This issue of the Militant brings to readers the first coverage from the reporting team in Paraguay. Coming issues will feature news from Argentina, Cuba, and Venezuela. We hope you can contribute generously to our fund that helps make these reporting teams possible.

The articles from Paraguay help working people around the world get facts on the growing resistance in that country, including peasant mobilizations against the government assault on their standard of living and other social struggles.

A highlight of the visit to Paraguay is the wide-ranging discussions with young people who are eager to discuss central questions in world politics, communist perspectives on the fight for power by workers and farmers, and the class struggle in the United States and the political work carried out by communists on the job and in working-class districts. Widespread interests in books and pamphlets published by Pathfinder Press reflect the desire to find a revolutionary perspective on how to respond to the effects of the economic and social crisis that is wracking the country.

Upcoming issues of the Militant will also feature firsthand reports from Argentina where the capitalist economic crisis continues to shake that country, and Venezuela where a showdown between U.S.-backed reactionary forces and the government of Hugo Chávez is building up again.

Working-class mobilizations foiled the pro-imperialist coup in Venezuela in April, restoring Chávez to power two days after he was jailed. During that time Caracas was the site of an extraordinary sharp social conflict between the wealthy coup plotters and the working class. Militant reporters are on the scene in Venezuela talking with young people, workers, peasants, and others to get a firsthand view of the latest political developments, including the contradictions and conflicts among the various social classes.

In Argentina, where revolutionary journalists have landed, thousands marched through the streets of Buenos Aires, the capital city, last month to demand unemployment benefits. Since the country’s economic collapse last December, which touched off a political explosion, the Argentine economy has shriveled by more than 16 percent, and more than half the country’s 37 million people are living below the government’s official poverty line.

These international reporting trips are a valuable avenue of exchange between workers and farmers across the globe. The teams bring information to working people in many countries who read the Militant and information on struggles inside the imperialist countries and elsewhere.

The Militant has received several welcome contributions already, including $500 from one reader. Please send checks or money orders, earmarked "Travel Fund," to: The Militant, 410 West St., New York, N.Y. 10014.
 
 
Related article:
State of siege reflects instability in Paraguay
Workers, peasants in Paraguay protest government attacks  
 
 
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