Americas

The struggle in Mexico against electoral fraud is developing into a revolutionary situation and its most advanced point is in the state of Oaxaca. The Marxist Tendency "Militante", part of the International Marxist Tendency, has been involved in these struggles from the very beginning and is now one of a number of organisations being targeted for repression by the state. Urgent international solidarity is needed.

Yesterday we highlighted the revolutionary developments in Oaxaca. There the mass movement has thrown up the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca (APPO), an organ of workers’ power. The dilemma is now posed of how this much more advanced expression of revolutionary struggle should relate to the National Democratic Convention (CND) - participate and push the latter forward or stay out and remain isolated?

Weeks after the Mexican elections the mass movement against electoral fraud is giving no sign of receding. On the contrary, it is spreading and becoming stronger with each passing day. The situation in Oaxaca is of revolutionary proportions. The workers and peasants could actually take power. Revolution has reached the very borders of the most powerful capitalist country in the world, the USA.

The Mexican bourgeoisie is determined to get its man declared as President of the country. The masses are equally determined to stop this blatant electoral fraud. In some areas of Mexico an openly insurrectionary mood is developing and the struggle is going well beyond the question of the ballot recount. Revolution is brewing throughout the country.

Exactly one year ago, the winds and waters of yet another hurricane crashed into the Gulf Coast of the United States. But this was no "routine" tropical storm. This was Hurricane Katrina - a Category 5 killer which swept away levees, homes, communities, memories, and 1,577 lives. Katrina and its aftermath also swept away the illusions of millions in the US and around the world: it was a savage reminder that all is not well in the proverbial "land of milk and honey".

Yesterday 25 years ago, 12,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization walked off the job, demanding higher pay and a reduction of the working week. 48 hours later, President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 of them, using military personnel as scabs. This date marks a bitter defeat in the history of the American trade unions and for working people in general.

This is the foreword written by Alan Woods for Ariel Dacal and Francisco Brown Infante's book recently published in Cuba by Editorial Ciencias Sociales. Already launched in Havana, their book "Russia: from real socialism to real capitalism" is an interesting analysis of the reasons for and consequences of the fall of the USSR.

Today marks the 53rd anniversary of that day when a handful of courageous young Cuban revolutionaries attempted to overthrow the tyrannical regime by attacking the Moncada barracks. Although they failed, they prepared the ground for victory a few years later. More than ever the Cuban revolution requires the support of the international labour movement.

On July 27, 1918 Albert (Ginger) Goodwin stared into the barrel of Dan Campbell's shot gun and in a second, it was all over.  The bullet passed first through Ginger's wrist, then through his neck, killing him with a single shot.  Ginger lay on the forest floor, choking on his own blood.  This was the end of the life of Ginger Goodwin, but the beginning of his legend.  Ginger Goodwin's murder sparked the first general strike in Canadian history and he remains a source of inspiration for revolutionaries and labour activists to this day.

Every year labour activists from across British Columbia descend on the town of Cumberland for Miner's Memorial Day. The annual event is held to commemorate the hundreds of workers who died in Cumberland's coal mines and murdered socialist Ginger Goodwin. Comrades from the International Marxist Tendency are always present for the ceremony, but this year we played a much larger role.

On Friday July 21st, 40 comrades of Militante, the Mexican section of the International Marxist Tendency, gathered at the house of that great martyr of the working class, Leon Trotsky, to say goodbye to one of the great revolutionaries who, like the classical Marxists dedicated his life to the revolution: Ted Grant.

Chavez is about to visit Iran. We understand the reasons for reaching trade deals with a regime like the Iranian. The US is attempting to isolate Venezuela, but we believe it is one thing to reach such deals and it is another to present the Iranian regime as if it were somehow “revolutionary”. To do such a thing would sow confusion among the Iranian workers, the only ones who have a genuine interest in defending the Bolivarian Revolution.

One and a half million people, according to the organisers, marched on Sunday, July 16th to protest against electoral fraud in the Mexican presidential elections of July 2nd. Even according to the Mexican DF police, which put the figure of those on the march at 1.1 million, this was one of the largest demonstrations in Mexican history.