On the Barricades

We are deeply disturbed by the events in Ukraine, which have once again turned Eastern Europe into a theater of deadly war. We are heartbroken to see brotherly nations killing each other again, as they did in the Balkans in the early 1990s. The hosts of On the Barricades have recorded this special edition of the program to analyze the current military and political circumstances that the public is...

In the newest episode of On the Barricades, we discuss advocating for labor rights with Judit Zeller, a member of Hungarian Civil Liberties Union. The topic is the teachers strike in Hungary and disobedience declared by some teachers because of repressive measures by governments. All started in October 2021. After the joint action of the two largest labour unions in the domain, the courts become t...

The dramatic events in Ukraine over the last 96 hours constitute a disaster, the full scope of which remains unknown. There is no doubt that the Russian president gave the order to invade, and he, as well as the Russian government, are directly responsible for the death toll and other atrocities that the ongoing war has resulted in thus far and will result in until the conflict is resolved. Moral...

The dramatic events in Ukraine over the last 96 hours constitute a disaster, the full scope of which remains unknown. There is no doubt that the Russian president gave the order to invade, and he, as well as the Russian government, are directly responsible for the death toll and other atrocities that the ongoing war has resulted in thus far and will result in until the conflict is resolved. Moral...

In an interview recorded on Feb. 23rd, Buzarov says the Russians have invaded and violated Ukrainian sovereignty. Buzgalin says the people of Donbass have a right to independence if they choose, but a peace movement should be built to oppose the oligarchs and bureaucrats on all sides who are inflaming the situation for profits. This video was realized in cooperation between The Analysis and The Ba...

Much has been said about the ongoing global conflict between American imperialism and the Russian bear, which appears to have awoken from its long winter slumber. Global public opinion has been bombarded with a slew of misinformation and misinterpretations based on the ideological biases of various media outlets. With massive propaganda exercises on both the Western and Russian sides, the informat...

In the midst of the escalating tensions in and around Ukraine, the hosts of On the barricades have invited a special guest who is a political scientist, security analyst, and academic currently residing in Kiev. Andrey Buzarov is originally from Donyetsk, and he not only shares his expertise and comments on current events, but he also provides an insightful perspective of someone who is on the gro...

In 2016, Poles took to the streets to protest a total ban on abortions imposed by the Law and Justice Polish party that took power in 2015. The movement was called The Black Protest and it was a successful way of opposing the anti-abortion legislation. Unfortunately, in 2021, the Polish Catholic fundamentalists managed to enshrine a complete ban on abortion into the Polish constitution. The unprec...

Disclaimer: Due to a technical failure that we were unaware of during the recording, a large portion of the audio in this segment featuring Boyan Stanislavski is muted. We apologize to all of our viewers and listeners. In 2016, Poles took to the streets to protest a total ban on abortions imposed by the Law and Justice Polish party that took power in 2015. The movement was called the Black Protest...

In its third part, thumbs-up, thumbs-down offers discussions about imminent war in Ukraine (for the last three months already), the energy prices and Russia, and the crazes over Spotify's censorship of celebrities that promote anti-vax messages. All that is handled with critical thought and calmness. Our world needs more resistance to hysteria. Parts and timings: 00:00:00 Yuri's position: There's...

The second part of Thumbs-up, Thumbs-down revolves around a number of developments in the world; some of them funny, some of them serious, some of them sad. Tony Blair receives a knighthood. A Canadian anti-vaxx truck convoy protest takes place. Polish catholic fundamentalist lawyers battle physically over infidelity and divorces in their ranks. On the other hand, the issue of the Left in Central...

The first part of the Thumbs-up, Thumbs-down session of the podcast On the Barricades offers an amazing set of failures that were generated in Romania and presented by Maria Cernat. Among them: the plagiarism of the Prime Minister, the one million mistakenly supercharged electricity bills and the constant prioritization of military acquisition from the US to the detriment of social services budget...

The more tensions increase in Ukraine, and the situation is amplified by increasingly erratic media narratives, the more difficult it gets to comprehend the entire scenario occurring in front of our eyes. Despite this, many people are seeking to understand the issue and, at the very least, look beyond the mainstream media's simplistic explanations of one side being bad and the other being good. We...

The more tensions rise in Ukraine, and the situation is exaggerated by increasingly deranged media narratives, the more difficult it becomes to make sense of the entire crisis unfolding before our eyes. Nonetheless, many people are attempting to comprehend the situation and, at the very least, look beyond the superficial explanations of one side being bad and the other being good that the mainstre...

Stanislav Byshok, a Russian political scientist, is our guest this time. He earned a PhD after graduating from Moscow State University, and he is frequently described as a scholar deconstructing nationalism and populism in international researcher databases. He’s written a number of books and reports on current Russian, Ukrainian, and European politics. Stanislav Byshok will explain the attitudes...

Stanislav Byshok, a Russian political scientist, is our guest this time. He earned a PhD after graduating from Moscow State University, and he is frequently described as a scholar deconstructing nationalism and populism in international researcher databases. He's written a number of books and reports on current Russian, Ukrainian, and European politics. Stanislav Byshok will explain the attitudes...

In the second part ( part 1 ) of our discussion with Pat Byrne on the outcomes of the Summit for Democracy, which was held in early January, we discuss how American and other Western organizations manipulate political realities in Eastern Europe (and elsewhere) by claiming to be intervening in favor of democracy or against corruption. However, from the standpoint of those two concepts, the situati...

The American government hosted a global conference called the Summit for Democracy in early January. We discussed it at the time with Pat Byrne ( part 1 , part 2 ), a long-time socialist activist and historian. Today, after a few weeks have passed and all of the emotions have played out in the media, we can address the event's outcomes in an assertive and political manner. Was the American leaders...

It was predictable, but it was still disappointing. The western media began their usual campaign of support for anything that could be construed as anti-Russian. It was their usual agitation for those ‘fighting for their freedom,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘human rights.’ The Russian media has also taken their usual stance: Provocation! CIA! CIA! They want to destabilize Russia! While both of those narrati...

What exactly happened last week in Kazakhstan? This is a question that many people have. Was this a genuine protest, or a western-led American jab in Russia's soft underbelly? Was this a working-class movement or yet another post-Soviet attempt at a color revolution? It appears that there was a little bit of everything. The context is one of deep contradictions in Kazakhstan's ruling class and soc...

At the beginning of January, a stunning series of events occurred in Kazakhstan, a major Central Asian country. In comparison to many other states with a similar history of ties to the USSR, this post-Soviet republic was largely a success story. Another significant difference is that Kazakhstan, with the support of Russia and the CSTO, prevented a color revolution from taking place just last week....

Join us on this edition of On the barricades to discuss more with Veronika Sušová-Salminen. Veronika is one of the members who worked on the project A Hundred Shades of the EU – Mapping the Political Economy of the Euro Peripheries with the support of Transform! Europe and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. In this segment of our show, we will discuss the way European peripheries were pushed even furt...

Veronika Sušová-Salminen is our guest On the barricades this time. She is a researcher from the Czech Republic, who produced a report on the peripheries of the European Union in a project supported by Transform! Europe in collaboration with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. The project’s name is catchy and self-explanatory: A Hundred Shades of the EU — Mapping the Political Economy of the Euro Periph...

Last week Poles took to the streets to protest a controversial media bill adopted by the Parliament. The bill regulates the foreign ownership of media in Poland stipulating that media channels have to be owned by entities based in Poland or in the Eurozone. One of the most important TV channels in Poland is TVN24 and it’s owned by the US media corporation Discovery INC. This channel happens to be...

Thousands of migrants are currently encamped near the Polish-Belarus border. They are mostly from the Middle East, and their goal is to cross Poland and into Germany. Tensions grew for months, and the Polish declared a state of emergency across the border, barring non-governmental organizations and journalists from entering the area. Nonetheless, Polish journalists and activists were able to reach...