Left Circles Research Articles

The Question of Socialism in China: An Introduction

Heady days of the Soviet revolution mooted questions of the contours of socialism. However, following World War II, questions of socialism would reappear on the Left agenda as indications spread of the Soviet Union not living up to Marx’s sketches of what a socialist society should look like. Following the Soviet collapse, the global Left was forced to both rethink basic questions of socialism and consider whether other societies self-identifying as socialist could be upheld as really existing exemplars of Marx’s vision for the human future. China, under Mao, was initially embraced by the Left as the new representative of really existing socialism. But, following the 1978 reforms of its economy towards markets and opening to international capital it fell out of favour in Left circles. Yet, China’s unparalleled successes among Third World economies in economic growth and poverty alleviation had, by the early twenty-first century, placed it once again in the crosshairs of Left debate over socialism. While vigorous debate swirled around the question of socialism in the erstwhile Soviet Union there has been less sustained debate over the question of socialism in China. What follows in this article and the Feature Section of the journal is an attempt to remedy this deficit by bringing international Left scholarship to bear upon the important question of the kind of society and economy that is represented by China.

The ‘Post-Truth’ of Toxic Masculinity in Leftist Circles: Reading Meena Kandasamy’s When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife

Meena Kandasmy’s When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife narrates the story of a wife trapped in an abusive marriage where her abuse is meted out and sustained through a structure of manipulative tactics which her abuser claims as nothing but “leftist truths”. This immaculate description of toxic masculinity and violence upheld by flawed yet historically founded absorptions of leftist political ideals begs the need for a deeper enquiry into how the left conserves toxic masculinity. This paper is a further analysis of the novel with respect to understanding the ways communist and socialist ideologies (or what can broadly be termed as the left in popular political vocabulary) defend and reproduce hegemonic notions of masculinity while at the same time denying its effects or existences. This is also an enquiry into the possibilities how the left has in many ways believed in what can be understood as a post-truth that it is inherently resistant of patriarchy, while upholding it.

LEFTISM AND NON-NORMATIVE SEXUALITY IN LATVIA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY

In the context of the history of the leftist ideas, the relations of their repre- sentatives with the non-normative sexuality have been peculiar and controversial. In the European countries, the attitude of the leftist circles towards the non-normative sexuality was controversial – it was interpreted both as a manifestation of the depravity of the degenerate aristocracy and as a phenomenon to be accepted by the new society, separated from the church and the dogmas of the bourgeois morals. Even before World War I, the polemic opinions of the advocates of the leftist ideas were voiced in the public space of Latvia – a historical explanation of sexuality can be found in the translations of Friedrich Engels and August Bebel; Andrejs Upīts and other local Marxists waged a war against the depravity, including the glorification of sodomy, allegedly found in the so-called decadents’ works, even though nowadays it is difficult to find grounds for such reproaches. On the other hand, among the decadents, there are authors (Haralds Eldgasts, Atis Ķeniņš), who, at least episodically, have propagated the triumph of the new morals and a new literature, when the artist has the right to obtain impressions from the most diverse phenomena, including passions and vices, among them unnatural desire; yet, overall, the use of the non-normative sexuality for mocking and humiliating one’s political and aesthetic adversaries prevails, as during this period, Latvia, unlike Germany or Russia, lacks culture personalities who would become advocates for this kind of sexuality in the public space.

A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Faith, Awareness, and Revolution in the Middle East

A History of Palestinian Islamic Jihad: Faith, Awareness, and Revolution in the Middle East

The French left and Russia: History and modernity

The article analyzes approaches of France’s leading left forces towards Russia (USSR) from beginning of the 20th century to the present. At beginning of the twentieth century, almost all parts of the French left expressed hatred of the Russian monarchy and, at the same time, solidarity with the struggle of democratic and socialist forces in Russia for freedom and a republic. The question of the attitude to Soviet Russia played a central role in the historic split of the SFIO in 1920 and in the future for decades to come; “the Soviet question” was the line of the watershed between the two leading French left-wing parties, SFIO (SP) and FCP. If the communists from the very creation of the Party took a position of total solidarity with Soviet internal and foreign policy, the socialists, speaking for the development of equal and friendly relations with the Soviet Union, criticized domestic political realities of the Soviet Union and Moscow’s foreign policy. The collapse of the USSR led to serious changes in the perception of Russia in French leftist circles of France. The French left was characterized by an ambiguous attitude towards Boris Yeltsin’s policies. As before, the French left is expressing its sympathy for the Russian people. However, in general, most of the French left movement at present negatively evaluates the socio-economic and domestic political evolution of Russia, as well as Moscow’s foreign policy in the first two decades of the 21st century. First, this applies to positions of the socialists and the Greens. The Communist Party opposes the dignity to the insulating pressure on Moscow. For their part, politicians and power related to left populist and left patriotic direction see Russia as a strategic ally in the struggle for more equitable international relations.

Fight For Media Pluralism Or Just “JanŠA’S War On Media”?

AbstractSince Janez Janša’s government has been installed, not a day has gone by that the ruling coalition party, SDS (the Slovenian Democratic Party), has not been accused of undermining the freedom of media or threatening media pluralism. Sometimes, critics go even further in condemning Janša as wilfully subordinating media to politics. Regarding subordination, independent media studies from 2002, 2006, 2007, 2008 and lastly 2020 haveclearly indicated that the media in Slovenia are to a certain extent already under the influence of politics, namely those close to the left circles. Whilst scientific conclusions prove the fact that changes in media legislation are more than needed, the question that arises is whether the proposers are looking at the concept of media pluralism from the right perspective. Leaning on the most recent Media landscape research, this article stands out from the rest as it draws parallels with the state of political pluralism, demonstrating how partial and imbalanced covering of news could lead to the domination of one political spectrum. Further, we do a historical review of the right-wing media policy and bring to light those aspects that have undergone the sharpest criticism when it comes to media pluralism. In addition, new ideas for future research are discussed.

Imagining the “Worker” in Early Twentieth Century Beirut

Imagining the "Worker" in Early Twentieth Century Beirut Ellis Garey (bio) KEYWORDS communism, labor, Greater Syria, post-Ottoman, worker How do historical actors define and advance their understanding of a particular social category? Fu'ad al-Shamali, a tobacco worker and labor organizer who co-founded Lebanon's first communist party in 1924, wrote and translated prolifically after his expulsion from the party in 1936 on his experiences related to work, labor organizing, and radical politics. An examination of his writings reveals a capacious approach to the category of "worker." The conception of workers put forward by al-Shamali is exceptional both in the context of other contemporary writings, and in comparison to current scholarly conceptions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century worker in Greater Syria.1 His expansive understanding of this category should be seen as an intentional political move intended to encourage the formation of a self-consciously constituted working class. From the 1880s onwards, strikes arose as a new form of social contestation in the region, particularly in port cities along the Eastern Mediterranean including Beirut.2 These strikes often took place at sites of Ottoman imperial centralization and capitalist development like ports and railways. By the early twentieth century, scholars estimate that the number of industrial workers in Lebanon and Syria was well over 100,000 people, reaching 200,000 by the [End Page 421] 1930s.3 Labor actions, including strikes, slowdowns, and sabotage, simultaneously grew in number and size, such that by the 1920s there were hundreds of strikes occurring which often involved several thousand workers each.4 During this period, Beirut newspapers would frequently chronicle ongoing labor struggles in Europe and the United States, making reference to the political stakes of worker uprisings. In their reports on local labor struggles, editors tended to emphasize the economic nature of workers' concerns, and on some occasions justified the use of state force against politicized gatherings or protests held by workers.5 The nationalist movement in Greater Syria and the liberal elite who led it would similarly express concern for the economic wellbeing of workers, but simultaneously encouraged them to avoid following in the footsteps of European workers who, in their estimation, were creating unnecessary conflict with capitalists, factory owners and the managerial classes in their respective countries.6 Concurrent with the growth of a labor movement was the emergence of communist parties and leftist circles.7 It is within this context that Fu'ad al-Shamali organized and wrote. Al-Shamali was born in Ottoman Mount Lebanon in 1894 and went to primary school in Bisan (located in contemporary Palestine) where his father worked as a translator for a railroad company.8 When his father died around the year 1910, al-Shamali and his family moved to Cairo in search of work. By the age of sixteen, al-Shamali had worked in cigarette factories in both Cairo and Alexandria. Cigarette workers in these two cities were among the first groups to actively and consistently mobilize.9 Al-Shamali was thus quickly exposed to labor organizing in Egypt. While strike activity was quelled during World War I, al-Shamali was a key organizer in the growing labor movement in Alexandria by the time of the nationalist revolution against British occupation in 1919, which increasingly asserted itself through waves of work stoppages and general strikes in support of the national struggle. Al-Shamali joined the Egyptian [End Page 422] Socialist Party soon after it was founded in 1921, and took on a leadership position in the party shortly thereafter. For reasons which remain contested, al-Shamali returned to what had become the French-ruled mandate of Lebanon in 1923. Among al-Shamali's writings are his reflections on organizing labor unions (published in 1929), founding the communist Lebanese People's Party (LPP) (published in 1935), and his trip to Moscow as a delegate to the Sixth Comintern Congress (published in 1934). These writings make evident al-Shamali's view of the working class, and give insight into his motivations for including or excluding certain groups in its formulation. While workers based in industry and manufacturing constitute the core of how he defines the category 'worker,' his...

Differences in equine spinal kinematics between straight line and circle in trot

Work on curved tracks, e.g. on circles, is commonplace within all forms of horse training. Horse movements in circles are naturally asymmetric, including the load distribution between inner and outer limbs. Within equestrian dressage the horse is expected to bend the back laterally to follow the circle, but this has never been studied scientifically. In the current study 12 horses were measured (optical motion capture, 100 Hz) trotting on left and right circles and on the straight without rider (soft surface). Data from markers placed along the spine indicated increased lateral bending to the inside (e.g. left bending on the left circle) of the thoracolumbar back (difference left circle vs. straight − 3.75°; right circle + 3.61°) and the neck (left − 5.23°; right + 4.80° vs. straight). Lateral bending ROM increased on the circle (+ 0.87° and + 0.62°). Individual variation in straight-circle differences was evident, but each horse was generally consistent over multiple trials. Differences in back movements between circle and straight were generally small and may or may not be visible, but accompanying changes in muscle activity and limb movements may add to the visual impression.

Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall

Reviewed by: Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall Lisa Lindquist-Dorr Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America. By Jacquelyn Dowd Hall. (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2019). Pp. xii, 690. Paper, $20.00, ISBN 978-0-393-35856-8; cloth, $39.95, ISBN 978-0-393-04799-8.) A preeminent scholar of southern women’s history, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall is the author of foundational studies such as Revolt Against Chivalry: Jessie Daniel Ames and the Women’s Campaign Against Lynching (New York, 1979) and Like a Family: The Making of Southern Cotton Mill World (Chapel Hill, 1987) that explore the intersection of gender, race, and class in southern history. As a teacher, scholar, mentor, and advisor to countless scholars and graduate students, she has defined and expanded southern history and women’s history in numerous ways. Sisters and Rebels: A Struggle for the Soul of America, a blended biography of Elizabeth, Grace, and Katharine Lumpkin, represents yet [End Page 143] another significant scholarly contribution and the culmination of a career of considerable significance. Sisters and Rebels explores the intellectual evolution of a remarkable set of sisters: Grace Lumpkin, a socialist activist and author of To Make My Bread (1932), one of the most significant examples of socially conscious literature in the twentieth century; Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin, best known for her memoir The Making of a Southerner (1947) but also the author of four other scholarly books; and Elizabeth Lumpkin Glenn, a well-known orator for the Lost Cause. They each took their origins in a prominent southern family in astonishingly different directions. Elizabeth’s intellectual trajectory was the most opaque of the three. She embraced the past and became a noticeable speaker at Confederate reunions. After her spectacle of a wedding, she withdrew into a more traditional domestic life. Grace and Katharine blazed more notorious trails. Grace moved north and embraced a socialist worldview, and until a midlife about-face, she was entrenched in leftist circles. Her novels used the “‘non-epic everyday,’” or a focus on family and domestic life, to bring the lives of the southern poor into view and to expand awareness of the problems of the working class, and especially of women (p. 146). Katharine followed a more academic route, beginning in college to question the racial mores and the class stratifications of her birthplace. She, too, left the South for a life of ideas and scholarship with a female companion at her side. Katharine’s and Grace’s lives were almost breathtaking in their scope. Unlike Elizabeth, who receded into a more traditional role, Grace and Katharine embarked on lives of almost unimaginable consequence, vitally engaged with the many social questions of race, class, government, and justice that consumed the 1920s and 1930s. Katharine especially, haunted by the South’s racial division and the poverty she witnessed among tenant farmers, sought throughout her career to get “‘the world’s work done,’” believing that study and reflection could lead southerners, and all Americans, to rid themselves of their biases and change the world (p. 182). Though operating in distinct circles, each sister was profoundly concerned with questions of gender, familial structure, and inequality, well before the development of feminist language to frame these issues. Those passions brought Grace to work in left-wing causes, including the cases of Sacco and Vanzetti and the Scottsboro Boys, and to write a steady stream of articles in leftist and progressive journals. Katharine, along with her partner Dorothy Douglas, were entrenched in women’s progressive networks and engaged in New Deal policy debates. Both sisters moved in circles filled with intellectuals, politicians, academics, and others. Their status as highly intellectual and educated white women, and their freedom from the traditional encumbrances of family, allowed them the privilege and independence in the 1920s and 1930s to devote their lives to ideas in action. Their enthusiastic participation in socialist circles in the 1930s reverberated through their lives to profound effect in the 1950s. Katharine’s partner Dorothy was accused of communist sympathies during the McCarthy era, upending their academic lives and ultimately pushing them apart...

«The meaning of state»: the byzantine idea on the pages of the liberal journal

The article considers the reaction in the Russian society on the piece by Vl. Soloviev «The Meaning of State» which was published by the liberal journal «The Herald of Europe» in December 1895. Special attention is paid on the causes of the indignation at this article in the left circles which were already peeved against the philosopher for his previous work of the same year - «The Meaning of War», and on the motives of the approval of «The Meaning of State» by the right publicists. It is stressed that the most important task for Vl. Soloviev in the period of writing his treatise «The Justification of Moral Good» was to demonstrate his allegiance to that ideas of his father, the prominent liberal historian S.M. Soloviev which could be seen, from the standpoint of the «fin de siècle» liberalism, as very conservative. The author formulates a hypothesis that the article “The Meaning of State” was destined to incorporate into the corpus of the ethical treatise by Vl. Soloviev but the specific way of polarization of Russian public opinion and the desire of philosopher to stay in the liberal circle determined his decision to exclude the predominant piece of this text from the book. It is stated that the article «The Meaning of State» was kept in memory for a long time as a strange and unique phenomenon of the appearance of the apology of Byzantine, autocratic state on the pages of leading liberal issue.

Modulation Method for Determining the Bearing of a Moving Object from Radio Beacon Signals Orthogonally Polarized in a Circle

Based on the use of the vector apparatus and the Jones matrices, a polarization-modulation method for bearing of a moving object from radio beacon signals orthogonally polarized along left and right circles is investigated. The proposed method is based on the use of a rotating quarter wave phase plate as a polarization modulator inserted into the receiving channel of the onboard antenna of the moving object. The bearing is estimated at the receiver output from the phase of the fourth harmonic of the polarization modulation frequency.

1246High-power and short-duration radiofrequency ablation for atrial fibrillation: feasibility, safety and one-year results

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements SEC-Bayer research project 2018, Spanish Society of Cardiology. Research project 2018, FIS, Insituto de Salud Carlos III. OnBehalf none Pulmonary vein (PV) isolation (PVI) by point-by-point radiofrequency application (PPRF) results in longer procedures than cryoablation. In addition, it is associated with more oesophageal lesions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility, safety and 1-year efficacy of PVI by high power short duration (HPSD) PPRF in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). METHODS PPRF around the PV was performed in 125 patients (P) distributed in two groups. Conventional PPRF with 30W/≤30 s under luminal oesophageal temperature monitoring was performed in the first 47 P (Group 1). 68 P were enrolled in the HPSD (Group 2). Power was set to 50 W and delivered to reach a predefined lesion index value (LSI≥5 or AI≥350) in the first 18 P (Group 2A). 30 P underwent PPRF with 60 W for 7-10 s (Group 2B) and the last 30 P underwent PPRF with 70W for 9 s (Group 2C). Oesophageal endoscopy was performed after ablation in all P. RESULTS 17 (36%) P in Group 1 and 30 (38%) in Group 2 had persistent AF. PVI of all targeted veins was achieved in 96% and 100% of P in both groups (p = 0,6). Total RF time was 30 [27-42], 25[ 20-29], 16 [14-20] and 13 [11-16] in Groups 1, 2A, 2B and 2C respectively (p < 0.01). RF duration per target lesions was 12[9-17], 9[8-9] and 9[9-9] s in Groups 2A, 2B and 2C respectively (p < 0.001). First-pass PVI was achieved in 35% 56%, 57% and 85% of left PV circles (p < 0.001) and in 46%, 56%, 60% and 82% of right PV circles (p = 0.04) in groups 30W, 50W, 60W and 70W respectively. Reconnections occurred in 8% of PV circles in Group 1 and in 6.5% of PV circles in Group 2 (p = 0.8). Dormant conduction was tested with adenosine in Groups 2B and 2C and the incidence was 30% and 25% of PV circles respectively (p = 0.31). The carina was the most frequent location of conduction gaps, reconnections and dormant conduction in all groups. The incidence of oesophageal lesions was 28% in Group 1, 22% in Group 2A and 0% in groups 2B and 2C (p < 0.002). The 1-year efficacy (freedom from any atrial tachycardia recurrences >30 s) was 59% in Group 1, 88% in group 2A, 77% in group 2B and 87% in group 2C (p = 0.019). CONCLUSIONS PVI by HPSD PPRF is feasible and results in high 1-year efficacy in P with AF. This approach appears safe and associated with low incidence of oesophageal damage especially when short application time and 60 or 70W are used. However, this latter power setting is associated with slightly better 1-year efficacy than HPSD PPRF using 60W. Abstract Figure. Recurrences of atrial arrhythmias (>30 s

“Hardhats May Be Misunderstood”

Drawing on organizational records, the progressive press, and oral history archives, this article explores the development of a multiracial, coalition-backed boycott of Coors beer in the 1970s and 1980s. It focuses on the boycott’s expansion from a localized labor dispute in the San Francisco Bay Area to a national, politicized campaign. It argues that the Coors boycott and its array of backers, representing labor, Chicana/o, queer, black, Native American, and leftist circles, demonstrate the vibrancy, creativity, and evolution of activism in the decades following the civil rights movements. Instead of seeing the move to coalition and consumer movements as conservative, this article identifies the Coors boycott as an example of ongoing grassroots efforts to forge solidarity and oppose business conservatives and the New Right.

Predicting Minimal Residual Disease in Acute Myeloid Leukemia through Stochastic Modeling of Clonality

Background. Relapse affects about 50% of AML patients who achieved remission after treatment, and the prognosis of relapsed AML is poor. Current evidence has shown that in many patients, mutations giving rise to relapse are already present at diagnosis and remain in small numbers in remission, defined as the minimal residual disease (MRD) [1]. Chemoresistant clones contributing to relapse of the disease arise from minimal residual disease (MRD) rather than resulting from newly acquired mutations during or after chemotherapy. MRD is the presence of measurable leukemic cells using non-morphologic assays. It is considered a strong predictor of relapse. The dynamics of clones comprising MRD is poorly understood and is considered influenced by a form of Darwinian selection.Methods. We propose a stochastic model based on a multitype (multi-clone) age-dependent Markov branching process to study how random events in MRD contribute to the heterogeneity in response to treatment in a cohort of six patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas database with whole genome sequencing data at two time points. Because human bone marrow cell counts are too large for direct stochastic simulation methods to be effective, we developed a hybrid numerical algorithm combining stochastic Gillespie-type and tau-leaping algorithms, and a deterministic differential equation solver, which uses much less computer time than a "straight Gillespie algorithm". Results. We developed a stochastic model of clonal evolution based on a multitype (multi-clone) age-dependent Markov branching process model of cell proliferation. In brief, we consider the critical time interval between diagnosis and initial relapse of AML that includes cytotoxic chemotherapy, chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression and decrease in leukemic cells, non-leukemic marrow recovery, and growth of the leukemic clones due to refractory or relapsed disease. Underlying our model are assumptions regarding the structure of growth, differentiation, and competition of the normal and leukemic clones. Our model reflects the stochasticity inherent when leukemic clones are near depletion after chemotherapy, which we hypothesize strongly contributes to the interpatient heterogeneity in treatment response. The parameters are estimated by fitting the expected-value model to the patient's clinical data. The available data at diagnosis includes patient's weight, percent cellularity, white blood cell count, percentage of blasts in both peripheral blood and bone marrow, and percentage of normal neutrophils in the peripheral blood. Importantly, the time to relapse and percentage of blasts in bone marrow at relapse are available. The parameters fitted to the expected-value model offer an explanation of how a leukemic clone can escape chemotherapy and promote relapse. These clones have either high proliferation rates or high self-renewal rates. As a result, there is a range of different parameter combinations that can explain their ability to succeed. On the other hand, we also study the clones that have been eradicated by the time of relapse and conclude that these clones might be eliminated either because they are not competitive and therefore surrender to other clones, or they are simply killed by chemotherapy. Also, we checked if the parameters are biologically relevant by using the model to compute the corresponding clonal growth rates for each patient. That these values fit in the clinically observed range independently found in for patients with the NPM1 mutations [1], suggests that the model is consistent with clinical data. Conclusions. Our model offers a more accurate understanding of how relapse arises and which properties allow a leukemic clone to thrive in the Darwinian competition among leukemic and normal hematopoietic clones. The model suggests a quantitative relationship between MRD and time to relapse and therefore may aid clinicians in determining when and how to implement treatment changes to postpone or prevent the time to relapse. [1]Assessment of Minimal Residual Disease in Standard-Risk AML. N Engl J Med. 2016;374:422. Relationship between MRD and time to relapse for all patients. Estimates of MRD and time to relapse are mean values from 1000 stochastic simulations. Each color corresponds to a single patient; left triangles, circles, and right triangles correspond to three parameter sets. Simulated points are fitted with a sigmoidal Hill function. Figure Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Antifa without fascism: the reasons behind the anti-fascist movement in Ireland

ABSTRACTThe anti-fascist movement is generally viewed as a reaction to the extreme right by concerned left-wing activists. Therefore we would not expect the Antifa to feature in countries where extreme right activism is not a feature of the politics. However, Ireland has no significant extreme right but it still has an anti-fascist movement that plays an influential role within radical left circles. By treating Ireland as an outlier in relation to the existing reactive explanation for anti-fascist mobilisation this paper takes a deviant case analysis approach to generate novel hypotheses behind the reasons for the anti-fascist movement. First, anti-fascism acts as a site of left convergence, an area of unity that transcends the usual ideological divisions that can impede other types of political collaboration in a fragmented radical left activist base. Second, in the absence of effective extreme right forces, anti-fascism acts as a form of prophylactic action. In effect, the aim of this activism is to deny political space to extreme right micro groups before they become a popular force or a more serious political threat. Finally, a close cultural lineage between elements within the left and a past revolutionary tradition will increase the appeal of anti-fascist activism among left-wing activists.

Revolutsiooni sidemehed: Eesti enamlikud emigrandid Kopenhaagenis 1918–1921 [Abstract: The couriers of revolution: Estonian Bolshevik émigrés in Copenhagen 1918–1921

Abstract: The couriers of revolution: Estonian Bolshevik émigrés in Copenhagen 1918–1921
 
 The history of the early twentieth-century Estonian left-wing radicalism has remained a relatively neglected field in the post-1991 period; not least due to its previous institutional role as the most favoured, but also the most highly politicised subject of historical research in Soviet Estonia. This state of affairs resulted in voluminous scholarship in “party history” produced over the decades following World War II, but its findings and conclusions are almost entirely untrustworthy and thoroughly biased in favour of Soviet-style Communism.
 In the last five years, however, the history of the Estonian left has attracted new attention on part of both younger scholars and senior academics – a highly positive development in light of the major role that left-wing ideas and movements have played in Estonian history from the 1905 Russian revolution onwards. Nevertheless, this newer research has the somewhat thankless task of having to re-examine the fundamentals without being able to rely on previous scholarship, which perhaps understandably limits its ability to generalise or to draw overarching conclusions.
 The present article is a contribution to this burgeoning field in Estonian historical research, engaging with the little-studied history of Estonian left-wing radicalism in Western Europe (rather than in Estonia or in Soviet Russia). I am particularly focusing on four individuals among émigré Estonians in Copenhagen, Denmark: August Lossmann (1890–?), Oskar Lenk (1890–1919), Johannes Rumessen (1888–?) and Harald Triikman (1892–1964). The primary period of study is 1918–22, although reference will be made to both earlier and later years where appropriate. The study makes use of both Estonian and foreign archival materials, contemporary newspapers and, occasionally, published scholarship.
 While my focus is on tracing and contextualising the activities and involvement of these four young men in both Danish and Estonian radical leftist circles, I will also propose some preliminary hypotheses relating to the radicalisation process of left-wing Estonian émigrés more generally, which in the future can hopefully be tested on a broader range of comparable subjects.
 Firstly, I would suggest that the Bolshevik Russian revolution (the October Revolution) was likely a pivotal moment in the development of their views: having been the supporters of Socialist Russian revolution, the Estonian émigrés tended to distance themselves from the more sceptical Social Democratic parties of their countries of residence in its aftermath, instead moving closer to Left Socialist or Communist parties that fully embraced the new revolution. Furthermore, their distance from and relative ignorance of Estonian affairs probably left them more open to contemporary Bolshevik propaganda, which among other things depicted the Estonian War of Independence (1918–19) as a struggle between an alliance of foreign capital and the Estonian bourgeoisie on the one hand, and the Estonian proletariat on the other.
 In the case of Lossmann, Lenk, Rumessen and Triikman, they were all connected to one Estonian Socialist (or Bolshevik) Group, established in 1918 and affiliated with the Danish Socialist Labour Party – the first openly Bolshevik party in Denmark. This Estonian group was headed by the remarkably well-respected Socialist Oskar Lenk, who in early 1919 was expulsed from Denmark due to his involvement in Bolshevik activities (among other things, working from the Copenhagen bureau of ROSTA, the Soviet Russian news propaganda agency). Later, he was active in Russia as a fairly prominent activist of the Estonian Communist Party, before being killed in a battle against the Whites in the autumn of the same year.
 Lenk’s influence in 1918 was likely of formative importance for his comrades in Copenhagen, at least one of whom (Johannes Rumessen) also became involved in the underground transport and intelligence network of the Estonian Communist Party in 1919–20.

The invisibility of racism: on the reception of Giovanni Vento’s Il Nero and Antonio Campobasso’s Nero di Puglia, 1967-1982

This essay explores attitudes towards home-grown anti-black racism in Italy from the 1960s to the early1980s by focusing on the reception of Giovanni Vento’s Il Nero, a 1965 film that depicts the everyday lives of two biracial Italians born at the end of the Second World War from encounters between Italian women and non-white Allied soldiers, and of Antonio Campobasso’s Nero di Puglia, a partly autobiographical book by one of these biracial Italians, published in 1980. Campobasso’s powerful text, which denounced the hypocrisies of the Republic, received some acknowledgement in the intellectual community, but the lenses that the cultural critics used to interpret the text impeded a foregrounding of the racism that the book denounced. Giovanni Vento’s innovative film, on the other hand, did not even reach the commercial circuit and was also interpreted in leftist circles through a political and aesthetic paradigm that downplayed the specificity of anti-black racism. The article invites a reflection on the legacy that these attitudes have had in shaping the limited sensitivity to racism in contemporary Italy.

Political Theology of Abolitionism: Beyond the Death Penalty

ABSTRACT“Abolitionist” has caught on, in the United States, as an identity for leftist political activists. Today’s abolitionists grow out of a movement to oppose mass incarceration that itself is related to an earlier movement to oppose the death penalty, but in its current usage “abolitionist” suggests an opposition to multiple, interlinked systems of oppression. Jacques Derrida argues that death penalty abolitionists are best understood as opposing, and constituted by, political theology. Does the same apply when abolitionism is understood more broadly, as it is today? This paper explicates the meaning of “abolitionist” in left political circles today, summarizes Derrida’s argument about the political theology of abolitionism, and concludes that some, but not all, aspects of Derrida’s argument are applicable to today’s abolitionists.

Anti-Extinction in Patients With Schizophrenia

Background: Patients with schizophrenia demonstrate visual processing impairments; however, the nature of these impairments remains undetermined. Objectives: The present study aimed at investigating the visual processing of unilateral compared to bilateral visual stimuli in these patients. Methods: A group of 27 schizophrenia patients and a group of 27 matched controls (age, gender, education level and hand preference) (20 males in each group), were tested in 2 computerized tasks, namely circle and star and triangle. Unilateral and bilateral shapes were presented on the screen of a computer. In the circle task, stimuli were similar unilateral left, unilateral right and bilateral circles that appeared on a computer screen, whereas in the star and triangle task, there were different unilateral and bilateral stimuli. Participants were instructed to press the left key in unilateral and right key in bilateral trials. Results: In both tasks, the patients significantly detected bilateral displays more accurately than unilateral displays, and unilateral-left more accurately than unilateral-right trials. The similarity of stimuli on the star and triangle task, did not affect the patients’ performance. In contrast, individuals in the control group performed similarly across both unilateral and bilateral trials. Conclusions: These findings provide evidences of hemineglect and anti-extinction in patients with schizophrenia, suggesting bilateral advantage in visuospatial processing in the patients.

Dissociation between executed and imagined bimanual movements in autism spectrum conditions.

Autism spectrum conditions (ASC) are characterized by social-communicative and motor coordination difficulties but in many cases also by an impaired capability to imagine movements. In this study we found that while two handed coordination in ASC can be developed as well as in typically developed persons, the development of motor imagery could still be immature in ASC, leading to difficulties in imagining, understanding as well as programming and coordinating complex movements.