Labour Focus on Eastern Europe. 1979+1980

Labour Focus on Eastern Europe. A Socialist Defence Bulletin on Eastern Europe and the USSR. Three issues. Vol. 3, No. 3. July-August 1979. Defend Charter 77 22 pp. Vol. 3 no. 6 . New Soviet Round-up. Feminism in Russia 4 Documents. 22 p. Vol. 4 Nos. 1-3. Spring-Autumn 1980. Polish Free Trade Unions. Complete Solidarnosc Strike Bulletins. Confidential Government Document on anti-Socialist Activity. Dissidents Defend Themselves. 62 pp. The initiative for Labour Focus came from Peter Gowan and his partner, Halya Kowalsky. The events in Poland in 1976 and the creation of Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia convinced them that it was essential for the left in the West to offer support and solidarity to those working class and democratic oppositionists in Eastern Europe suffering repression from the Communist Party regimes and to inform the working class movement and socialists in the West about the existence of these groups which were ignored by governments and media unless they were able to exploit them for Cold War purposes.