International news in brief


USA: Socialist Alternative step up campaigning

As the Socialist goes to press, elections to Seattle City Council are taking place. Socialist Alternative (SA, co-thinkers of the Socialist Party) members and supporters have been campaigning, all-out, to re-elect Kshama Sawant.

Kshama and SA have championed the introduction of a $15 an hour minimum wage in the city as well as fighting for affordable housing for the working class.

This has meant organising alongside workers and tenants to take on the city’s entrenched Democratic Party machine with its corporate and landlord backing.

Election results will be published after 3 November on www.socialistworld.net


Russia: Kremlin enters the Syrian quagmire

Rob Jones writes from Moscow on how the effects of the wars and armed conflicts in Syria and Ukraine pursued by Putin, along with Russia’s economic crisis, are merging to deepen the country’s worsening poverty, corruption and despair.

However, if the working class was to move into action to prevent wage cuts, jobs losses and budget cuts, it would also inevitably lead to opposing the authoritarian policies of the ruling elite.

See article on www.socialistworld.net


Polish ruling party loses election amid workers’ anger

Poland’s recent general election resulted in defeat for the eight-year rule of the neoliberal Civic Platform and victory for the conservative opposition Law and Justice party.

As Kacper Pluta, Alternatywa Socjalistyczna (CWI, Poland) explains, despite receiving huge funds from the European Union, the government failed to solve the deep crisis in infrastructure and public service delivery.

However, notwithstanding months of workers’ struggles before the election, the trade union leaders left the electoral field clear for Law and Justice to capitalise on the discontent.