The murder of Thomas Sankara: a popular revolution overturned

Vol. 85/No. 37 - October 11, 2021
“The democratic and popular revolution needs a convinced people, not a conquered people,” says the sign above, quoting revolutionary leader Thomas Sankara under his photo. It’s carried in a June 29, 2013, protest against Blaise Compaore, who led the 1987 counterrevolution.

(For a French version of this article, click here.) Blaise Compaore, the iron-fisted ruler of Burkina Faso for almost three decades, will stand trial along with 13 others before a military tribunal Oct. 11 for the 1987 assassination of former…


Mexico’s fight against colonial rule launched in 1810

Vol. 85/No. 36 - October 4, 2021
Mexico’s fight against colonial rule launched in 1810

El Grito de Dolores is celebrated Sept. 16 as a national holiday in Mexico and by Mexicans around the world. It marks the opening of the independence struggle against Spanish colonial rule in 1810. On that day Catholic priest Miguel…


New York rally protests Texas anti-abortion law

Vol. 85/No. 35 - September 27, 2021

NEW YORK — More than 125 supporters of women’s rights joined a protest called by the National Organization for Women, and Planned Parenthood, at Brooklyn Borough Hall Sept. 9 opposing an anti-abortion Texas law that went into effect Sept. 1.…


Protests demand: End US embargo of Cuba!

Vol. 85/No. 34 - September 20, 2021
Caravans, rallies and meetings took place in U.S., Canada, U.K. and elsewhere Aug. 29, protesting Washington’s economic war against Cuba. Above, protesters at Toussaint L’Ouverture park in Miami donated to Haiti earthquake relief.

Car and bike caravans along with pickets and rallies protesting Washington’s more than 60-year-long economic war against Cuba’s socialist revolution took place in at least half a dozen U.S. cities, as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom and other…


‘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…