Robinson successfully defended his school from closure, fought for the unification of the teaching unions, mentored future trade union leaders and transformed teaching at the Marx Memorial Library, writes JOHN FOSTER
Stefan Heym: a central witness to socialism
Fleeing the Nazis to become a best-selling author in the US, then forced by Mccarthyism to settle in the GDR in the '50s, he would go on to open the reunified German parliament in 1994. JOHN ELLISON remembers a remarkable leftist
After leaving the US in the 1950's, writer Stefan Heym returned to Germany, living — sometimes as a critic of the government — in the GDR until it was dismantled. He died in a reunified Germany in 2001.
A judge in a German court ruled that the ban activity imposed on renowned Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR
From Gaza protest bans to proscribing Palestine Action, political elites are showing a crisis of confidence as they abandon Roy Jenkins’s apologetic approach for Suella Braverman’s aggressive ‘hate march’ rhetoric, writes PAUL DONOVAN
ANSELM ELDERGILL examines the legal case behind this weekend’s Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival and the lessons for today
Ben Chacko talks to RMT leader EDDIE DEMPSEY about how the key to fixing broken Britain lies in collective sectoral bargaining, restoring unions’ ability to take solidarity strike action and bringing about the much-vaunted ‘wave of insourcing’
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
STEFAN HEYM — journalist, novelist, essayist — and a lifelong socialist, died 20 years ago, aged 88, on December 16 2001. His unfading commitment to humanity through his writing and actions must be remembered and celebrated.
Born in 1913 into a prosperous Jewish family in the industrial east German town of Chemnitz, he was Helmut Flieg until he changed his name after fleeing to Czechoslovakia in March 1933, the youngest literary escapee from the newly installed Nazi regime. More than one change of country lay ahead for him.
The Flieg family’s textile business had no attraction for the growing Helmut. In September 1931, already anti-militarist, he produced a poem prompted by a newspaper report of German military officers being sent to China as instructors.
More from this author
The summer of 1950 saw Labour abandon further nationalisation while escalating Korean War spending from £2.3m to £4.7m, as the government meekly accepted capitalism’s licence and became Washington’s yes-man, writes JOHN ELLISON
JOHN ELLISON looks back at Labour’s opportunistic tendency, when in office, to veer to the right on policy as well as ideological worldview
JOHN ELLISON recalls the momentous role of the French resistance during WWII
JOHN ELLISON looks back to the 1974 general election in Greece which freed the people from the oppressive military junta
