25, 50 and 75 Years Ago

April 6, 2020

April 10, 1995

PARIS — A strike wave in France, taking place in the midst of the presidential election campaign, continues to shake up politics here. Walkouts are spreading among postal, railroad, bus and subway workers, as well as to the state-run airline. 

Several thousand Renault strikers from plants throughout France demonstrated in front of the company’s headquarters during the reopening of wage negotiations. Thousands of others blocked gates at struck plants.

As workers assert themselves through strike action, presidential candidates adapt to the new situation. Jacques Chirac, the leading candidate, explained to the conservative Le Figaro: “There is a tear in the social fabric like our country has never seen, which is getting worse and imperils the cohesion of the nation.”

April 10, 1970

NEW YORK — Close to 3,000 demonstrators, mostly women, marched through the streets of New York March 28 in a militant show of support for “Free Abortions on Demand.” The demonstration was organized by People to Abolish Abortion Laws, a broad coalition of women’s liberation groups and other organizations supporting the fight to abolish New York State’s 140-year-old reactionary abortion statute. It was the first time in decades that such a broad spectrum of groups have been brought together to fight for a demand that is of vital concern to all women.

Signs demanded the right to abortion at any age, establishment of free abortion clinics, total repeal of all abortion laws and no forced sterilizations. The response from many people along the march route was friendly and encouraging. 

April 7, 1945

Under the weight of the contradictions inherent in the bourgeois regime; under the growing pressure of the revolutionary upsurge of the proletariat and under military defeats, the Hitler apparatus is inexorably going down! 

The governments of Washington and London, and the industrial and banking magnates, know that the collapse of Hitler will give impetus to the revolution in Germany and through all Europe. 

Imbued with this preoccupation, the so-called democracies are today at the Quebec conferences drawing up the most detailed plans to stem the offensive of the working class and to replace, without grave consequences for themselves, the man whom in 1933 these same “democracies” aided in taking power with the mission to crush the revolution in Germany and abroad.