. Multi-faceted crises that build over time with sudden, acute phases are more disorienting and place the heaviest demands on conjunctural analysis.

[Índice, Introducción y capítulo "Negociar lo local. La 'marea rosa' en América Latina o ¿qué queda de la izquierda?"]
Hablar de crisis en el campo del latinoamericanismo resulta ya un lugar común, casi vacío de significado. Sin embargo, la alusión al cambio social como elemento fundamental para pensar la cultura a que se alude en el título de este libro apela justamente al sentido de modificación profunda que atraviesa la noción de crisis, y también a la incertidumbre que acompaña la transición que se observa entre el mundo moderno y el que responde a los determinantes del capitalismo tardío. Este libro se refiere a las coexistencias y simultaneidades de ambos registros, que se combinan en la experiencia social latinoamericana y en los productos culturales que, con diversas mediaciones simbólicas, dan cuenta de los conflictos del presente.

In this polemic, I discuss the different trajectories that social justice thinking and practice regarding 'intersectionality' has taken since the 1990s, and criticize their problematic aspects. I am primarily concerned here with the genesis and development of 'privilege theory,' a hermetically circular amateur sociology that does not seek to challenge or remedy the material bases of the relations it describes. It is also fundamentally paradoxical, and fatally so, in that it postulates these relations as 'social constructs' whilst relying on and creating new and even more static essentialisms.' I also criticize the neo-segregationist impulses behind contemporary activist debates on 'cultural appropriation.'

Az elmúlt több mint két évtizedben, a 2001. szeptember 11-i terrortámadások óta eltelt időszakban számos tanulmány jelent meg a terrorizmus témakörében, a kiváltó okokról, szervezeti felépítésükről, a terrorszervezetek működéséről, jelen írás azonban három hasonló körülmények között operáló szervezet megszületését, tevékenységét, valamint célkitűzéseik elérését, az érdekérvényesítési képességük közti egyezőségeket és különbségeket kívánja bemutatni Latin-Amerikában.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 many studies have been published with the subject of Terrorism, about its reasons, its structures or how terrorist organisations operate. This article however, is about to analyse three such organisations from Latin America with very similar backgrounds in order to compare their births, their aims and operations as well as their abilities to achieve their goals.

Abstract
Since the time of independence, the military has permeated politics by
controlling the most important positions of the respective Latin American
governments, such influences, have provoked a series of direct
influences on the political, economic, cultural and social conception
of the states. Directing the mythical-political referents accepted or
formal, with a tendency to the right or conservatism-religious to the
detriment of others, generating socio-political reactions against from
a reactionary left or raised in arms. But these responses from the left
have provoked political or military dictatorial responses. The methodology
used for this analysis is based on the historical-critical construction,
the critical discourse analysis and the normative and political
hermeneutics, which will allow us to show the influence of the military
within the countries, as well as, the political interference Exterior.


Resumen
Desde la época de la Independencia, los militares han permeado la
política controlando los puestos más importantes de los respectivos
gobiernos latinoamericanos; dichas influencias han provocado una
serie de dominios directos en la concepción política, económica, cultural
y social de los Estados, dirigiendo los referentes mítico-políticos
—aceptados o formales—, con tendencia a la derecha o conservadurismo-
religioso en desmedro de otros, generando reacciones sociopolíticas
en contra de una izquierda reaccionaria o alzada en armas. Las
respuestas de la izquierda han provocado reacciones de tipo dictatorial
político o militar. La metodología usada para el presente análisis
se funda en la construcción histórico-crítica, el análisis crítico del
discurso y la hermenéutica normativa y política, que nos permitirán
evidenciar la influencia de los militares al interior de los países, así
como las injerencias de la política exterior.

Aim of this work is trying to show, from a mainly theoretical standpoint but with constant references to Italian concrete cases, how neoliberalism, even though usually described as a State withdrawal from many issues left to individuals' freedom, would actually represent an increase in forms of State intervention and control. The paper aims to analyze what forms this control may take, starting from current economic crisis, finding they are attributable to two scenarios: an explicit centralizing form, analyzed through the analytical tools of " state of exception " literature (Schmitt, Agamben); an implicit technical form, studied referring to the literature on " government through numbers " (Porter, Power, Miller, Es-peland, Desrosier). The paper also tries to show, once again through concrete examples, and by comparison with Polanyi's analysis of resistance to '900 classical liberalism, how behind the two neoliberal power there would be the same strength to impose to consciences, and most of all what would be the consequences of this for the possibility for social movements to try to deconstruct neoliberalism's discourse, and to challenge it by collective action.

Professor Sheila Bhalla, Professor Emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), who had a lifelong and multifaceted engagement with Punjab, passed away on 5th September 2021. She was an internationally renowned agricultural economist with special expertise in Haryana agriculture, and a scholar with deep engagement with progressive and democratic movements in India. She and her husband, Professor G. S. Bhalla, were my teachers at the Department of Economics, Panjab University, Chandigarh (PU), and they were the kind of teachers with whom you keep lifelong contact. Professor Bhalla passed away in 2013.
Sheila, as she was affectionately known, was Canadian by background. She met Gurdarshan (G. S. Bhalla) when both were carrying out postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics. Both were attracted to the socialist vision of reorganising economies and societies; in Sheila’s case, she was influenced by her father J. C. W. Scott, a Canadian physicist and radar specialist who was also a committed communist. This shared intellectual and political vision led to Gurdarshan and Sheila getting married and deciding to move to India.