Solidarity 258, 26 September 2012

Zola's vision of socialism

The BBC are now showing a major adaptation of one of Emile Zola’s more neglected novels 'Au Bonheur des Dames' (sometimes translated as 'The Ladies Paradise'). This is a good excuse as any to look again at a great but overlooked work. Quite a few people (especially on the left) have read Emile Zola’s novel 'Germinal' with its grim realistic depiction of class struggle in the coalfields of northern France. Others have also read 'Le Bete Humaine' and 'Therese Raquin' which are intense psychological thrillers obsessed with sex and death. Compared to these 'The Ladies Paradise' can seem like a...

China's new worker militants

The Hong Kong based NGO China Labour Bulletin (CLB) was set up in 1994. Its founder, a former railway worker, helped establish - during the 1989 Tiananmen Square revolutionary uprising - the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation. This was China’s first, but short-lived, independent trade union. In March this year CLB produced a report assessing the development of the workers’ movement in China during the first decade of the twenty-first century. This article summarises the appraisal made in this report . Han Dongfang, founder of the CLB, speaking in Tiananmen Square 1989 as a representative...

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