In Albania, since 4 December 2018, thousands of students have been continuously demonstrating against the degradation and injustices of the education system. The initial spark for these protests was an increase in tuition fees, cancelled by the government two days after the first demonstrations. But the demands of the students have now gone well beyond this initial grievance and target the generally poor conditions of public universities. Note: the student activist interviewed for this article is not affiliated with the IMT in any way, and we do not necessarily share all of their views.

Alek Atevik, a member of the Central Committee of the Macedonian organization Levitsa(Left) and a leading figure in the Yugoslav section of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), spoke to Epanastasi [‘Revolution’] about nationalist myths and the need for internationalist class solidarity.

Long hailed as a success story and as a model for the future of Serbian industry, the Fiat factory in Serbia stopped working a few days ago, when its production workers went on an all-out strike.

The Kragujevac FIAT-Chrysler's strike in Serbia continues, having entered its seventh day. Of the more than 2,400 workers, at least two thousand have downed tools since June 26th. Only 250 "white collar" workers have decided for now not to take part in the strike.

The events in Macedonia over the past 2 years have shown that the negotiations of political elites have no capacity to bear fruitful, real or reliable solutions to systemic problems that perpetually generate space for criminal and authoritarian practice.

Despite there being no genuine challenge from the all but broken opposition, the regime of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić decided to call early elections at state, provincial and municipal levels. His intention was, undoubtedly to try and top-up the majority he won in the previous elections and to garner a perception of there being an increased popular support for his policies.

As of October, this year, the Marxist Organisation “Crveni” (“Reds”) will be producing a monthly publication in Serbo-Croatian, called “Crvena kritika” (“Red Critique”) and distributing it throughout Yugoslav lands.

"When you sell the American or European Dream to the rest of the world, while at the same time turning the lives of the peoples outside those continents into the darkest nightmares imaginable, it is really no surprise that at some point you’ll have a mass movement towards the self-proclaimed promised lands."

At least 100,000 protesters took to the streets on May 17th sporting crimson banners and flags of all nationalities. There would likely have been more had the Macedonian government not blocked buses of protesters streaming from all over the country to Skopje.

For the first time since the break-up of Yugoslavia, the workers and poor of Macedonia, following the examples set in Bosnia, are uniting across national divisions in mass protests against the government. The terrorist attacks have not divided, but strengthened and united the movement.

The terrorist attack that took place in Kumanovo on 9th and 10th May resembled in its intensity the incidents that occurred during the conflict of 2001, when similarly fierce battles were waged in the villages near Kumanovo, Slupcane, Matejce, Vaksince and other places. The Kumanovo region has always been inhabited by a mixture of peoples (Macedonians, Albanians, Serbs, Roma, Turks, etc), but it is also a region with a long tradition of coexistence and joint struggle over and above national divisions.

The workers of the Tuzla-based detergent factory DITA in Bosnia and Herzegovina have occupied their workplace and are refusing to recognise the authority of the trustee managing the bankruptcy, unless the interests of the workers are protected, or new investment is found to reactivate the factory.

A few days ago, I was asked to write an article about the current situation in Bosnia and the prospects for a radical change in the socio-political situation there. However, given the new developments in Bosnia and its neighbouring countries, I could not avoid writing about the situation in the Balkans as a more or less unitary whole. Given the mythology about the Balkans as a region divided by primitive tribes and pre-modern barbarians that is perpetuated in the western media, it might seem absurd to talk about the Balkans in this way. Nonetheless, for centuries, the peoples of the peninsula have shared the same plight, as victims of European imperialism.

The current protest movement in Bosnia represents a new and higher stage in the molecular process of the European revolution. The heroic revolutionary movement of the Bosnian workers and youth is a shining example for future movements in Europe and all over the world.

We here publish an article written by one of our readers in Croatia. Although we may not agree with everything in the article, it gives a good insight into the present situation throughout the Balkans.