On 6 February 1918 women in Britain first got the vote. Ninety years later, it is useful to consider the lessons of this struggle.
In 1989 one party regimes crumbled in six countries in Eastern Europe. Within a few weeks there were massive political changes in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland and Romania. The Eastern Bloc, which the Soviet Union had dominated, was finished.
Miner Krzysztof Labadz ‘At midnight on Thursday of last week we finished our strike and occupation of the Budryk mine. This lasted 46 days, with 25 days of underground occupation.
The end of the Eastern European regimes in 1989 was not inevitable. They fell because people did not want them. Strikes and mass demonstrations – and clashes with the security forces – finished them off.
Rosa Luxemburg was a unique thinker and fighter. She was born in Russian-occupied Poland in 1871. When she was 16 she joined a revolutionary party and within a few years was one of its leaders.
Seventy five years ago the working class suffered its greatest ever defeat when Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933.
The Middle East witnessed the dizzying potential of mass movements from below over four days last week. Walls tumbled, a dictator was humiliated and US strategy to isolate the Palestinian resistance was smashed into ruins.
The instability within the capitalist system means that no one knows what is going to happen in the economy over the next year – and that uncertainty is striking fear into the ruling class.
This month marks the centenary of the birth of Simone de Beauvoir, the French writer and philosopher. She is best known for her feminist classic The Second Sex and her famous declaration, "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman."
Economic analysts and the media are frantically debating whether a recession in the US economy is inevitable or has already started.
The Sicilian Mafia and its US cousin are no Robin Hoods robbing the rich to feed the poor. They are all about personal enrichment. The Mafia were and remain a bunch of selfish, violent murderers.
The 1970s were known in Italy as the "years of lead". A huge upsurge in working class and student struggles began in 1968.
