ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Synthetic Sincerity, Our Hero, Balthazar, Heartstopper Forever, and A Year In London
ONE of the most enduring revolutionary images in Western art is that of Liberty Leading the People painted by Eugene Delacroix in the Autumn of 1830 as a response to the July revolution of the same year, which saw France swap the House of Bourbon for the House of Orleans, an error that was only corrected in 1848 with the founding of the Second Republic.
The figure of Liberty is popularly referred to as “Marianne,” which symbolises, in popular consciousness, both ordinary people and the manifestation of their political aspirations: the Republic. The boy next to her with two pistols is believed to have inspired Gavroche in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.
The allegory of the female figure is rooted in language — in French, France, Republic, Liberty and Reason are feminine nouns.
As the US marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, the People’s World Editorial Collective argues that the real legacy of 1776 lies not in official celebrations but in centuries of popular struggles to make democracy a reality for all
CHRISTOPHE IMMER of the Morning Star’s German sister paper Junge Welt reports on a Berlin conference on the politics of art and the legacy of Marxist critic Hans Hess
CJ ATKINS commemorates one of the most dramatic moments in working-class history
Hundreds in Berlin gathered on January 15 to honour the US-born socialist who made East Germany his home. Florentine Morales Sandoval reports


