Eastern Europe

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On 29 November 1987 the Polish government called a referendum on a programme of market-oriented economic reforms, asking for approval although "this will mean going through a difficult two to three year period". It got a 60-odd per cent majority on a poor turnout, less than the 50% of the whole electorate which it wanted. The banned Solidarnosc trade union movement, although its leaders and even the majority of its rank and file had swung to pro-market views, had called for a boycott of the referendum. Socialists internationally should support Solidarnosc as a workers' movement - irrespective...

Jim Denham reviews "The Jaguar Smile", by Salman Rushdie. Martin Thomas reviews "Rendez-nous nos usines", by Zbigniew Kowalewski. Stan Crooke reviews "Labour's Future: socialism or SDP mark II", by Eric Heffer. Bruce Robinson reviews "War and the International", by Sam Bornstein and Al Richardson. Jane Ashworth reviews "Johnny Come Lately: a short history of the condom", by Jeanette Parisot. Jack Cleary reviews "Bolsheviks in the Tsarist Duma", by A Y Badayev with an introduction by Tony Cliff. Click here to download pdf .

Click here to download pdf. The fall of Stalinism in Eastern Europe brought a triumph for the bourgeoisie. But with what contradictions, and for how long?

Click here to download pdf. Describing and discussing the beginnings of socialist organisation in Eastern Europe after the fall of Stalinist rule there.

Click here to download pdf. A Polish socialist discusses the tasks and prospects in the aftermath of the fall of Stalinism in Poland and post-Stalinist regime's forced march to market capitalism.

Zbigniew Kowalewski, a former leader of the left-wing in Solidarnosc, describes how Solidarnosc fought for workers' control in Lodz in 1980-1. This is an abridged translation of a chapter from his book, 'Rendez-nous nos usines'. Click here to download pdf .

A former leader of the left wing of Solidarnosc, now living in France, talks to Martin Thomas about Gorbachev's reforms in the light of the Polish experience, and about the basic problems of the Stalinist societies. Click here to download pdf .

On 27 November Ed Maltby attended a small protest in front of the Polish Embassy in London in solidarity with workers and trade union activists who have been sacked from the Cegielski factory in Poznan. The Cegielski plant is one of the best known factories in Poland. It produces various types of engines. This summer 20 per cent of workers of the factory were sacked. On 23 October four thousand of workers demonstrated in Poznan against the layoffs in Cegielski. The protest was organised by the Industrial Workers of the World. Bartek, a Polish comrade who is a member of the IWW and the Polish...

Chronology 1979 December: USSR invades Afghanistan, where it fears that the pro-USSR government is about to be defeated by traditionalist and Islamist rebellion. The invasion becomes “Russia’s Vietnam war”. 1980–1 Mass workers’ movement, Solidarnosc, erupts in Poland. It is banned after a military coup in December 1981, but continues to exist underground. 1985 March: After two brief periods of office for elderly conservatives following the death of Leonid Brezhnev (in 1982, after 18 years of rule), Mikhail Gorbachev is appointed General Secretary of the USSR’s ruling party, with a mandate to...