Vol. 81/No. 3      January 16, 2017

 

25, 50, and 75 Years Ago

January 17, 1992

Prices of food, clothing and other basic necessities skyrocketed in Russia as state controls and subsidies were lifted January 2.

The republics of the former Soviet Union are heading for greater instability and an accelerated economic crisis. The bureaucratic rulers who govern these territories pillage resources in order to maintain their privileged way of life, just as they did throughout the previous six and a half decades, when they posed as “communists.” They hope that greater use of market forces will solve problems of plummeting production, attract capitalist investment, and integrate these economies into world capitalism.

Most working people in Russia were spending 80 percent of their income on basic subsistence items before the latest price increases. Long lines in front of virtually empty state stores have become a feature of daily life.

January 16, 1967

The barring of Adam Clayton Powell from his committee chairmanship by the Democratic Party caucus, and from his seat in Congress has been met with an almost unanimous outcry of opposition in the black community.

Black people have drawn the obvious conclusion that the attack on Powell is an attack on all Negroes. As one Harlem resident put it, “A hell of a lot of people in Washington do a hell of a lot worse and nobody says anything about it.”

The offenses that he is accused of are nothing compared to those of the racist Mississippi congressmen who were seated after the 1964 elections in spite of the fact that they were challenged by disenfranchised Negroes.

The funds allegedly misappropriated by Powell are chicken feed next to the billions of dollars his colleagues channel into coffers of private companies from lush government cost-plus contracts.

January 17, 1942

Hundreds of thousands of jobless auto workers today are asking why in the midst of the war the greatest manufacturing industry in the world is shutting down.

For a year the UAW and CIO have been proposing a plan to pool auto productive forces to prevent mass unemployment during the transition from automobile to military production. This was to be carried out by an industry-labor council. This proposal was shelved as “impractical” and “socialistic” by the OPM [Office of Production and Management] and the employers. They were busy figuring out the more “practical” problem of operating the auto industry to maintain maximum profits. When the bosses raise a hue and cry about the loss of production due to strikes, they are trying to cover up the real disrupters of production, themselves.  
 
 
 
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