Left History (E-Journal - York University)
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Autogestion: Correcting the History of Self Management
Full text linkThis article describes the history of the origins of the important principle of autogestion (autogestion in French, autogestión in Spanish, generally self-management in English) and straightening its often-confused origin story. Based in an examination of mid-twentieth century French scholarship, journals, and political documents, this article argues that the term did not arise out of Yugoslavia of the 1950s, or the French student movement of 1968, but from a collective of Algerian revolutionaries at the point of Algeria’s independence 1962-1965. Furthermore, the article corrects some English translations of the word in historical documents that have further confused its history and had an impact on how the principle was adopted in the English-speaking world. The origin of the term is important because within its grammar is the most important shift in leftist social movements of the twentieth century: the shift from “worker” or “peasant” as the revolutionary subject to a variety of collective selves in the “new” identity-based social movements of the 1960s and beyond. To recuperate autogestion’s origins as North African is to recuperate a portion of the importance of Global South activists and political thinkers to the 1968 student movements that have been so defining of our contemporary political landscape
What Happened at the Tepebaşı Theater? A Tale of the Cold War on the Periphery
Full text linkIn 1956, a group of young Turkish poets and writers staged a public protest at Istanbul’s Tepebaşı Drama Theater. The protest against the literary establishment was later portrayed as a communist insurgence by the mainstream press. This article discusses the significance of the protest and its aftermath, and explores the importance of the Cold War context in understanding its long-term consequences regarding Turkish cultural and political history. While the cultural Cold War studies mostly focus on the centre, the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, and tend to reduce the Cold War’s cultural impact on the periphery to propaganda wars, this article argues that the Cold War’s repercussions on peripheral cultures are more nuanced than the conventional narratives. The public reception of the Tepebaşı Drama Theater protest is an illustrious example of the tensions between culture and ideology on the periphery during the Cold War era
The Legacies of the British and the French Decolonization Process in Asia and Africa: A Comparative Study
Full text linkFighting for Political Influence: The Tactics of the Dutch Bijlmer Squatters' movement, 1974-1975
Full text linkIn 1974, a collective of Surinamese migrants in the Netherlands took to squatting in an effort to break out of their deplorable housing situation. When faced with evictions, the squatters employed a variety of protest tactics, ranging from nonviolent marches and sit-ins to anti-capitalist songs and the forging of ties with the Dutch new left. This article examines the protest repertoire employed by these ‘Bijlmer squatters’—named after the neighbourhood in which they occupied a flat—and analyzes through which tactics this collective managed to increase its political clout in the face of exploitation and political voicelessness. The article does so by building on recent reinterpretations of Antonio Gramsci’s notion of political voicelessness, or ‘subalternity,’ and by bringing together developments in global history, history from below and social movement studies. After examining how the squatters adapted civil rights-style nonviolent tactics in their dealings with Dutch officials, the article scrutinizes the four types of solidarity that the squatters fostered behind the front line. The article concludes that the squatters’ locally specific reconfiguration of globally circulating tactics, combined with their efforts to construct political alliances, helped the movement in gaining political agency, even if the squatters’ situation was still largely determined by Dutch political ruling classes
‘Messiah of the Masses and Prophet of the Proletariat’: Reexamining Eugene Debs in the Framework of Spiritual Socialism
Full text linkThe following paper is concerned with the role that Christianity played in the discourse, life, and campaign of the prominent American socialist, Eugene Debs. Considering that socialism in the United States is often deemed impossible due to a myriad of factors—a prominent one being the underlying Protestant ethos of the state—Debs’ campaigns earned unprecedented support for the presidency in 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920. I contend that Debs’ presidential campaigns offer a unique case for exploring the reconciliation of a secular socialist program with the Protestant and individualistic ethos of American society. Though an avowed secularist, it is well documented that Debs’ admired the historical Jesus, and he notably challenged the alignment of the Protestant Churches with industrial capitalism at the turn of the twentieth century. Using first and secondhand documentation on Debs’ campaigns, this paper proposes that Debs’ presentation of socialism as a necessary and logical expression of Christianity was important for overcoming the ideational barrier that Protestant Christianity poses for socialist candidates in the US. Where scholars like Jacob Dorn contend that Debs was effective at overcoming the “either-or” thinking that often plagues orthodox socialism, I contend that Debs’ appeal to a Jesus-centered Christianity importantly presented a new “either-or” maxim, where Christians were faced with choosing between capitalist Churchianity, or true Christianity.  
Agrarian Reforms, Modes of Production and Farm Bills 2020 in Punjab
Full text linkIn the light of historical developments and the nature of Punjab’s agrarian milieu, this paper examines the latest agrarian intervention proposed by the State- ’Farm Bills 2020’. The paper begins with an analysis current mode of production in Punjab by investigating factors like institutional credit market, land prices, accumulation of capital, input-output ratio, commodification, commercialization, labor functions, and technological modernity. This is followed by a discussion on the historical background of agrarian reforms in Punjab. This discussion attempts to identify causes of proliferation and impacts of Arhtiya class of Intermediaries.
In this way, the present paper seeks to study the nature of the intervention purported by the Farm Bills in terms of its interaction with the transforming social contradictions, and possible implications on the socio-economic framework, rural sociology, and existing agrarian relations in Punjab