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Loren Balhorn is a contributing editor at Jacobin and coeditor, together with Bhaskar Sunkara, of Jacobin: Die Anthologie (Suhrkamp, 2018).
Ten years since its creation, the Alternative für Deutschland has established itself as a constant presence in Germany’s parliament. Now, it’s challenging the Christian Democrats — and seeking to tear down the historic barriers to the far right.
The war in Ukraine has renewed talk of Germany’s role in leading Europe — but also increased its economic and even foreign policy reliance on Washington. As bloc tensions rise, talk of an independent European superpower sounds like empty boasting.
Hans-Christian Ströbele, one of Germany’s best-known Green politicians, passed away in August. He made his name denouncing the Nazis in postwar West Germany’s institutions, countering his country’s self-congratulation over its break with the past.
The stakes are high in Brazil’s upcoming presidential election: four more years of the reactionary, corrupt, right-wing rule of Jair Bolsonaro or a return of the most transformative president Brazil has ever seen, Lula da Silva.
Over 80 percent of the Chilean electorate voted to replace the country’s dictatorship-era constitution. As Chileans head to the polls on Sunday to finally vote on the new constitution, the Right is stoking fears to prevent its passage.
The Russian public response to the invasion of Ukraine has been muted with antiwar protests quickly repressed. But the slow progress of the war is feeding a series of other crises, leaving Vladimir Putin’s inner circle increasingly isolated.
In an interview with Jacobin, Jeremy Corbyn talks about the need to rebuild the trade unions, internationalism, and why socialists can’t afford to be on the defensive.
This weekend, Germany’s left-wing party Die Linke meets for a congress to respond to its recent electoral decline. For too long, the party has soaked in the language of activist subcultures — and voters have lost faith that it’s serious about wielding power.
Russia has long used breakaway states in Abkhazia and Transnistria to assert military power abroad. Yet the regions’ recent history also shows their growing integration into Western capitalism — and the limits of Moscow’s imperial power.
On April 2, 1922, reformists and revolutionaries from three rival internationals met in Berlin in a bid to agree to a common program. Ending in failure, it was the last time for decades that Communists and Social Democrats would meet as ostensible comrades.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz has just committed €100 billion to defense spending. The move is widely touted as a strong response to Russian aggression — but is more about showing Germany’s fealty to US global foreign policy objectives.
There’s something about the phrase “price controls” that drives some people — mainly economists — around the bend. But history shows that market economies rarely go very long without needing some form of price control — especially in a crisis.
Die Linke was founded on the promise of unifying Germany’s left and rejuvenating what was once the world’s leading socialist movement. Fifteen years later, it’s struggling to survive.
This fall, the Communist Party won the local elections in Austria’s second largest city, Graz, for the first time in history. New mayor Elke Kahr told Jacobin what a proudly Marxist party can hope to achieve from city hall.
Throughout history, it’s been hard for agitators and troublemakers to hold down a good job. In the interwar decades, tens of thousands of them were hired by the Communist International — an employer with long hours, difficult bosses, and a lot of opportunities for travel.
In September’s German election, the socialist Die Linke party slumped to under 5 percent support. If the Left is to recover, it needs to show that it’s still on the side of disenfranchised working-class voters.
October 3, 1990, saw the reunification of Germany. But more than 30 years later, inequalities are deeper than ever — and Easterners are angered at the promises that weren’t realized.
Robert Michels developed his “iron law of oligarchy” after seeing the bureaucratization of the early socialist movement. His warnings are relevant today — but the path to social transformation still runs through building mass, working-class political parties.
The postwar German left has had a lot of ups and downs — and leading Marxist political scientist Frank Deppe was there for most of them. On his 80th birthday, he spoke to Jacobin about the need to root left-wing politics in the changed realities of the modern working class.
Next Sunday’s German election is one of the most unpredictable in decades. But even if Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats do pull off an upset victory, they’re promising continuity with Angela Merkel’s policies — not the change working people need.