Left-wing Activists Research Articles

When it’s gone it’s gone: The politics of the Save Meadowbank Stadium Campaign

The Save Meadowbank Campaign has, since 2007, successfully fought Edinburgh Council’s decision to demolish, without community consultations, Meadowbank stadium and sport facilities to fund a city-wide sporting vision. Drawing on sociological literature on stadium protests, 21 interviews with key actors, and analysis of relevant documents and Internet material, I suggest that, by underestimating the symbolism of stadiums, under-resourced officials lacked the required media strategy and unified coalition to counter a unique protest. An uneasy alliance of left-wing Solidarity party activists and sport enthusiasts created an emotive political and sporting campaign, with more local credibility than the sporting arguments of international stadium consultants and under-resourced and politically naïve officials. Protestors campaigned inside and outside the political system through fear, sympathy and alliances with politicians, facility users, the media, residents, academics, celebrities and sport stars. This unified coalition contrasted with the loose pro-demolition coalition which lacked an individual or group capable of fronting a political campaign. Over-riding all this was the organisation of key Meadowbank decisions just before the 2007 local election. This encouraged a political bandwagon against the Council’s vision – which protestors skillfully encouraged through traditional protest tactics and use of the Internet – which delayed proceedings until it was mothballed by the 2008 global recession.

‘Keep Left for Israel’: Tribune, Zionism and the Middle East, 1937–1967

This article provides the first detailed analysis of Tribune's approach to Zionism and the Arab-Israeli conflict from the year of the socialist weekly newspaper's establishment in 1937 through to the period of the 1967 ‘Six Day’ war. It analyses the nature of Tribune's enthusiasm for Zionism in this period, locating it within a contested pro-Israel tradition in the British Labour movement. The article argues that the debate inspired by Tribune's Middle Eastern coverage provides a valuable insight into the dilemmas faced by left-wing journalists and intellectuals bidding to shape Labour Party policy towards the Middle East, and casts fascinating light on the development of the anti-Zionist positions which became increasingly influential among left-wing activists later in the twentieth century.

« Démocratie dirigée » et manifestations protestataires de rue à Moscou : quelle partition joue la police ? [« Planned Democracy » and Street Protest Marches in Moscow : What Musical Score is Playing the Police?

With the aid of a camera, I offer to conduct an ethnographic analysis of the different police approaches to controlling protest actions in Moscow. At first I will analyse in detailed action descriptions the police techniques used in a public protest on January 19, 2010 in Moscow. This action was organized following the murder, one year before, of two people in the center of Moscow, Stanislav Markelov, lawyer, left-wing activist and human rights defender and Anastasia Baburova, a trainee journalist in the opposition newspaper Novaia Gazeta and a libertarian activist. Then, I will explore the link between police action, methods of crowd control and everyday production of politics in the streets as a particular moment of the political game.

Francesco è vivo, e lotta insieme a noi!Rebuilding local identities in the aftermath of the 1977 student protests in Bologna

The decade spanning from 1968 to 1980, known also as theanni di piombo, is among the most difficult and traumatic periods in Italian post-war history. One of the most memorable years of this decade was 1977, when a new student movement stood up against the established order. The so-called Movement of ‘77 manifested itself among others in Bologna, where it had a predominantly creative and joyful character. Nevertheless, the protests were violently struck down when left-wing student Francesco Lorusso was killed by police forces during clashes, resulting in an urbanguerriglia. This incident worsened the relationship between the historical left and younger generations of (more radical) left-wing activists, and marked the beginning of the end of the Movement of ‘77. The chapter on 1977 was, however, never really closed, and a ‘counter-memory’ has continued to divide the local community ever since. In this article, we shall see how different memory communities in Bologna have dealt with this ‘collective trauma’, focusing on the former Movement of ‘77 and the way it has used public commemorative rituals to rebuild a collective identity for itself in subsequent years.

“Who Is the Macho Who Wants to Kill Me?” Male Homosexuality, Revolutionary Masculinity, and the Brazilian Armed Struggle of the 1960s and 1970s

Abstract Several thousand students joined small clusters of soldiers, workers, and others in revolutionary opposition to the Brazilian civilian-military dictatorship that came to power in 1964 and controlled the government for two decades. Operating underground, these left-wing activists engaged in diverse efforts to organize an effective guerrilla opposition to the authoritarian regime. Within their ranks, some militants who had homosexual desires faced a hegemonic culture of the left that considered same-sex sexuality a reflection of “bourgeois decadence,” an immoral aberration, and an affront to proper revolutionary behavior. This article explores how leftist Brazilians with homoerotic desires negotiated norms of compulsory heterosexuality and constructions of revolutionary masculinity in the 1960s and 1970s as they lived in the underground, among members of different political organizations while imprisoned, or in political exile.

“Lo llaman democracia y no lo es”

Since May 15th,2011, major transformations have been taking place in the Spanish public sphere, especiallybecause of the celebration of political debate with major affluence on public squares. TheSpanish ‘15-M movement’ presents three key characteristics: First, it demands a renovation ofmodern democracy; second, it opposes to the implemented programmes of structural adjustment,public budget consolidation and, in broader terms, neoliberal policy application andthird, it develops formerly unknown or only among left-wing activists known forms of collectivedecision making and re-appropriation of public space. The following article will discussthe first two aspects. After a chronologic description of collective action applied by the 15-Mmovement, the text will develop analytical insights into questions regarding concepts such asdemocracy, citizenship and political identities.

Controversies Around Restorative Justice

Controversies Around Restorative Justice

Taking Control or Losing Control? Activist Narratives of Provocation and Collective Violence

This article examines the complex relationship between political agency, responsibility, and collective violence in connection with political protest. Contemporary Danish and Swedish left-wing activist narratives of police provocations at political protest events are analysed to clarify how provocation and its relation to the outbreak of violence are retrospectively constructed in radical milieus. Three ‘provocation plots’ are identified that, respectively, present (1) the interaction as purely a matter of attack and defence, (2) provocation as a cause of anger leading to retaliation, and (3) provocation as a trigger bringing about a redefinition of the situation that then offers an opportunity for violence. Subsequent negotiations among political activists regarding the position of moral high ground revolved around the issue of whether responding to the provocation in each of these cases meant taking or losing control of the situation. Internet discussion forums are highlighted as important arenas for debates among members of protest coalitions and in broader social movement milieus in which the interpretation of protest events and their implications for future protest tactics is negotiated. In the cases considered, storytelling after violent events was used to make sense of, and evaluate, often quite chaotic and ambiguous processes of violent confrontation, suggesting itself as a key to understanding the micro-dynamics of how social movement repertoires of action are maintained and developed.

A psychosocial interpretation of political violence: Chile 1970–1973

The military coup of 1973 is the most important event in Chilean history of the 20th century. Thus far it has been explained only in political and economic terms, and, therefore, violence has been understood as strategic. Understanding the cruelty, indiscriminate torture and body mutilations of the coup, however, requires a different analytical perspective. On the basis of a discourse analysis of the Chilean press during the years that preceded the coup, and using the psychoanalytic concept of fantasy, I put forth a psychosocial interpretation in which subjectivity, desire and the limits of the social are central. My research has led me to conclude that anti-Communism and the violence that followed the coup, more than expressing a political and economic conflict, condensed a deeper dynamic of fear and hatred: fear of social disintegration – associated with the feminization of Chilean society – and hatred of the disavowed aspects of Chilean identity. The brutality of the violence aimed not only to repress left-wing political activists, but also to ‘extirpate from the Chilean soul’ a devil that was destroying the nation, to punish a society for having allowed this to happen, and to restore a patriarchal social order.

Páginas da guerrilha: uma análise do discurso da esquerda armada brasileira

This paper presents some reflections on discourse historicity aiming to contribute to the field of semioticstudies by examining the discoursive structure of texts of the two most important Brazilian armed left-wingorganizations, namely the Acao Libertadora Nacional [National Liberty Action] (ALN) and the Vanguarda PopularRevolucionaria [Popular Revolutionary Avant-Garde] (VPR), in the light of the rhetorical concepts of ethos andpathos. In the context of the dictatorial period in Brazil, and influenced by the ideals of the Vietnam War and theCuban Revolution, amongst other events, left-wing militants decided in favour of the revolution, by forming armedgroups to fight against the government. These groups, in activity in Brazil in the period between 1968 and 1973,were eventually massacred by the military regime, the majority of the combatants being murdered and those whosurvived suffering torture, living clandestinely, or sent to prison or into exile. Aiming at an understanding of theoption for the armed fight as well as of the values and mobilizing impulse of these individuals, we comparativelyanalyzed ethical and passion elements in documents in the ALN’s and the VPR’s respective archives, according tothe theoretical-methodological principles of French discourse semiotics. The approach of the notion of enunciationactor and particularly of the concepts of ethos and pathos, from a semiotic perspective, revealed similarities anddifferences in the discourses of the ALN and the VPR, based essentially on passion aspects.

Generations of 68Ers

ABSTRACTThe protests of ‘1968’ are a powerful symbol of generational belonging and central to Germany's collective memory. The so-called ‘68ers’ have been transformed into a mythical yardstick of what constitutes a generation. Yet few people thought of themselves in this way in the late 1960s: the idea of the ‘68er’ only emerged from complex and often retrospective processes of generational building, which this article investigates. It is shown that such age-related affinities were not confined to members of the West German Left. Two alternative generational narratives that emerged out of the late 1960s are examined in this piece: those of the West German moderate right-wing ‘counter-generation’ and of the ‘East German 68ers’. The antagonistic character of the West German events and the subsequent public projection of left-wing activists as a ‘generation’ mobilized their political contemporaries and led to a growing desire to collectivize their experiences in their turn. East Germany's ‘1968’, on the other hand, may have been far less iconic than the West German revolt, but former East German activists have also given their memories generational form, particularly since the 1990s. This article addresses these manifold processes of generation building to show that they have much to reveal about how activists—and those who observed them—made sense of the events of 1968 and about how different groups mobilized the idea of a generational experience politically to powerful effect in the years that followed. We are not dealing with a single and monolithic generation of 1968, but with more diverse communities of German ‘68ers’.

Why Do Some Images Begin to Tremble? Cinema Revisits Militant Politics

This essay discusses three films which in different ways reflect on left-wing militancy in the late 1960s and 70s—Uli Edel's The Baader Meinhof Complex, Chris Marker's reissued A Grin Without a Cat, Barbet Schroeder's Terror's Advocate—and argues that Marker's is the most insightful.

El proyecto sociocultural de la izquierda chilena durante la Unidad Popular. Crítica, verdad e inmunología política

The object of this research is the identification and analysis of the Chilean left-wing cultural project, as it was first thought of by intellectuals and authors supporters of the “Unidad Popular”government (1970-1973). It is proposed that the main element of this project resided in the willingness to create autonomous, critical social beings, an endeavor which struck deep into both cultural work creation and the way chilean identitary narrative and the popular subject appealed to left-wing militants and intellectuals. It is thus evidenced how a model of intellectual production, albeit its left-wing militancy, played an assisting role in distancing these politics from the popular world. On a different matter, it is hinted that culture –as a project– played an important, decisive role in the chilean revolutionary process, apart from the active part it may have played during the three years of Salvador Allende’s government.

TRANSLATION: Two Poems by Amelia Rosselli

Two Poems by Amelia Invislatcd hy Lucia Rosselli Re ami Diana Thow Amelia Rosselli (1930-1996) was one of the centun'. greatest poets of the Dociiiiwiito last These poems are taken from the volume (Milano: Garzanti, 1976), Rosselli's third and efFectively poetry. In Doaimcuto collection of 1966-1973, Rosselli changes her style and approach less dramatically, striving for a clearer, more communicative and cryptic diction. In this collection she also iises shorter lines, unconstrained rigoroLis this by the in geometrie structure of her previous poetry. While the poetry is volimie in many ways a intensely personal, it is also a document of its the politicai and sexual turmoil and euphoria of 1968 and Rosselli, who became aftermath. meiiiber of the Italian Commumst I party in 1958, in working assiduously in the Rome precinct of the PCI near her house Trastevere, declared in an interview In Doaimcuto tried to express problems and articulate possible solutions that are coUective... I lived through 1968 staying dose to the party and the party 's locai precinct but also in dose contact with various groups a politicai in order, among other things, to keep up to date and to develop however, I culture for myself StyUsticaUy, dislike those who go troni poHtics to literature, trying to use literature to express their politicai coimnitment. (Interview with Renato Minore, poetn.' is Mcssaiii^ew, February The use of titles in Rosselli's verv' unusual. Sciopero generale 1969 ( General Strike 1969 ) refers to the events of the Hot Autunni of 1969. A huge wave of strikes, Italy. factory and university occupations and demonstrations swept through In December 1969, the massacre caused by a a bomb explosion in a bank at Piazza Italy Fontana, in Milan, led to roundup of left-wing activists across and marked the beginning of the strategy of tension and of a decade terror. of violent confrontations and Ho venti giorni ( I have twent\' days ) conveys a sense ot optimism and an urgency that are exceptional in Rosselli's overall production. The poem captures the connection at between ot the personal and the politicai that was the heart of the movement as well as Rosselli's own intense investment in the power ot poetry. In the sanie interview, Rosselli explains that she wrote the Doaiiiicnto until first part ot in a scoppio d'ispirazione ( an explosion of inspira- tion ), but subsequently felt increasingly drained and wordless. (LR) CARTE ITALIANE, l OL. 4 l2()0H) J

Agitator ‘Theory’ of Strikes Re-evaluated

This article re-evaluates the so-called ‘agitator theory’ of strikes, the popular (often media-induced) notion that industrial militancy is the work of a few hard-core militant shop stewards and/or left-wing political ‘agitators.’ It suggests that while many industrial relations academics have traditionally refused to accept such a one-dimensional explanation for strikes, for example in relation to the Communist Party in the post-war years, many have generally gone too far and fallen into the alternative trap of neglecting the influence of politically influenced activists and shop stewards. Re-evaluating the agitator ‘theory’ by an equally critical consideration of six of the counter-arguments levelled in the past by its academic industrial relations opponents, the article provides evidence to suggest that, despite exaggeration and distortion, there is clearly an important element of truth in the thesis; agency in collective workplace mobilization, in particular the role of leadership by union militants and left-wing activists, can be an important (although by no means exclusive) variable in an understanding of the dynamics of workplace industrial action in both contemporary and historical settings.

The Peace Commission: A Consensus on the Recent Past in Uruguay?

ERLACS – European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies is an Open Access, scientific journal. It publishes peer-reviewed articles in English and Spanish. Contributions reflect substantial empirical research and/or are theoretically innovative with respect to major debates within social science research (understood in the broadest sense, including history and economics) on Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition to research articles, ERLACS includes 'Explorations' (a section in which new themes are presented and new debates are stimulated), review essays, book reviews, and film reviews. Articles are published online soon after they have been accepted.Sign up for our newsletter and read our latest issue!Special Collections:Venezuela's crisis from global perspectivesElite and popular responsed to a left in crisisMega-projects, contentious action, and policy change in Latin America ERLACS – Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe es una revista científica de Acceso Abierto. Difunde artículos bajo la revisión de pares en inglés y español. Las contribuciones reflejan la investigación empírica sustancial y/o son teóricamente innovadoras con respecto a los grandes debates dentro de la investigación social (en el sentido más amplio, incluyendo la historia y la economía) en América Latina y el Caribe. Además de los artículos de investigación, ERLACS incluye 'Exploraciones' (una sección en la que se presentan los nuevos temas con el fin de estimular nuevos debates), ensayos de reseña, reseñas de libros, y críticas de cine. Los artículos se publican en línea poco después de haber sido aceptados.¡Suscríbase a nuestro boletín de noticias y lea nuestro último número!Números especiales:Venezuela's crisis from global perspectivesElite and popular responsed to a left in crisisMega-projects, contentious action, and policy change in Latin America

Conversation with Juha Partanen

Conversation with Juha Partanen

T. B. Harlem

lice Neel, one of the most important 20th century American portrait painters, was born on January 28, 1900, in Merion Square, PA. She was raised in Colwyn, a suburb of Philadelphia, and attended the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art) from 1921 to 1925. During most of the 1930s, Neel lived in Greenwich Village. Although much of her work during this decade represented her very liberal sociopolitical views, she also, like many other artists, joined the WPA (Works Progress Administration) Federal Art Project, for which she produced idyllic portraits of employed industrial workers and of New York City. From 1938 to the early 1960s, Neel lived in Spanish Harlem, where she portrayed the community’s culture through her depictions of its peoples and dwellings. T. B. Harlem was painted during this period and illustrates the ravages of a poverty-induced illness. The young Puerto Rican patient, Carlos Negron, has had a thoracoplasty, a common treatment for tuberculosis in the preantibiotic era. “In the painting, he had just returned from the hospital, but would soon go back. What a crucifixion he went through,” Neel commented [1]. Although throughout her career Neel painted other subjects such as still lifes, urban landscapes, and street scenes, portraits dominated her output, particularly after 1940. Alice Neel, who, like so many other women artists, worked so long in relative obscurity, became increasingly recognized as a preeminent portrait painter during the last 15 years of her life. She had only a few solo exhibitions before the age of 65, but since then has had more than 100, including several major retrospectives. Although portraiture has been historically associated with the rich and powerful, Neel’s gallery is a personal journal of the people who entered her life, including the left-wing artists and activists in Greenwich Village in the 1930s, the residents of Spanish Harlem during World War II and the McCarthy era, the New York art world during the socially turbulent late 1960s and 1970s, and especially her family. Neel’s portraits are quickly recognized. The subjects look directly at and engage the viewer and dominate the paintings. Her nonfamily figures are usually pulled forward and given little environment except for the chair they are sitting on. In many of the numerous portraits of her two sons and their families and a few of the artists who were important to her, Neel deepens the space and increases the complexity of the background of the painting. Her paintings have an uncanny ability to capture the personalities of her sitters. Neel received an honorary doctorate from the Moore College of Art in 1971, was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1976, and received a 1979 National Women’s Caucus for Art award for outstanding achievement in art, the latter presented to her by President Jimmy Carter. Her paintings are in most major American museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art; the National Gallery of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Whitney Museum of American Art; The Art Institute of Chicago; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco. Alice Neel died on October 13, 1984.

Labor Needs a Radical Vision

For forty years, AFL-CIO leaders George Meany and Lane Kirkland saw unorganized workers as a threat when they saw them at all. They drove left-wing activists out of unions and threw the message of solidarity on the scrapheap. Labor's dinosaurs treated unions as a business, representing members in exchange for dues, while ignoring the needs of workers as a whole. A decade ago new leaders were thrust into office in the AFL-CIO, a product of the crisis of falling union density, weakened political power, and a generation of angry labor activists demanding a change in direction. Those ten years have yielded important gains for unions. Big efforts were made to organize strawberry workers in Watsonville, California, asbestos workers in New York and New Jersey, poultry and meatpacking workers in the South, and health care workers throughout the country. Yet in only one year was the pace of organizing fast enough to keep union density from fallingThis article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Labor Needs a Radical Vision

For forty years, AFL-CIO leaders George Meany and Lane Kirkland saw unorganized workers as a threat when they saw them at all. They drove left-wing activists out of unions and threw the message of solidarity on the scrapheap. Labor's dinosaurs treated unions as a business, representing members in exchange for dues, while ignoring the needs of workers as a whole. A decade ago new leaders were thrust into office in the AFL-CIO, a product of the crisis of falling union density, weakened political power, and a generation of angry labor activists demanding a change in direction. Those ten years have yielded important gains for unions. Big efforts were made to organize strawberry workers in Watsonville, California, asbestos workers in New York and New Jersey, poultry and meatpacking workers in the South, and health care workers throughout the country. Yet in only one year was the pace of organizing fast enough to keep union density from falling This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.