Solidarity 136, 24 July 2008

1968: The Year 0f the Miracles!

It was as if a conscience-stricken god said to himself one day in the mid-60s: “I suppose I have been a bit rough on the poor old Trots; setback after setback, massacre after massacre, blow after blow, for four decades now.... ... There aren’t all that many of them left. If I don’t do something to encourage them soon, they’ll give up and die off. And think of all the fun they’ve given me, thwarting them — the presumptuous little buggers!” Then he had A thought: “Why don’t I give them a bit of encouragement?” So he did. Over a three year period, culminating in 1968-9, he organised a series of...

The power next time: France May 1968

Suddenly, like an enormous explosion, the revolt of the French working class has burst on a startled bourgeois Europe. Already it has changed the political climate of Europe as sharply as the rising of the sun after a long arctic night. Sparked by the militant actions of Trotskyist, Anarchist and Maoist students, and fanned by the viciousness of police brutality, the flames of revolt soon spread to the working class. It led to a great conflagration prepared by the long accumulated, bottled up discontent and frustration of the workers. The working class had seemed drugged and demoralised by...

Iran, Israel and nuclear weapons

We can’t be sure; but the odds must be that George W Bush’s administration will not launch a bomb attack on Iran in its last few months in office. Even if such an attack went neatly as planned, it couldn’t bring any triumph that would boost the standing of the administration or of its favoured candidate in the November presidential election, John McCain. Politically, an attack would be very difficult only months after an official US government report declared that Iran had probably stopped any efforts to develop nuclear weapons. The Bush administration has in fact inched towards closer...

Barack Obama campaign: American workers need their own party

In 1961, the year of Barack Obama’s birth, it was still legal for the US government to discriminate against its citizens on grounds of race (the Civil Rights Act which formally banned such discrimination would be passed only in 1964). The nomination of Obama, the first black person to stand for president as the candidate of any major US political party, represents enormous social progress. Such progress, however, does not suspend the laws of class struggle. Obama’s candidacy, like his party, is bourgeois through and through. Like his opponent John McCain, he represents government of the...

Being a socialist in Zimbabwe - interview with Mike Sambo

Tom Unterrainer spoke with Mike Sambo from the International Socialist Organisation Zimbabwe How was the ISO formed? The International Socialist Organisation was founded in the early 1990s and at that time was mainly composed of student activists. This is no longer the case. The ISO has people from different social movements and a large number of workers. There was a problem with our student members - we had a high turnover. Lots of people would join and leave after a short time. In all we now have about 300 members. Many of them are 'working people' - not workers per se. Very few of our...

Phoenix!

Parables for Socialists 15 Phoenix! I am the Phoenix I will not die! I have been drowned in fire and blood By open foes, devoured By predatory allies and masters; reduced, I rise again: I saw Hitler loom above Rosa Luxemburg's grave And then fled East To hail his other self I am the true Phoenix. I hailed Stalin Saviour and Father of the Peoples The no-Tsar, Tsar, The Peoples' own Red King A comrade, dialecticked, Though Stalin had built himself a mausoleum To strut on, in triumph, dancing On the poor dry bones and waxy blind Forever silent ruin Of the dead iconoclast, Validmir Lenin I am the...

Marxists on the capitalist crisis: 7. Michel Husson - A Systemic Crisis, Both Global and Long-Lasting

Michel Husson is a Marxist economist well-known on the French left, author of many books include Critique de la marchandisation (forthcoming) and until 2007 a member of the LCR. He responded to questions posed by Martin Thomas. 1. How do you assess the changes in the financial system over the last 25 years? How should we assess the current crisis in the light of those changes of the financial system, and how should we assess those changes in the light of the crisis? The transformations of the financial system should be analysed on the basis of two fundamental tendencies which have been...

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