Eastern Europe

On Sunday 25 March David Cameron wrote a piece for the Sun railing about so-called health and benefit tourism by migrants! He carefully calibrated his language so as to appear reasonable — the sane alternative to UKIP was the image he was going for. He made a nod to “Polish wartime heros” and “hard working” West Indian migrants who helped us “rebuild” Britain after the war. But the underlying message was clear enough: “Hey you, East European good for nothing, if you think you're going to get more than £8 an hour and a bed on a park bench, bugger off”! His claims were spurious. He said migrants...

In Greece, a place all too familiar with poverty and the results of “austerity”, Bulgaria is reknowned for starvation wages (although the cost of living is far cheaper), the host country for Greek companies looking for cheap labour and as the site of dangerous nuclear power plants. “You do not want to become like Bulgaria” has been the cry of the Greek’s mainstream politicians and media acolytes - although recently the most “adventurous” of the Greek politicians and capitalists have been flirting with the idea of the Greek minimum wage and workers’ rights sinking to Bulgarian standards. Then...

The resignation of the Bulgarian government on Tuesday 19 February amid escalating popular protests provides an illustration of the way in which austerity and neo-liberalism interact — and, more positively, the way in which this can lead resistance. The protests were sparked by the continually rising energy prices that have resulted from the privatisation of the state monopoly in electrical distribution in 2005, which have doubled and in some cases tripled. Government austerity has resulted in what the International Trade Union Confederation has called “catastrophic social consequences” and...

Roma, Traveller, and socialist activists demonstrated outside the Czech and Slovakian embassies in Kensington on Tuesday 13 November against the policy of “special schools” for Roma children in these countries. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has called the schools “Educational Apartheid”. The schools, which are invariably inferior and chronically underfunded, have continued to exist in defiance of a ECHR ruling, and illustrate the rising tide of anti-Roma persecution across the former Eastern Bloc. One activist told Solidarity : “I’ve been involved in Roma solidarity for over fifty...

A declaration issued by a workers' committee in Poland in 1989. Published in our pamphlet "Eastern Europe: towards capitalism or workers' liberty?" Declaration of the Wroclaw Regional Workers' Committee of the Polish Socialist Party-Democratic Revolution 1. Getting rid of all the vestiges of the totalitarian regimes • Abolishing the mechanisms of the state's domination over the society, and primarily, the dissolution of the SB (political police), the ZOMO (anti-riot police) and the ORMO (auxiliary police), as well as revising the penal code with the objective of guaranteeing democratic...

Stan Crooke’s article on Hungary’s Fidesz government ( Solidarity 235) outlined its right-wing, anti-democratic programme. It is worth also noting the rising popularity of Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary). In the 2010 election Jobbik won 17% of the vote. Fidesz’s spell in government has done nothing to undermine that support. Though the ruling alliance of Fidesz and Christian Democrats leads opposition parties, at the end of 2011 polls put Jobbik on 21%, just behind the Socialists on 22%. Moreover, Jobbik is very popular with young voters, enjoying 30% among the 18-37 age group. Jobbik...

In Hungary, capitalist crisis has led to triumph for the right, not the left. In late 2011, the Bloomberg corporation classed Hungary as the eighth-riskiest economy in the world — second only to Greece as a likely candidate for bankruptcy. Two ratings agencies have downgraded Hungary’s public debt to junk status. In October, December and January investors were not prepared to buy bonds put up for sale by the government. The market price of Hungary’s bonds already in circulation fell so that the (fixed) interest payments on them now represent a yield of 10% a year. The forint, the Hungarian...

The push for new cuts in Greece is backed up by ever-increasing “carefully” leaked scenarios of a disorderly Greek bankruptcy as early as March and the expulsion of Greece from the eurozone. Merkel and Sarkozy are exercising severe pressure on the Greek government to reduce Greek labour costs further towards the levels of Portugal and Bulgaria. The Greek media were jubilant that Papademos has forced the Troika to withdraw its demand for the abolition of the 13th and 14th months’ wages traditionally paid to Greek workers. But what Papademos has agreed with the Troika will take from Greek...

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