Talking Seattle

THE EVENTS in Seattle at the end of last year marked a turning point for a generation of activists. The 'Seattle effect' has reverberated across the globe. John Charlton posted a questionnaire on the internet in the weeks following the protests.
The responses he received from people who took part in the Battle of Seattle form the basis of an exciting piece that gives us a taste of the enormity of what really happened when 'we' shut down the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Abbie Bakan explores the background of the Seattle protests by looking at the history of the WTO and the prospects for challenging it. An insight into the intellectual basis of the protests is given by Mark O'Brien, as he looks at the life and work of campaigner and economist Susan George.
THE NEW WORLD ORDER behind the WTO has shown its ugly face in Russia's bloody war against Chechnya. Rob Ferguson provides us with a Marxist analysis of the power struggle in the region and the fight against Russian imperialism. last year's war in the Balkans was the inspiration for the recent Russian onslaught. Lindsey German revisits the region and gives an overview of the history of the Balkan question in a review of Misha Glenny’s The Balkans 1804-1990.
THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR shook the imperialist powers of the time, but the real story of the Bolshevik victory has been shrouded in myth. Megan Trudell vindicates the strategy and tactics of the Bolsheviks and sets her account of the civil war in the context of the ongoing crisis of the world system.
BOOK REVIEWS in this issue include Robin Blackburn, editor of New Left Review, on Chris Harman's A People's History of the World, Jim Wolfreys on a newly discovered work by Georg Lukåcs, unearthed from the Communist Party archives in Moscow, and Judy Cox on David Harvey's account of Marxist economics.