Tag Archives: germany

CS member on Chicago Community Radio

CS executive member Ben Lewis was the guest on last Tuesday's Radical Minds show on WHPK, a community radio station broadcasting in Chicago (stream after the jump). Ben was invited to discuss the tumultuous history of the German worker's movement, and specifically his recently published translation of the speeches of Zinoviev and Martov at the ...

A victorious debate

The 1920 Halle congress of the Independent Social Democrats of Germany (USPD) was a turning point for our movement. It was also a moment of triumph for Grigory Zinoviev. This is an excerpt from Ben Lewis's introduction to a new book, 'Zinoviev and Martov: head to head in Halle' Between October 12 and 17 1920, the ...

Hamburg students march against fees

From our own correspondent. While travelling around Germany, CS member Alfred Stevens chanced upon a student demonstration with remarkably similar demands to those of the protests in Britain last year On Wednesday 25 May around 1,500 mainly student protesters gathered outside Hamburg town hall, many clad in T-Shirts bearing the slogan ‘Studiengebühren wegtanzen’ or ‘Dancing Tuition ...

Left in Die Linke loses its Bonaparte

The resignation of Oskar Lafontaine is a serious blow to the German left party. Tina Becker reports Since Die Linke shook the German political scene by achieving a tremendous 11.9% in the national election of September 2009 (leading to the election of 76 of its members to parliament), it has been followed keenly by the German ...

Die Linke loses king-maker role

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January 18 saw one of the hardest fought federal state election campaigns in Germany’s recent history. For months, the question of who would govern Hesse with its six million inhabitants (and its capital, Frankfurt) made big waves across the whole country. At the centre of it all was the young left party, Die Linke. CS ...

Red November 1918

Rosa Luxemburg

Ninety years ago, the destiny of the world revolution lay in the hands of the German working class. Ben Lewis describes the tumultuous events and draws some lessons for today “Without the revolution in Germany, we are doomed.”1 Vladimir Ilych Lenin’s words of January 1918 underline how the world revolution, initiated and set into motion by ...

100,000 school students strike in Germany

Report at the website of independent youth group Revolution: 100,000 school students across Germany went on strike on Wednesday, November 12. In more than 40 cities there were rallies and demonstrations instead of classes. In many places, university students and teachers expressed solidarity. The walkout was directed against overcrowded classrooms, the lack of teachers and the ...

‘Class struggle’ in Berlin

From the website of Revolution About 8,000 school students left their classes on May 22 and demonstrated through the center of Berlin to the school administration building. The protest was directed against classes being cancelled, the lack of teachers, and also against Germany’s three-tiered school system which discriminates against the poor and immigrants. The strike, the ...