Alan Woods in Caracas describes the mood of the masses on the April 13 celebrations of the 8^th anniversary of the failed right-wing coup. This time, as well as the usual red shirts, there was a massive display of the people’s militia clad in camouflage green, and carrying Russian-made AK-47s, a clear warning to the reactionary oligarchy that the masses are prepared to fight any attempt to turn the clock back.

April 11-13 marks 8 years since the revolutionary movement of the masses swiftly defeated the counter-revolutionary coup in Venezuela. It is worth re-reading this article by Alan Woods and Ted Grant, which was widely circulated amongst working class activists in Venezuela at the time and laid basis for the formation of the Marxist tendency. The tasks outlined at the end of the article remain, mostly, unfulfilled. Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Venezuela

In the build up to the September elections, the right-wing opposition is preparing on several fronts. Economic sabotage is one of them, as are the manoeuvres on the part of right-wing elements within the Bolivarian movement itself. Meanwhile, all this is having a radicalising effect on the left.

On the night of March 24, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero was shot through the heart by killers, carrying out orders that came straight from the reactionary oligarchy that rules over the country. He was killed because he was giving voice to the needs of the oppressed. To this day justice has not been done and the masses are still waiting.

Last year the three biggest union federations in Quebec – CSN, FTQ, and SISP – formed a Common Front that unites 475,000 public sector workers. On Saturday March 20^th, this union front brought 75,000 workers from all over Quebec onto the streets of Montreal. After years of being held back, now the workers are presenting the bill just when Quebec’s public debt as at a record high.

America -- a land of opportunity -- so the saying goes. But this is such a shallow phrase when you look into it deeper, right into the heart and core of the future of the US working class, which is the youth and education, where we see that the supposed “equality” is no where near being equal. In fact, it looks like American education is more based on keeping people poor and ignorant to keep a steady supply of cheap, unskilled labor to work the few jobs that are available, than actually providing a real education.

Only a year after the elation that followed his victory, the general consensus is that Barack Obama hasn’t actually done very much; other than continue his predecessor’s policies in one form or another.

A summary of the speech by the National Coordinator of the Black Socialist Movement and leader of the Marxist Left [Esquerda Marxist] of the PT, José Carlos Miranda, during the Public Hearing of the Brazilian Supreme Court about racial quotas held on 5 March 2010, and videos of original speech in Portuguese.

On January 24th, the US Supreme Court, by a 5-4 decision, ruled to remove the remaining spending limits on corporate involvement in elections. The ruling has been criticized by many as a dangerous encroachment by the wealthiest corporate interests and an undermining of free, democratic elections. But even before the court’s decision, corporate cash remained a prime mover of both capitalist parties in Congress and the White House. The influence of the big banks, corporations and the wealthiest will always be a controlling feature of formal democracy under capitalism.

Flaskô is the last surviving factory of the Occupied Factories Movement of Brazil, after the heavy police intervention put an end to the almost five-year occupation at Cipla and Interfibra. The workforce has been demanding that the Lula government nationalises the plant, but with no serious reply. But recently Lula took up the question in the press. Here is the reply of the Flaskô workers.

We have received the following message from Honduran activists of the National Front of Peoples' Resistance against the repression of the Porfirio Lobo government. His government was installed through fraudulent elections organised by the coup regime, despite massive abstention of the masses and harsh repression. The repressive attitude of the Lobo government uncovers its pretence of being democratic. The International Marxist Tendency declares its full solidarity with the Honduran workers and youth who continue to struggle and are suffering the repression, killings.

In this article, the conditions for socialist revolution to develop are analyzed. The experiences of the Socialist Party of America and other left groups are analyzed as well, for those that are interested in building a Marxist leadership need to learn from past left and labor movements to avoid making the same mistakes past socialists have made.

Peter Kent, a Canadian minister, recently expressed concerns over the supposed “shrinking democratic space” in Venezuela. He was referring to measures against several TV stations. On one of these, Noel Álavarez, president of the bosses’ union FEDECAMARAS, called for another “military solution” to the political situation in Venezuela. How would Kent like it if a Canadian boss suggested Canada’s military intervene to remove his government?

An opposition group recently won the election and will become the new leadership of Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100. Even though the election was held last June, the ballots were not counted until December! This was one of the many tactics used by the incumbent Toussaint leadership, which was seeking to install its handpicked successors.

This article takes note of the effects of the recession on workers in the USA (high unemployment, low wages, threats of losing homes, etc.) and how Obama is continuing Bush's program of spending billions of dollars bailing out Wall Street. The union leadership told workers that voting the Democrats into Congress and the White House would change things, but where is this change? As the Workers International League explained, voting for the "lesser evil" in a system dominated by two corporate parties would bring about an immediate "evil." People then get tired after no real change and end up bringing the "greater evil" back into power. This is precisely what happened in