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Alex de Jong is editor of the socialist journal Grenzeloos and an activist in the Netherlands.
Ninety years ago today, a fire engulfed the Reichstag in Berlin. The arsonist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was hoping to inspire resistance to fascism, but the Nazis used the fire as a pretext to impose a regime of violent terror against the German left.
On this day in 1941, Dutch workers went on strike in solidarity with Jews facing Nazi persecution. Maurice Ferares is one of the strike’s last surviving organizers, and his life of activism links him to some of the last century’s great political struggles.
During the 1930s, many communists and socialists from Germany and Austria sought refuge from the Nazis in the USSR. But in a shocking betrayal, the Soviet secret police handed over hundreds of them to Hitler’s Gestapo.
Before Anton Pannekoek, astronomers sought only to interpret the cosmos — his goal was to change it. The renowned Dutch scientist who gave his name to an asteroid and a moon crater was also a Marxist revolutionary who debated with figures like Lenin about the road to power.
In the late 2000s the Dutch Socialist Party was a success story, having risen from a small Maoist group into a 50,000-member party. But a split with its youth wing and talk of a coalition with right-wingers have demoralized activists — and shown the dangers of a parliamentary party becoming unmoored from labor and social movements.
Indonesia’s new Omnibus Law was passed earlier this month, enacting a major series of counterreforms to workers’ rights and the environment. In protest, tens of thousands of workers went on strike, and in dozens of cities, students took to the streets.
In its search for the perfect mind-control technique, the CIA carried out horrifying tests on unwitting humans. The story of programs like MK-Ultra is a chilling look at how the US government turned its own citizens into guinea pigs — and destroyed lives in the process.
Despite its massive length, Julia Lovell’s Maoism: A Global History doesn’t offer us a clear way to understand Maoism and its legacy.
Amid the devastation of war, Pol Pot’s genocidal regime came to power and led to the death of over a million Cambodians. Its roots didn’t lie in its “utopianism,” but in imperialist war and authoritarianism.
The far right swept to record success in last week’s Dutch elections. Yet the vote also saw Geert Wilders’s PVV overshadowed by more traditionalist reactionary forces.
The Indonesian genocide was one of the great crimes of the twentieth century. Its victims were leftists who struggled against colonialism and fought for Indonesian self-determination.
We should be honest about the Communist Party of the Philippines’ record, including its assassinations of left-wing activists.
From 1965 to 1966, the Indonesian military and its allies massacred hundreds of thousands of Communists — often with the active aid of Western, democratic governments.
The Left in Bangladesh has struggled for generations against Islamism and authoritarianism.
Seventy-five years ago today, Dutch socialist revolutionary Henk Sneevliet was killed by the Nazis.
The Dutch left has been unable to counter the Islamophobic far right, and it will show in tomorrow’s general elections.
A Road Unforeseen is an inspiring account of the autonomous Kurdish region in Syria, but it glosses over Rojava’s contradictions.
In the Netherlands, the Right is dominating debates on European integration and refugees.
The PKK has continued to struggle for justice in Kurdistan. But its democratic transformation leaves much to be desired.