After years hidden away, Oldham’s memorial to six local volunteers who died fighting fascism in the Spanish civil war has been restored to public view, marking both a victory for campaigners and a renewed tribute to the town’s proud International Brigade heritage, says ROB HARGREAVES
No-one will rescue us from the far right ‘from above’ – solidarity and social struggle are what’s needed
MARINE LE PEN’S fascistic Rassemblement National pulled ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron’s liberal-centrist party earlier this month in polling for the European Parliament elections in May.
Macron’s response? He floated the idea of honouring second world war quisling Marshall Petain as a hero of the first world war, brushing aside the customary cordon sanitaire around the leader of the occupation Vichy regime in the 1940s.
Days apart, the liberal mayor of Warsaw moved to ban an annual far-right demonstration timed to usurp Poland’s independence day falling last Sunday.
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TONY CONWAY assesses the lessons of the 1930s and looks at what is similar, and what is different, about the rise of the far right today
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With federal elections coming up in Germany in February, NICK WRIGHT takes a look at the class forces shaping the policies of the main parties, and sees little hope of a breakthrough for the left



