Russia

Armenia and Azerbaijan—rival powers threaten war

A long-running border dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan has flared up with some of the heaviest fighting in four years.

Yellow Vest actions hit cities all over France

Demonstrators continued their fight this weekend despite police repression

Protests call for freedom in Belarus as Lukashenko issues threats

Belarusian president Aleksander Lukashenko launched a fresh crackdown on the democracy movement on Monday.

Workers in Russia riot and strike over unpaid wages

A wave of workers’ protests and riots over unpaid wages and working conditions has swept Russia during the coronavirus pandemic.

Don’t rush in to wrong explanations of Russian interference

Vladimir Putin and the Russian state are ruthless. But so is Britain. The real story is about competition, cooperation and corruption under capitalism

Migrants locked up in Russia stage mass hunger strike

Socialists in Russia report on a hunger strike and sit-in by migrants trapped in Russia's detention system

Russia, Britain and the money connection

20 July 2020
A report, carried out by parliament’s intelligence and security committee, showed links with the Russian rich.

Korean War showed up imperialist barbarism

05 July 2020
The ‘forgotten war’ that began 70 years ago wrecked a country so that big powers could grab more influence, writes Sophie Squire

Arctic oil spill means environmental catastrophe

07 June 2020
The destruction in Norilsk, Russia, is shaped by the connected issues of climate change and the profiteering interests of private companies.

Russia 1917 - how a revolution beat back a pandemic

08 May 2020
How would a society that has had a revolution deal with pandemics? A glimpse comes from Russia in 1917. The working class, headed by the Bolshevik party, took power in a revolution there in October. Immediately, they had to deal with waves of disease sweeping large parts of Europe.

Mr Jones shows the horror of Stalin’s counter-revolution

07 February 2020
A film about a journalist who uncovers famine in Ukraine could have fallen to smug pro-Westernism. But it has more to say

1949 — Mao & the Chinese revolution

24 September 2019
Seventy years ago revolution in China threw off the rule of landlords and struck a blow to Western imperialism. But it wasn’t a socialist revolution, and its aims were not to put people in power, writes Tomáš Tengely-Evans

Crackdown on protests as Putin fears challenge in upcoming local elections

30 July 2019
Russian police arrested thousands of protestors in the capital Moscow

Warsaw 44 – An uprising betrayed

30 July 2019
Tens of thousands of people in Warsaw rose up against Nazi rule 75 years ago this month. The heroic action was abandoned by the Allies writes Tomáš Tengely-Evans

How Moon landings projected US power

16 July 2019
Were moon landings a giant leap forward for humanity, or the culmination of a growing Cold War? Gabby Thorpe boldly goes in search of the legacy of the space race

Kursk—a film that gives a snapshot of Russian society

02 July 2019
Kursk—the Last Mission, tells the story of a Russian submarine disaster in 2000. It is for people who like war and disaster films.

The politics of the D-Day landings

01 June 2019
As the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings sees politicians commemorate the events Tomáš Tengely-Evans looks at the horrific reality of the Second World War

The Comintern - organising to fight for a global revolution

05 March 2019
Revolutionaries formed the Comintern 100 years ago. Simon Basketter says this was a world-shaping event and that its activities still hold lessons for socialists today

The Prague Spring of 1968—50 years since the uprising that fought Stalinism

14 August 2018
Czechoslovakia had been one of Stalinist Russia’s most economically advanced and politically reliable satellite states. Then, in 1968, the monolith suddenly cracked open. Tomáš Tengely-Evans explains what happened