The Tories introduced the 50% strike ballot threshold to make industrial action harder. MATT WRACK argues that a Labour government has no justification for leaving it on the statute book
THE Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union 80 years ago was based on three strategic objectives — Leningrad in the north, Moscow in the centre and the oilfields of Baku in the south. It was to be a war of extermination. The specific battle order to ordinary soldiers includes the word “annihilation.”
Moscow was to be flooded and covered over. A research group attached to Barbarossa was calculating how long it would take to starve all the inhabitants of Leningrad to death. One million died, 90 per cent through starvation.
Up to 30 million Ukrainians were to be starved to death with their land and property given over to resettled Germans. This was the reality of Lebensraum. All Jews would be killed. With the notorious Commissar Order all communist officials would be killed.
Poland’s anger over Ukraine’s celebration of the Nazi collaborationist UPA reflects more than historical grievance, says KENNY COYLE
Driven by anti-fascism and anger at Britain’s policy of non-intervention, thousands volunteered to fight in the Spanish civil war. Historian RICHARD BAXELL reflects on their sacrifices and enduring significance
In a speech to the 12th Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, SEVIM DAGDELEN warns of a growing historical revisionism to whitewash Germany and Japan’s role in WWII as part of a return to a cold war strategy from the West — but multipolarity will win out


