Reports

Campaign against US military base planned to be build in Czech republic has been main focus of activities of Czech REVO for two years. Here we bring you brief summary of this struggle, which is now, with the signing of the treaty on US radar base, going to get new dimensions.

The 12 of May many hot shot politicians celebrated the 60 year anniversary of the Israeli occupation of Palestine by eating dinner at a luxury restaurant in Stockholm. Except many openly bourgeois politicians, Mona Sahlin, the leader of SAP, the Swedish Social Democratic Worker's Party, attended, despite critique from within the party. Members from Revolution where outside the restaurant together with around 100 activists, mainly anarchists. The Police responded unusually harsh and detained many of us, even though there had been no violence from our side.

The end of May and June was in Czech republic filled with trade-union protests against neoliberal reforms of the government. There was series of four demonstrations, each one targeting concrete reform, that culminated in one-hour general strike. In the protests, obstructing role of trade-union bureaucracy was quite clearly expressed, when they organised demonstrations on working day in such time that for many workers it was not possible to participate and in organising only one-hour strike.

The main issue on which REVOLUTION-Germany has been active since the first of May was the rising school-strike movement which is taking place in Germany at the moment.

In May the government decided a health care reform, which is going to come into effect in 2010. Lots of medics went on strike. On the 11th of July there was a demonstration of medics against the health care reform. REVOLUTION and LSR (League of the Socialist Revolution, Austria's Section of the League for the Fifth International) collected contributions for a militant health-labour union in Sri Lanka. The Socialist Party of Sri Lanka is in contact with the LFI and we tried to show our solidarity with our Asian comrades by supporting this activity.

Here in Stockholm there will be a demonstration of the fascists on the 6th of june, swedens "national day". Revolution in Stockholm has joined the network against racism, where we have taken a strong position as a group taking initiatives in trying to draw in other forces to widen the united front. As a result mainly from our initiatives, other groups such as the CWI and the Young Left is now planning to join in the demo. In this work we gained the respect of other forces in the network (mainly anarchists).

At a national level we have:
- Taken part of the Left Party May day arrangement in Stockholm which gathered around 8000 people. We had a very successful mobilisation and one of the most lively blocks with comrades from different parts of the country and new young contacts. http://revolutionsweden.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/revolutionart-forsta-ma...

On Mayday there are several demonstrations in Vienna. The first one is organised by the social democratic Party (SPOE) in the morning. The SPOE is part of the government and the leading bureaucrats represent in the first place the interests of the bourgeoisie. Hence the turnout to the SPOE-demonstration was not as expected as many workers feel betrayed by “their party”. Mayday therefore was not a success for the SPOE-bureacracy and their concept of having a demonstration just based on tradition while making policy against the interests of the workers.

Czech section of REVO has been active in two main areas of struggle in April. Firstly, we have continued with campaign againsts US radar base, which is planned to be build in Czech republic. Secondly, we have been doing antifascist work – we were mobilising at antifascist actions on May Day. Antifascism is becoming more and more important in Czech republic, because fascists are growing now for more than a year.

Our biggest area of work in April and May has been solidarity with the people of Palestine and in opposition to the siege of Gaza. Thousands of people took to the streets for a national demonstration in London, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, or ‘catastrophe’, which lead to more than 700,000 Palestinians being expelled from their land. The REVOLUTION contingent was loud and lively under the banner ‘End the Seige of Gaza, Victory to the Intifada!’.