25, 50, and 75 years ago

April 3, 2023

April 6, 1998

NEW YORK — “The question of women is permanently on the agenda of the Cuban revolution,” stated Mirtha Hormilla, a member of the permanent mission of Cuba to the United Nations, at an event on March 21 titled “Women In Cuba Today.”

“The revolutionary government has worked to guarantee equal opportunities for women’s participation,” Hormilla explained. “No woman doubts that she has equal rights to men.”

Economically and socially, women in Cuba have gained as much ground in 40 years as it took women in the U.S. 150 years to cover, Mary-Alice Waters, president of Pathfinder Press, said. This was possible only because a socialist revolution eliminated the economic foundations of women’s oppression. The Cuban revolution shows us that socialist revolution is possible, and that women’s liberation is possible, she said. “The rest is up to us.”

April 6, 1973

Working people throughout the country are boiling mad over the outrageous food prices we’re forced to pay. The Democratic and Republican parties keep promising action to fight inflation. But these politicians are interested in protecting the right of the capitalists to make a profit. They don’t care about the right of working people to a decent standard of living.

The top labor leaders haven’t come up with a program to defend the interests of union members and other workers either. They tell us to rely on the Democratic and Republican parties and the capitalist government.

The labor movement needs to defend its own interests in the political arena and to organize its own party. The current food price increases show that production under this system is geared solely to producing profits — not to meeting the needs of working people.

April 5, 1948

The plight of European Jewry and other displaced persons is a tragically real one. 850,000 men, women and children remain in the Displaced Persons camps, facing a future with no perspective or hope.

The Washington statesmen have shed pious tears about these victims of Nazism and the war. And yet these same U.S. leaders have not taken one single practical step to provide asylum for these war refugees.