In Russia the Federal Security Service is again creating political provocative trials against "leftist terrorism." The author shows the legal and political fakeness and the political function of these trials embedded in the history of the created cases. The history of the examinations fits the Stalinist tradition just as it fits the preceding heritage of the tsarist secret service.

What do we think of the skinheads? The author shows that they have not always been fascist gangs and even today they are not necessarily fascists. Originally they came from the rebelling working-class youth with rather leftist views. The successors of the real skinheads today sharply oppose racism and fascism and stick to their original anarchist or communist ideas.

What is the economic-social context of the advance of the Latin American left since the past few years? What is new about these "new social movements" and how original are their demands, values, organizational forms, actions, and proclaimed identities?

In Latin America the political significance of peasant movements have increased in the past 25 years – in spite of the decrease of the number of peasantry. Toady these movements are more successful in mobilizing the society against the neo-liberal elite and they are often capable of more organized actions and deeper solidarity than the weakened working-class movement. One of the reasons of this phenomenon is that the countryside suffers more from the impacts of neo-liberalism than the towns. The alliance with the local parliamentary central-leftist political parties was therefore almost always detrimental for the peasant movements. However, they are not ready to seize power on their own and there are severe obstacles to an alliance with the working-class.