Under the Weight of the Soviet Legacy and Political Repressions: The Radical Left in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia

Mass protest movements of the early 2010s, particularly the Occupy movement, stimulated the rise of radical left organizations globally. In Southern Europe, radical left parties celebrated their first electoral successes. In Russia, radical left organizations were also influenced by this upsurge of social protest movements and participated in the Bolotnaya protests in 2011–2012 but were marginalized and disintegrated shortly after, resuming their activities only by 2019. This article explores the radical left movements and groups in Russia and offers projections for their future. The Russian radical left is divided into three sub-groups: fundamentalist communists who identify with Stalin and the Soviet Union, libertarian socialists and communists (subdivided into neo-anarchists, autonomists, and neo-Trotskyists), and hybrid organizations (e.g., the Left Front). These organizations face two major constraints unknown to their Western counterparts. First, Russia’s authoritarian regime blocks opportunities for independent, particularly electoral, politics. This reveals itself in targeted repressions against left radicals and anarchists. Second, the dominance of the CPRF blocks any potential of strong left opposition. Unless these restrictions are lifted, radical left organizations in Russia will not be able to overcome their current crisis.

Białoruski protest z 2020 r. w sieci

The development of information technologies and social networks makes it possible to significantly increase the effectiveness of the mechanisms of social self-organisation and politicisation of wider social masses, thus influencing the processes of democratisation of societies and political systems. This particularly applies to post-Soviet states. The development of the socio-political crisis that began in Belarus in August 2020 can be a very valuable subject for research into the impact of modern digital tools (messengers, social networks, crowdfunding, and so on) on the dynamics of changes in post-Soviet transforming systems. The main objective of this article is to systematise and present the impact and influence that modern digital tools have had on the nature and dynamics of the ongoing Belarusian political crisis and social protest.

The AMIGAS Model: Reconciling Prejudice Reduction and Collective Action Approaches Through a Multicultural Commitment in Intergroup Relations

Social psychology’s search for ways to address intergroup inequality has grappled with two approaches that have been considered incompatible: (a) the prejudice reduction approach, that argues that changing individual negative attitudes will undermine the basis for discrimination and lead to intergroup harmony; and (b) the collective action approach, that argues that social protest and activism can improve the position of disadvantaged groups. The problem is that efforts toward prejudice reduction may serve to suppress genuine efforts to change. We propose the Achieving Multicultural Integration of Groups Across Society (AMIGAS) model, in which a multicultural commitment is proposed as a driver of both improved intergroup evaluations and promotion of collective action for reduced inequality, especially in contexts where there are conditions for a respectful intercultural dialogue. The AMIGAS model is a theoretical advance in the field of intergroup relations and a basis for implementing effective egalitarian policies and practices.

Societal discontent will increase in Bahrain

Significance Although large-scale social protest in Bahrain has been cowed over the ten years since the ‘Arab uprisings’, small-scale demonstrations recur, reflecting a base level of discontent. Mobilising issues include economic pressures, limited political representation (especially of the Shia majority) and, most recently, ties with Israel. Impacts Despite protests, Israel’s and Bahrain’s respective ambassadors will keep up high-profile activity and statements. The authorities are likely to exaggerate the role of Iranian interference in order to deepen the Sunni-Shia divide. If Riyadh manages to extricate itself from the Yemen war, that could partly reduce the pressure on Manama.

The Contagious Effects of Rural Violence: Social Pathologies and Injured Bodies in Blasco Ibáñez’s La barraca (The Cabin)

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s La barraca (The Cabin, 1898) presents a vivid portrait of the struggles of the rural population of the Valencian huerta. When the local people prevent a plot of land from being cultivated as an act of popular resistance against the landowning class, the arrival of Batiste Borrull provokes a campaign of marginalisation and aggression against his family. The collective violence of the mob enacted by men, women and children is unleashed against his daughter Roseta, his sons, and finally five-year-old Pascualet, who is pushed into an irrigation ditch by hostile boys and contracts a fatal infection. The mounting brutality that culminates in the death of a young child becomes a powerful manifestation of social pathologies including rural primitivism, alcoholism and entrenched poverty. This article explores ideological and discursive contexts for the portrait of rural violence at the turn of the twentieth century, including class-based theories of degeneration and crowd psychology. It also examines the trope of stagnant water that courses through the plain as a symbol of contamination, echoing the moral sickness of rural society. Critics have argued that in his social protest novels, Blasco Ibáñez denounces the idle and degenerate bourgeoisie, following instead the anarchist and socialist argument that the vices of the proletariat are the result of capitalist exploitation (Fuentes 2009). By contrast, this article proposes that La barraca underscores the primitivism and pathological violence of the landless rural labourers, thereby reinforcing a bourgeois ideological foundation for the exposition of social injustice in late nineteenth-century Spain.

Social Protest in Russian America

This article analyzes social protest in the Russian colonies in Alaska and Northern California. The main reasons for protests were the actions of the colonial administration or abuse by its representatives, along with dissatisfaction with the financial situation, rules, conditions, and remuneration for labor, as well as shortages of commodities and food for a considerable part of the population of the Russian colonies. Protest activity in Russian America was relatively insignificant, and its primary forms were complaints, minor economic sabotage, and desertion. Most protest acts took place during the 1790s–1800s, when the colonial system was formed, and exploitation of dependent natives and Russian promyshlenniki (hired hunters of fur-bearing animals) reached its peak. The representatives of the Russian-American Company who managed Alaska from 1799 on tried to block protest activity and not allow open displays of dissatisfaction, since the result could hinder trade, business, and finally, profits and its image in the eyes of the tsar’s authorities.

La política queer es cosa de niñes: Imaginarios infantiles, afectos ingenuos y repertorios visuales de la protesta sexual contemporánea en Argentina

This article explores the ways in which a series of artistic activism groups in the recent history of social protest in Argentina, including Mujeres Públicas, Fugitivas del Desierto and Serigrafistas Queer, linked to the feminist, lesbian and sex-dissident movements, occupied public space and social mobilizations through a set of visual devices and performative actions that can be thought of as forms of queer appropriation of childish imaginaries. Appealing to the critical resemantization of the hetero-reproductive economies inscribed both in the bodily choreographies of popular games and in the material life of the toys they used, these groups mobilized public images through naive affects such as cuteness, tenderness and joy to make visible, interrupt, and also divert the productive scripts of modern sex-politics and instituted notions of politics. --- Este artículo explora los modos en que una serie de grupos de activismo artístico en la historia reciente de la protesta en Argentina, entre ellos Mujeres Públicas, Fugitivas del Desierto y Serigrafistas Queer, vinculados a los movimientos feministas, lésbicos y sexodisidentes, ocuparon el espacio público, y las movilizaciones sociales, a través de un conjunto de dispositivos visuales y acciones performáticas que pueden pensarse como formas de apropiación queer de los imaginarios infantiles. Apelando, entonces, a la resemantización crítica de las economías heteroreproductivas inscritas tanto en las coreografías corporales de los juegos populares como en la vida material de los juguetes que utilizaron, movilizaron imágenes públicas a través de afectos ingenuos como lo lindo, la ternura y la alegría para visibilizar, interrumpir y desviar los guiones productivos de la sexopolítica moderna y las nociones instituidas del acontecimiento político.