Europe

The day before the May Day was the day when the result of the vote on the new wage agreement for public sector workers was announced. There had been negotiations for a long time, but the result of the negotiations was very bad, so the leaders of the unions feared that the members would vote No and in this way start a strike. The top leaders had presented the result as the best possible one, and they said that it was impossible to get a better one through strikes. But the dissatisfaction with the result was very big, and in some unions the leaders were forced by the members to recommend a No vote. The result included a 5.55% pay rise over three years, but then there is inflation, and

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In bright summery sunshine, thousands of workers and young people demonstrated on the streets of Moscow today. The demonstration, organised by the CPRF and other Communist and Left organisations included a column of over two thousand young communists that united different youth organisations, including supporters of the Russian Marxist paperRabochaya Demokratiya, who played an active role in the preparations, distributing 12,000 stickers all over Moscow.

"The dogs bark; therefore, the caravan is moving!" (Old Arab proverb)

It is not my custom to respond to provocations or enter into polemics with insignificant sects who appear to have all the time in the world to insult each other. For such groups, this is what passes for political activity.

On Wednesday May 1, France witnessed some of the biggest demonstrations since the revolutionary movement of 1968 and the liberation from Nazi occupation in 1944. This year's traditional May Day parades organised by the workers' unions could not have come at a more tense political moment. The racist National Front party (FN) candidate Le Pen won almost 17% of the vote in the first round of the presidential elections on April 21 and will face the outgoing president Chirac in the run-off on Sunday May 5. Due to the overwhelming desire of workers' to form a united front against the FN, the trade union leaders of the biggest three federations, CGT (Communist), CFDT (Socialist) and the

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This is an eyewitness report of the May Day demonstrations in Paris, which witnessed some of the biggest demonstrations since the revolutionary movement of 1968 and the liberation from Nazi occupation in 1944.

To view these you may need to install the DivX codec. The first is footage from the May Day demonstrations. It is from the bourgeois media, and shows the contingent from the Revolutionary Workers' Party on the march. Click here to play in Real Player or here to open the video normally. The second is footage of the protests in Voronezh on April 11. It shows the official demonstration called by the unions and the Communist Party. However the mood of the protestors was of tremendous anger,...

Those workers opposed to private parasites being brought in to run and exploit the public services are described by Tony Blair as "wreckers". Those who take action to defend themselves and their families are similarly "wreckers".

Socialist Appeal has published this special supplement as a contribution to the current debate surrounding union funding for the Labour Party. Socialist Appeal calls for trade unionists to not contract out, but to contract in, and reclaim the party that the unions created 100 years ago.

Following the example of the United States, Thatcher attempted to transform Britain into a deregulated low-wage economy. To the disgust of trade unionists, Blair is attempting to carry through a similar policy. Rob Sewell examines what has happened and argues for a radical alternative to Blairism.

The result of the first round of the French presidential elections was a political earthquake, which has shaken the country to its foundations. Within hours, in the best tradition of the French movement, there was a spontaneous explosion of popular protest. Anti-Le Pen demonstrators immediately poured onto the streets of Paris and other cities. The growth of votes for the radical right and left is more than a protest, it is a reflection of a growing polarisation between the classes. If the right wins in France because of the failure of reformism, a new and stormy chapter will open up in the the revolutionary process taking place all over Europe.

This is a short eye-witness report of the spontaneous demonstration that took place in Paris on Sunday night.

On the evening of April 21, spontaneous demonstrations took place in almost all major towns and cities in France. For the first time since 1969, all the left candidates, including the socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, were eliminated in the first round, leaving Chirac and the extreme right-wing candidate Le Pen left in the race. This devastating defeat is the direct consequence of the policies carried out by Jospin, and also by the leadership of the Communist Party.

The Queen has started her Golden Jubilee tour of Britain, and particularly with the events (and non-events) following the death over Easter of the Queen Mother, the media are trying to create a revivial of the monarchy's public standing. Steve Jones looks at this, and at the real role of the British monarchy.

The British working class has a history of swinging from industrial action to political action. This is as true today as it was in the 1930s. This article looks at the great struggles of 1929-31, when the polical leaders of the workers' parties failed to respond to the tasks required of them, leading to the defeat of the workers and the return to power of the Tories.