The Militant (logo)  

Vol. 73/No. 43      November 9, 2009

 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
November 9, 1984
NEW YORK—Close to 1,000 people marched in Brooklyn October 27 to demand an end to U.S. occupation of Grenada and an end to U.S. military intervention in Central America and the Caribbean. The action protested the recent harassment of Dessima Williams, former Grenadian ambassador to the Organization of American States.

Williams had been seized two days earlier in Washington, D.C., by immigration cops. She was dragged off after giving a speech to a conference supporting nonintervention in the Caribbean and Central America, held on the first anniversary of the invasion of Grenada.

The move against her was clearly aimed at intimidating those who are speaking out about the widening U.S. war against liberation fighters in Central America and the Caribbean.  
 
November 9, 1959
An attempt by the Belgian imperialists to arrest a nationalist leader precipitated fierce fighting and a strike movement in Stanleyville, second largest city of the Belgian Congo. Though it was Belgian guns and hand grenades against Congolese spears, stones and bare fists, the freedom fighters held off the troops long enough for Patrice Lumumba, leader of the Congolese Nationalist Movement (MNC), to escape.

This battle took place the evening of October 30 when Belgian police and soldiers tried to storm the hall where MNC leaders were holding a conference preparatory to their annual convention. Apparently to protect the MNC leaders, some 3,000 rank-and-file supporters were standing ready outside the hall.

Fighting spread throughout the city and province and some 70 people—all natives—were killed and more than 200 wounded.  
 
November 10, 1934
Rumblings of civil war are already audible in France.

The collapse of the Doumergue “truce” government has brought the issue of Fascism or proletarian revolution closer on the political horizon.

The government of Etienne Flandin, not quite so reactionary in appearance, but no less anti-working class in character will prove to be no better than a temporary stop-gap. The middle classes are being ruined by shrinking markets. Wages are sinking. The crisis in the ranks of the Radical Socialist party that caused the demise of the “truce” government is but a reflection of the vacillation of the petty bourgeoisie under the pressure of its economic difficulties.

What is the French working class to do if it is not to meet the fate of the German working class in its worst variant or of the Austrian or the Spanish at the best?  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home