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Vol. 73/No. 42      November 2, 2009

 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
November 2, 1984
NEW YORK—In the dead of night in the early morning hours on October 18, 400 heavily armed New York City cops and FBI agents swooped down on homes in Brooklyn and Queens, and a Chinese restaurant, to arrest nine people the cops claim are “radicals” and “connected to the Black revolutionary group that committed the Brinks armored-car robbery three years ago.”

A witness reported he was watching television shortly after midnight when a police spotlight beamed into his window. Looking out, he saw at least 50 cops in bulletproof vests carrying shotguns herding the inhabitants out of a nearby house. At another location the cops stormed into a home, kicking the door down. In spite of this provocative show of firepower, the cops admitted the arrests “occurred without violence” on the part of the victims of the raids.  
 
November 2, 1959
OCT. 27—Hundreds of thousands of Cuban workers and peasants rallied to Premier Fidel Castro’s call for a demonstration in Havana yesterday. Reacting against counter-revolutionary moves that led to the death of two people and the wounding of over 40, the angry demonstrators brandished placards reading: “We demand respect for our sovereignty;” “Agrarian reform against foreign monopolies;” and “We demand more executions.”

The counter-revolutionaries, using American-made planes, apparently based in Florida, showered anti-government leaflets on Havana and other cities Oct. 21. Castro charged that the planes also bombed Havana and Pinar del Rio. During the air raids in Havana, terrorists in speeding automobiles machine-gunned and bombed people in the streets.  
 
November 3, 1934
In the heart of the mighty “Dollar Empire” a new revolutionary workers’ party will be launched in New York City, November 30 to December 2. The call for the organization convention will soon be issued by the Communist League of America and the American Workers Party.

This great step of revolutionary unity is the reply to the oppressive conditions of capitalism, the crying need for workers’ leadership and the general chaos and confusion which strangles the labor movement. For over two decades the advanced workers’ movement has been wracked by internal dissensions and splits. During this period capitalism has repeatedly given proof of its bankrupt character. No longer can it supply the need of the producers. The capitalist class faced with its doom has unleashed the forces of barbaric reaction.  
 
 
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