This year really is just gonna be us swinging from election to election, I suppose. I feel Lenin's beaming red eyes on me.
Up next on our electoral tour is Portugal. The current government - a coalition of the center-left Socialists and the center-right Social Democrats - has been mired in corruption scandals, resulting in a general election being called a mere two years after the last one. The fascist and vaguely populist Chega party has gained significant support over the last two years due to the economic hardships. Yesterday, the Social Democrats secured a narrow win of 79 seats compared to the Socialists' 77. Chega, in third place at 48, would appear to be the best candidate for a coalition, though the leader of the Social Democrats has said that they would refuse a coalition with them due to their xenophobic views. Regardless, the fascist surge is worrying, if expected.
Portugal's economy is going pretty badly even as European countries go, with little growth in productivity or investment over the last decade. The origins of this crisis date back to Portugal making the euro their national currency in the early 2000s, thus surrendering their ability to control their own currency, becoming reliant on investment from Germany and France, and suffering greatly in the 2012 European debt crisis. Unemployment and low wages spurred emigration; in 2013, the youth employment rate was about 40%; this has only come down to 25% recently and is increasing again. The government is heavily reliant on debt for public spending, with a debt-to-GDP ratio skyrocketing to over 100% in the two decades since the turn of the millennium. The capitalist sector is simply not profitable enough and hasn't been for 40 years, which is only a problem if you are a capitalist economy. For more on the Portuguese economy, check out Michael Roberts' recent analysis, from which I obtained a lot of this information.
Inside Portugal is the same story playing out across much of Europe. A failing center or center-left political party, unable to cope with the economic troubles of the last few years due to absolute obedience to neoliberal policies. A fascist party rising, but with no alternative economic plan, hoping that perhaps oppressing minorities and going after "wokeism" will make their God, The Economy, rain blessings down on them again.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Portugal! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Can someone give me a 200 word essay on how the SPD helped the rise of the Nazis?
Or just drop it here https://www.reddit.com/r/victoria3/comments/1bcefgp/comment/kuiqvwm
I don't remember shit about Weimar history anymore except what happened around the Enabling act.
The SDP subotaged any revolutionary left activity they could for years leading up to 1918 which culminated with them allying with fascists to murder Rosa and Karl
The SPD voted overwhelmingly to enter the war in 1914 due to nationalism and giving in to imperial demands and pressure and excluded members for not voting for financing the war . The spartacists split from them because of that . Also made Ebert that supported the war councelor.
SPD formed a coalition in the early 20s explicitly to oppose the KPD. And another one in the late 20s...explicitly to opposed the KPD and the NSDAP (as a second thought).They put up posters calling the KPD equal to the NSDAP as early as 1929 . SPD Chairman Otto Wels declared at the Leipzig party convention in 1931 that “Bolshevism and fascism are brothers. They are both founded on violence and dictatorship, regardless of how socialist or radical they may appear.
Tthe SPD while in power and as the opposition made massive concessions to the right wing and never to the KPD. Pushed austerity, ordered and supported the construction dumbass battleships under fascist pressure and, ordered violent police suppression against a KPD protest against the NSDAP.
In 1929 the SPD used the police to attack pro-Communist protesters during the Berlin May Day demonstrations killing at least 32 people and wounding hundreds more.
In 1932 they allowed the Nazis to hold a march through the KPD stronghold despite warnings that rioting would be the result. When the Nazis were beaten back they sent in the Hamburg police against the KPD that ending up shooting 18 people
The SPD's 'lesser evil' politics ended up giving voters the ostensible choice between Hindenburg (a senile militarist) and Hitler, then its only anti nazi action was urging voters support the former who then went on and proceeded to appoint Hitler Chancellor.
It was the KPD calling for a united general strike in 1933, it was the SPD and SPD-led unions calling for restraint:
The KPD would have accomplished nothing by appeasing the SPD. They would have been told to stop fighting nazis in the streets. They would have been told to stop agitating against fascism. They would have been told to give up everything to the right wing in the idiotic hope that giving the right wing everything they wanted would slow the shift to the right.
A united front strategy never emerged. The SPD destroyed their party's credibility by voting to build a fucking battleship to appease the Nazis, and then promptly moving directly into austerity. They were in coalition until 1933 with the catholic centre party, the democratic party, the people's party, explicitly to oppose the "radical parties", including the communist party and the nazi party. I assume people can figure out which one of those they were better at and why that coalition collapsed entirely in 1933 when the Nazis began purging the SPD. The only resulting "widespread" cooperation from the SPD was when the leadership of the SPD side-lined their militias and were then arrested by the Nazis, so the militias finally moved over to cooperate with the KPD. The SPD was decapitated, and the KPD picked up the pieces to fight as long as they could.
The KPD could, certainly, have just folded up all of their ideals, kow-towed to the SPD who loudly and publicly loathed them and ordered violent suppression of them, and then been part of a coalition that steadfastly refused to in any material way oppose the NSDAP and pushed fascism taking over a couple of years down the road. The SPD could also not have fucking conceded every fucking step to the fascists every fucking second of their control of government or as the opposition.
But for the apologists of the left wing of capital, that sinking ship didn’t count, only the one the KPD went down with, the materially correct if strategically awkward theory of social fascism
Straight up clown shit lmao how tf are they still operating?
Nazis left most of them alone as long as they kept their heads down, so they survived the war. Western allies put some of them in positions of power when they formed the first occupation governments, because the liberals and conservatives had all pretty much joined the Nazis. This didn't last long of course, denazification was called off and fascists that swore they were now democrats got back in power almost immediately. But the class-collaborationist and anti-communist SPD was, unlike the KPD, not repressed at all, so they became the default and only workers' party. Then they gave up on being a workers' party in order to appeal to bourgeoise media, social climbers, and the industrial sector, and became a generic leftish-liberal party in what was (almost) a two-party system.