Like the 1990s, the 1920s were a time of an unprecedented profit bonanza for Wall Street and the capitalist class. Then as now, this wealth never made it to most workers, who faced state repression and corporate terrorism when they fought for better wages and conditions. Millions of unskilled or semi-skilled workers in industry wanted to organize but were blocked by the conservative and narrow craft-based unionism of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) leadership. Nevertheless, those struggles produced an experienced core of radical workers that would lead the victorious strikes and movements of the 1930s.

In his 13 years of political work, Dr King’s radicalism was largely rooted in the interests, needs, and aspirations of the black working class and the poor. This was reflected in his determination to alleviate the economic, social, and political misery faced by working people and the poor with a programmatic call for a total “redistribution of wealth,” guaranteed annual income, the need to nationalize some industries, and a “revolution of values.”

A tumultuous year when the floodtide of mass revolt swept over the narrow confines of capitalism and threatened the very foundations of the system.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was killed on April 4, 1968 while supporting striking Memphis sanitation workers. Like so many fighters for the oppressed, the ruling class fears and opposes them while they are alive, but following their death an attempt is made to render their legacy harmless through distorting their actual ideas. During his lifetime King inspired millions with his vision that fundamental change in U.S. society was possible.

The Scottsboro Boys case in the ‘30s became an important struggle for racial and economic justice in the South and throughout the country. The “Scottsboro boys” were nine African-American men who were sentenced to death by an all-white jury after being falsely accused of raping two white women on a freight train. These convictions were eventually overturned after a mass defense campaign led by the Communist Party, whose role is very instructive for workers, youth and people of color trying to build a movement now.

Forty years after his death, flags, banners, portraits, and the slogans of Che Guevara are carried on the mass demonstrations in the new revolt that is sweeping Latin America. A fashion statement for many, but for others it is a political declaration. They identify with Che as a symbol of struggle, defiance, internationalism, and a better, socialist world.

The 40th anniversary of Che’s death also witnessed numerous charges that he was a “butcher,” owing to his role in overseeing the trials and executions of counter-revolutionaries following the Cuban revolution. We reprint an excerpt from Che Guevara: Symbol of Struggle by Tony Saunois replying to these attacks.

Venezuela, Bolivia, and more recently, Ecuador, are today at the epicenter of the continental revolt by the workers, peasants, youth and others exploited by capitalism, which is sweeping Latin America. Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil, and other countries have all been shaken by political turmoil and social upheaval as the masses throughout the continent have been drawn into struggle against privatizations, unemployment and neo-liberal policies.

This is a fascinating insight into Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement which has taken control of the Gaza Strip. Zaki Chehab, a leading Palestinian journalist, has closely followed its emergence over the last 20 years into a pivotal player on the Israel-Palestine stage. Hamas is the main rival to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Fatah (the faction of president Mahmoud Abbas and former leader, Yasser Arafat).

The 90th anniversary of the Russian revolution is being used by western commentators and historians to repeat old lies and distortions about the revolution and its aftermath. An exception is The Soviet Century by Moshe Lewin, which NIALL MULHOLLAND reviews as one of the few books published in recent years to shed new light on the subject.

The murder of Che Guevara, and the savage 30 year sentence meted out to Regis Debray and the Argentinean Bustos by the rotten Bolivian regime, has provoked a wave of indignation and protest throughout the world labour movement. From the first unconfirmed reports of guerrilla movements in Bolivia, United States imperialism, with a cacophony of the ruling elites of Latin America, reacted with the viciousness of fear. This alone is testimony to the social explosions reverberating throughout the continent at the present time.

“Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man”. These, according to some accounts, were the last words of defiance uttered by Che Guevara before his execution on 9 October 1967, in Bolivia, by Felix Rodriíguez, a CIA adviser with the Bolivian army. Che was 39 years old.

On July 23, British national radio (BBC) broadcast The Whitehouse Coup, part of a series called Document (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document.shtml). This show investigated new information concerning an historic event mostly ignored and buried in the corporate-dominated media, government, and educational system here in the U.S.

The looming environmental catastrophe has provoked an urgent search for solutions to stop global warming and save the planet for future generations.

Most histories of the struggle against French colonial rule in Vietnam reflect the Stalinist traditions of the Hanoi regime, and ignore or slander the heroic role of the adherents of Leon Trotsky and the Fourth International. Ngo Van’s book, based on his own experiences as a young Trotskyist in French occupied Indochina (the colonial name for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), helps set the record straight.