January 29, 1996
Vastly outgunned, 200 Chechen independence fighters held off thousands of Russian troops in the village of Pervomayskoye for three days in mid-January. They demand that Russian forces withdraw from Chechnya, where 40,000 troops invaded 13 months ago. In 1991, Dzhokhar Dudayev was elected president and declared independence for this republic of 1.2 million people.
Chechnya became part of the autonomous mountain republics of the Soviet Union following the Russian revolution in 1917. Under the leadership of V.I. Lenin, the revolutionary government took measures to restore to the people of northern Caucasus land that was stolen from them under czarist rule.
During the 1920s, Joseph Stalin organized a political counterrevolution, destroying the communist leadership and blocking the oppressed peoples from exercising their sovereign rights.
January 29, 1971
AUSTIN — When the Texas legislature meets this month, abortion law reform will be one of the primary issues. The new statute, if accepted, will add Texas to the small list of states which have adopted liberalized abortion laws.
The Texas Abortion Coalition voted to support the proposed legislation at its founding conference in Dallas. While not the ultimately envisioned repeal, the abortion proposal would be a significant gain over the 114-year-old present antiabortion law.
TAC has submitted an amendment which would place consent solely in the hands of the woman whether or not she has reached “the age of majority” and would allow the abortion to be performed by a trained paramedical or with the aid of prescribed self-abortive agents, should either or both become available.
January 26, 1946
January 21 — At one minute past midnight the battle was joined in the most crucial labor struggle in American history. Eight hundred thousand CIO steelworkers threw down the gauntlet.
The power in action of the organized steelworkers is joined with that of more than 900,000 other striking workers already massed on picket lines from coast-to-coast. First on the honor roll of American labor are the 225,000 General Motors strikers.
They are all fighting for a greater share of the wealth their labor produces. Big Business as a class, these giant corporations enormously enriched by the war, are conspiring to undermine and, if possible, destroy the industrial unions, drive down living standards and inflate prices.
And 1,700,000 workers on the nation’s picket lines are determined to battle out these issues to a favorable conclusion.