The story of Bob White will only provide a living legacy if it inspires workers and unions to draw on elements of his achievements to figure out anew how unions can once again mobilize their members and their communities and lead the more general struggles for equality, justice, solidarity and a more meaningful democracy.

the claims that a new trade union federation will be launched in March 2017, it is appropriate to draw up a balance sheet of the labour movement in South Africa, and ask whether the optimism of many that a new Left force is going to be unleashed is justified. Or whether the possibilities for a force of revolutionary working class politics lie elsewhere.

The renewed struggle for self-determination of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and Québec is slowly changing the character of left politics across the country, as the long overdue reckoning with the brutal historic dispossession of the original inhabitants of the places we call Canada and Québec “unsettles” our ways of seeing, putting the concept of settler-colonialism in the centre of much contemporary left analysis and activism.

The alliances that socialist parties would have to enter into, not least in face of the growing threat from the far right of the political spectrum, should not just be amongst elites but be directed at new working-class formation of the broadest possible kind, and aimed at developing its actual potential to become the transformative agent in a transition to socialism.

For those of us long enough in the tooth to recall what it was like ‘way back when’, there is sometimes a distinct whiff of something like the old sectarianism in the air these days. And it most often comes, oddly enough, from precisely those quarters which contrast their embrace of ecological and intersectional issues today with the alleged neglect of such by earlier socialist generations.

Scenes from the Fidel Castro funeral procession and memorial gathering in Santiago de Cuba, December 3, 2016. “Late morning. Thousands begin to line the streets as the memorial procession completes its cross-country journey, on the very streets where the Cuban revolution began with a daring (if unsuccessful) attack on the Moncada Barracks.”

While not a topic without coverage, the question of socialism within the New Democratic Party — and Canada more generally — tends to come in waves. One recent example has come from Toronto Star columnist Rick Salutin’s assertion that the NDP must re-embrace socialism, if only to offer strategic differentiation vis-à-vis the Trudeau Liberals.

There’s been a strange summer-long silence from the NDP. Last week, after the near terror event in Strathroy, they should have been vocal on Bill C-51, the terror bill. The Liberals looked paralyzed and the Tories had their hard line. The NDP should own this, it was their only winner last election. But they went quiet.

Canadians don’t need to rely on capitalists to provide social necessities, or accept a system of economic organization that provides basic services only when they are profitable. Ultimately, postal banking has practical value in its own right. In the longer term, its greatest value might be how it represents a change in how Canadians view their economy.

Edited by CD founder Cy Gonick with chapters from 25 writers who evaluate how CD discussed diverse subjects over a span of 50 years: 50 years of class struggle; 50 Years in Indian Country; 50 Years of Art & Culture; 50 Years of making socialism; 50 Years of rebelling youth; 50 years of anti-racism, human rights and immigration advocacy and much more.