‘Fidel belongs to the working people of the world’

Vol. 85/No. 32 - August 30, 2021

The following letter was sent by Socialist Workers Party National Secretary Jack Barnes to Raúl Castro Ruz, first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, on Nov. 27, 2016, after the death two days earlier of Fidel Castro, his brother…


Gen. Armando Choy, lifelong Chinese Cuban revolutionary

Vol. 85/No. 31 - August 23, 2021

Armando Choy Rodríguez, a brigadier general in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, died July 26 in Havana at age 87. Anyone who had the chance to meet Choy was struck by his pride and satisfaction of having devoted his…


SWP conference: Leading the working class to take power

Vol. 85/No. 30 - August 16, 2021
Jack Barnes, SWP national secretary, speaks at conference. SWP leader Mary-Alice Waters, right. Banner captured central themes of conference presentations, classes, discussions.

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — “This is a book about the dictatorship of capital and the road to the dictatorship of the proletariat,” Socialist Workers Party National Secretary Jack Barnes said, pointing to Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers…


Cuba’s working people rose up, carried out a socialist revolution

Vol. 85/No. 29 - July 26, 2021

“What the imperialists cannot forgive,” Fidel Castro told the Cuban people at a rally in Havana April 16, 1961, on the eve of Washington’s attempted Bay of Pigs invasion, was “that we have made a socialist revolution right under their…


Supreme Court overturns California disclosure law

Vol. 85/No. 28 - July 19, 2021

An important victory for political rights was won July 1 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to overturn a California regulation requiring tens of thousands of charities there to hand over lists of donors to state officials.  The decision…


Kazakhstan delivery workers unite, look to organize a union

Vol. 85/No. 28 - July 19, 2021
Food delivery workers in Almaty, Kazakhstan, protest working conditions, pay cut and suspensions imposed by Wolt bosses in May. Workers from different app companies acted together.

Food-delivery workers in Kazakhstan — similar to those whose numbers are growing worldwide — are fighting to organize the first couriers’ union in the country. Some 200 workers are finalizing a charter, Zhenis Orynaliyev, the union chairperson, told openDemocracy June…


Juneteenth marked victory over chattel slave system

Vol. 85/No. 27 - July 12, 2021

Actions around the country celebrated Juneteenth, which only became a federal holiday two days earlier. June 19 marks an important milestone in the Second American Revolution, which abolished slavery and led to the strengthening of the working class with millions…


‘Domestic terrorism’ plan is threat to workers’ rights

Vol. 85/No. 26 - July 5, 2021

The President Joseph Biden administration released its new “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism” June 15, setting the stage for increased attacks on free speech and the political rights of working people.  The 30-page report issued by the National Security…


Women in Dominican Republic protest ban on abortion

Vol. 85/No. 24 - June 21, 2021

NEW YORK — The Dominican Republic is one of four countries in Latin America — along with Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador — where abortion is completely illegal, no exceptions. Only four Latin American countries have legalized abortion: revolutionary Cuba,…


Belarus dictator forces plane down, seizes protester

Vol. 85/No. 23 - June 14, 2021

In a brazen state skyjacking of a Ryanair passenger plane May 23, Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 27 years, seized dissident journalist Raman Protasevich and his companion, Russian student Sofia Sapega. A MiG-29 fighter…