Vol. 81/No. 43      November 20, 2017

 

25, 50 and 75 Years Ago

 
November 20, 1992
George Bush’s defeat in the U.S. presidential elections is being widely attributed to a poor campaign strategy or some combination of errors by the Bush administration.

None of this is true, said Jack Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, in a November 7 talk.

“The truth of the matter is that the U.S. ruling class broke its teeth on the Iraq War,” Barnes asserted. “They didn’t achieve any of the political goals they went to war over in the Gulf. Like their ‘victory’ in the Cold War, what was initially presented as a great victory turned out to be the opposite.”

President-elect William Clinton condemned Bush for not being quick enough to use U.S. military power.

November 20, 1967

It is true that the assassination of Che Guevara is a heavy blow to the Bolivian guerrilla struggle. Nevertheless guerrilla war in Bolivia has deep national and economic causes.

The people struck at the military caste the very day of the coup d’état, Nov. 4, 1964. The miners led the struggle against the dictatorship.

The dictatorship was unable to find a social base. It has no force with which to govern outside of the army. Up to the present 8,000 workers have been fired from the mines for political or union activity.

It has proved impossible to convert the peasants into a conservative social force, a support for the bourgeois governments.

November 21, 1942

Tyne shipbuilding workers returned to work on October 13, after an eight-day strike which involved workers in all trades employed on the yards. This was the biggest strike since the outbreak of the war.

The action was provoked by the maneuvers of the union leaders with the employers’ organization, who sprang a new agreement without prior consultation with the workers. The agreement altered the day wages were made up.

The Communist Party marshaled the whole of its apparatus to smash the strike. A strong bloc signified they were quitting the party. These workers will keep the trust of their fellow workers.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home