In modern-day Croatia, sectors such as the garment, shoe and leather industries are marked by hard labour for minimum wages, coupled with non-existent workers’ rights and constant pressures from management. The trade union for textiles, garments, leather and rubber (TOKG) is making sure that things get even worse. This article, originally published at Radnički Portal, describes five cases in which TOKG served as management’s right-hand, and was an ally in the destruction of companies, ramping up exploitation and undermining workers.

It has been a year since the murder of David Dragičević, a student from Banja Luka, which shook the Republic of Srpska to its core. Dejan Prodanović, a member of Banja Luka’s branch of the Marxist organisation, Reds, explores the causes for and the dynamics behind the Justice for David movement, which rattled the reactionary regime of Milorad Dodik. This article, apart from giving a detailed description of the protests and the actions of certain figures within it, also gives an insight into the class character of Dodik’s rule.

Several organisations, including the Yugoslav IMT Marxist Organisation ‘Reds’, have mobilised together in a united front as the ‘Left Bloc’ for several weeks as part of mass protests in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Zrenjanin. The Bloc put forward social demands in the demonstrations, instead of the merely civil and democratic demands presented by the organisers from the opposition.

Yesterday, on December 25th, members of Republic of Srpska (Serb part of Bosnia and Herzegovina) riot police cracked down on a peaceful protest of the group called “Pravda za Davida” (Justice for David), in the centre of the statelets de facto capital, Banja Luka. 

In Albania, since 4 December 2018, thousands of students have been continuously demonstrating against the degradation and injustices of the education system. The initial spark for these protests was an increase in tuition fees, cancelled by the government two days after the first demonstrations. But the demands of the students have now gone well beyond this initial grievance and target the generally poor conditions of public universities. Note: the student activist interviewed for this article is not affiliated with the IMT in any way, and we do not necessarily share all of their views.

Alek Atevik, a member of the Central Committee of the Macedonian organization Levitsa(Left) and a leading figure in the Yugoslav section of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), spoke to Epanastasi [‘Revolution’] about nationalist myths and the need for internationalist class solidarity.

Long hailed as a success story and as a model for the future of Serbian industry, the Fiat factory in Serbia stopped working a few days ago, when its production workers went on an all-out strike.

The Kragujevac FIAT-Chrysler's strike in Serbia continues, having entered its seventh day. Of the more than 2,400 workers, at least two thousand have downed tools since June 26th. Only 250 "white collar" workers have decided for now not to take part in the strike.

The events in Macedonia over the past 2 years have shown that the negotiations of political elites have no capacity to bear fruitful, real or reliable solutions to systemic problems that perpetually generate space for criminal and authoritarian practice.

Despite there being no genuine challenge from the all but broken opposition, the regime of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić decided to call early elections at state, provincial and municipal levels. His intention was, undoubtedly to try and top-up the majority he won in the previous elections and to garner a perception of there being an increased popular support for his policies.

As of October, this year, the Marxist Organisation “Crveni” (“Reds”) will be producing a monthly publication in Serbo-Croatian, called “Crvena kritika” (“Red Critique”) and distributing it throughout Yugoslav lands.

"When you sell the American or European Dream to the rest of the world, while at the same time turning the lives of the peoples outside those continents into the darkest nightmares imaginable, it is really no surprise that at some point you’ll have a mass movement towards the self-proclaimed promised lands."

At least 100,000 protesters took to the streets on May 17th sporting crimson banners and flags of all nationalities. There would likely have been more had the Macedonian government not blocked buses of protesters streaming from all over the country to Skopje.

For the first time since the break-up of Yugoslavia, the workers and poor of Macedonia, following the examples set in Bosnia, are uniting across national divisions in mass protests against the government. The terrorist attacks have not divided, but strengthened and united the movement.

The terrorist attack that took place in Kumanovo on 9th and 10th May resembled in its intensity the incidents that occurred during the conflict of 2001, when similarly fierce battles were waged in the villages near Kumanovo, Slupcane, Matejce, Vaksince and other places. The Kumanovo region has always been inhabited by a mixture of peoples (Macedonians, Albanians, Serbs, Roma, Turks, etc), but it is also a region with a long tradition of coexistence and joint struggle over and above national divisions.