Solidarity 326, 4 June 2014

How Renzi triumphed

The Euro-election result in Italy was different from anywhere else in Europe. The governing party, the Democratic Party (product of a merger of most of what was left of the old Communist Party with sections of the old Christian Democrats), increased its support and got 41% of the vote. Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement got much less than it expected: 21%. The old right-wing ruling party, Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, was down to 17%. The hard-right Lega Nord was down to 6%, and the left-wing “Other Europe” slate got 4%. The victory of Matteo Renzi, leader of the Democratic Party and prime...

Forging global solidarity

LabourStart’s “Global Solidarity Conference” in Berlin on 23-25 May 2014 was its fourth major gathering and, with more than 300 participants, its biggest. The conference was hosted by the German trade union ver.di, and comprised nearly three days of plenaries and workshops covered a range of themes. A substantial chunk of the conference examined “Digital communications” — how unions can use electronic media to build themselves and their campaigns: LabourStart’s raison d’être! In an introductory session, Derek Blackadder, who works for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, described the work...

New Donetsk ruler is fascistic

In mid-May the previously unheard-of Aleksandr Borodai was declared Prime Minister of the so-called “Donetsk People’s Republic”. This fact alone should disabuse anyone deluded enough to believe that there is anything “progressive”, “anti-imperialist” or “left-wing” about the “Donetsk People’s Republic” and its Lugansk counterpart. In 1992 Borodai fought as a volunteer in the war in the predominantly ethnic-Russian Transnistrian region when it broke away from Moldova. In 1993 he took part in the defence of the Russian Parliament after its dissolution by Yeltsin. Borodai went on to write for the...

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