Thousands of international guests joined 300,000 Cubans in Havana December 2 celebrating the 50th anniversary of the birth of Cuba’s revolutionary army in struggle against the Batista dictatorship as well as Fidel Castro’s 80th birthday. Among them were three notable leaders from abroad: Bolivian president Evo Morales, Nicaraguan president-elect Daniel Ortega, and Haitian president René Preval – all recently elected against the will of U.S. imperialism. Read more…
The following is an exchange on Cuba between John Riddell of Socialist Voice and Mike Gonzalez of the U.K. Socialist Workers Party.
When Bolivian President Evo Morales formally opened his country’s Constituent Assembly on August 6, 2006, he highlighted the aspirations of Bolivia’s indigenous majority as the central challenge before the gathering. The convening of the Assembly, he said, represented a “historic moment to refound our dearly beloved homeland Bolivia.” Read more…
This article is co-authored by Barry Weisleder. It is reprinted with permission from the June 2006 issue of Socialist Action. That issue also contained a reply which is posted at Socialist Voice.
TORONTO — “General jubilation” greeted the Bolivian government’s move to take control of the country’s hydrocarbon resources on May 1, according to the Cuban daily newspaper Granma. “An impressive multitude (that) gathered to celebrate May Day” in La Paz, Bolivia’s capital, “exploded with joy and cheers” when these measures were announced. This joy was shared by opponents of imperialism everywhere. Read more…
By Felipe Cournoyer and John Riddell. Addressing students at the University of Havana on November 17, 2005, Cuban president Fidel Castro asked two questions central to the future of their country and the struggle for socialism worldwide: (1) “Do you believe, yes or no, that our revolutionary process can be overthrown?” (2) “What ideas and what level of consciousness can make the overturn of a revolutionary process impossible?” Read more…
“The super-powerful empire that stalks us and threatens us [is] awaiting a natural and absolutely logical event: the death of someone. They have honored me by thinking of me.” — Fidel Castro, November 17 2005
Speaking on the sixtieth anniversary of his admission to the University of Havana, Cuba’s president responded to the imperialists’ “transition plans and military action plans” by challenging his compatriots to develop their own plans for the revolution’s future. Read more…
By Phil Cournoyer and John Riddell. In a November 17, 2005, speech at the University of Havana, Cuban President Fidel Castro outlined measures to counter corruption and theft that are bleeding the Cuban peoples’ resources into the hands of a layer of new rich.
Co-authored with Roger Annis
Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW), dealt the New Democratic Party a low blow at the outset of Canada’s federal election campaign on December 2 when he announced his support for re-election of the Liberal Party of Prime Minister Paul Martin. “We want a clear minority government, led by Paul Martin, with as many New Democrats holding the balance of power as possible,” Hargrove said while introducing Martin to his union’s national conference. The “extreme right-wing” Conservatives need to be kept from winning at all costs, he added. Read more…
Alan Woods. The Venezuelan Revolution: A Marxist Perspective. London: Wellred Books (wellred.marxist.com) 2005.
Can a small Marxist current hope to influence the course of events in times of a revolutionary uprising, or are they condemned to an existence of sideline critics, never to influence the broader working class movement? Read more…
Co-authored with Roger Annis
The revelations by the federal government commission of inquiry headed by justice John Gomery have deeply shaken the stability of capitalist politics in Canada. They are placing the issue of Quebec independence at the center of politics in this country, once again. Read more…
The February 16, 2005 issue of Socialist Worker, newspaper of the International Socialists in Canada, featured an article by Paul Kellogg, entitled “Chavez Praises Socialism, Denounces Capitalism.” The March 23 issue featured a response by Socialist Voice co-editor John Riddell, entitled “Why Socialists Defend the Bolivarian Revolution.” Both articles are published below. Read more…
By John Riddell. Postscript, September 2012: see below.
One day during the Ontario provincial election campaign of 1959, I took the streetcar after high school to Toronto’s Cabbagetown to canvass my poll for the CCF (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, predecessor of the NDP). Cabbagetown was then a poor working-class district, where the CCF faced an uphill struggle; it was running Tom MacAuley, head of the Steelworkers local in United Steel Wares, the major factory in that part of town. Read more…
David Mandel. Labour After Communism: Auto Workers and their Unions in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2004. 283 p. $28.99
The collapse of the Russian economy in the early 1990s, brought on by marketization sponsored by the rich capitalist states, plunged the Russian labour movement into the Dark Ages. Since then, little information has been available on the conditions and struggles of Russian workers. Read more…
Socialist Voice was founded as a result of a discussion by its founders with supporters of the socialist newspaper The Militant on policy toward the war and resistance in Iraq. The discussion occurred between November 2003 and March 2004.
Following the March 20, 2004 day of protest against the occupation of Iraq, the differences between the two sides of the discussion widened and an organizational separation ensued. Read more…