Workers' Liberty

What is the role of a revolutionary organisation?

18 Jun 2007 |

Max Shachtman

It is an axiom by now that the defeats and setbacks suffered by the working class throughout the world [in the Twentieth Century] have been due not to the vigour and stability of the exisiting social order, but to the absence or immaturity of the conscious revolutionary vanguard. A score of times since 1917, the people have either been ready to rise or have actually risen against the ruling classes. Each time they have sought to remove the decomposing barrier to social progress. In every case, there was enough will to struggle, aggressiveness, sacrifice. Defeat was due to the lack of a...

Neither Bush’s missiles, nor Putin’s!

09 Jun 2007

By Stan Crooke Russia’s President Putin has threatened to target Russian nuclear missiles at European countries in response to American plans to deploy interceptor rockets in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic. According to the US authorities, the bases in Poland and the Czech Republic are not aimed at Russia. Instead, they claim, the purpose of the bases is to provide protection against ballistic missiles which might, in future years, be fired by Iran or North Korea. According to Putin, the real target of the bases is Russia. In an interview in the run-up to the G8 summit in...

Reactionary Christian fundamentalist Falwell Is dead

16 May 2007 | Blog post

File this under 'Deaths That Will Cause Me No Tears'. Jerry Falwell, religious fruitcake and rampant reactionary, has departed this mortal coil, aged 73.

Here are some of his lowlights:

On Apartheid: a "bulwark for Christian civilization".
On AIDS: "the wrath of a just God".
On Martin Luther...

Sadrists fend off US surge

04 May 2007

By Martin Thomas On Sunday 29 April, US troops in Baghdad fought a sizeable battle with Moqtada al-Sdar’s Shia-Islamist Mahdi Army. It was another indication that, as we reported in Solidarity 3/110, the US may be edging towards a “war on two fronts” in Iraq, against both the Sunni sectarian militias and the Mahdi Army. The sequel to the battle, however, suggests very strong pressures on the US to avoid that development. The official US military statement on the battle said that it was aimed at capturing certain individuals, presumably Sadrist commanders, and it failed. Then the next day, in...

Supreme court upholds “partial birth abortion”ban

04 May 2007

By Sofie Buckland In 2003, the Republican-controlled Congress voted to outlaw “partial-birth abortion”, an entirely made-up anti-choice term for the dilation and extraction (D&X) abortion procedure. At the end of April the Supreme Court voted five to four to uphold the ban; it is the first time the Court has made a decision which intervenes into a doctor’s choice of abortion procedure, a decision which is not just about the general legality of abortion. Dilation and extraction was previously only used after 12 weeks of pregnancy and only then for medical reason. Just 0.17% of abortions in the...

Why does the USA breed violence?

21 Apr 2007 |

Sofie Buckland

ON Monday 16 April a 23-year old South Korean student opened fire at Virginia Tech university, killing 33 and injuring at least 29. The latest in a string of shooting sprees going back as far as 1966, the massacre at Virginia Tech begs the question; why does this keep happening, and why particularly in the USA? The killer, Cho Seung-hui, was clearly mentally ill, but there are too many common trends in mass killings, particularly school shootings, for the phenomenon to be solely the product of a series of deranged individuals. Other factors — the class background of perpetrators, the easily...

Editorial: Save Mumia Abu-Jamal!

22 Mar 2007

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge has now signed Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death warrant. They plan to kill him on 17 August and thus barbourously to satisfy the racist cops who continue to campaign for his death and the blood lust of those who elected Tom Ridge as governor. Time is running out for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Time is short in which to lodge the protests and mount the pickets that may make the difference between life for Mumia-Abu Jama and a horrible death at the hands of the hired killers of the state of Pensylvania. Ridge is a man in a hurry. He is threatening to deliver on at least one of his...

Natalia Sedova Trotsky's Break with the Fourth International

11 Feb 2007

To the Executive Committee of the Fourth International and the Political Committee of the Socialist Workers Party (USA) May 9, 1951 Comrades: You know quite well that I have not been in political agreement with you for the past five or six years, since the end of the war and even earlier. The position you have taken on the important events of recent times shows me that, instead of correcting your earlier errors, you are persisting in them and deepening them. On the road you have taken, you have reached a point where it is no longer possible for me to remain silent or to confine myself to...

Class struggle in the USA

09 Dec 2006

Kim Moody is a labour historian, teacher and activist in the United States. He is prominent in Labor Notes, a rank-and-file bulletin for working-class militants. He is the author of several books, including Workers in a Lean World. He spoke at the AWL's 2006 Ideas for Freedom event. There were two events of great importance recently. The first took place in the spring of this year, beginning on 25 April and reaching its culmination on 1 May. It amounted to a general strike of immigrant workers in the United States. At least five million workers were involved, probably the greatest event in...

Gangster Rap! Lenin and Joe Colombo

25 Nov 2006 |

Sean Matgamna

The story of Joe Colombo, the Mafia boss who briefly turned ethnic politician, is one of the most frightening stories I've come across. An instructive story, too. It says a lot about the “rebel” element in Trumpism. Perhaps significantly, the year is 1970. In the USA there is a huge anti-Vietnam-war movement. The USA has also experienced the black civil rights movement and the black ghetto uprisings. It is a highly political period in American history. When the gangster Joe Colombo, boss of one of the Mafia "Families" feels the pursuing FBI breathing down his neck, he reacts “politically”. He...

USA/Canada