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Annette T. Rubinstein
Celebrates 95th Birthday at the Brecht Forum’s New Headquarters
André Gunder Frank
(1929-2005) A Note on the Death of André
Gunder Frank (1929-2005) Dr. Baburam Bhattarai on the Royal Dictatorship and the Need For a Democratic Republic in Nepal The Future of Organized Labor in the
U.S.: Reinventing Trade Unionism for the 21st Century William H. Hinton
(1919–2004) Can the Working Class Change the
World?
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September 2005, Volume 57 — Number 4 c o n t
e n t s More than a year after the supposed "transfer of sovereignty" the war of aggression that the United States is waging in Iraq shows no sign of abating. Washington's plan is to continue to occupy Iraq by force until it is brought securely within the American Empire. After that U.S. troop presence in the major urban centers can be sharply reduced and its remaining forces relocated to a few strategic military bases, with the new Iraqi government security forces stepping in to replace American troops in most parts of the country. | more |. REVIEW
OF THE MONTH The global actions of the United States since September 11, 2001, are often seen as constituting a "new militarism" and a "new imperialism." Yet, neither militarism nor imperialism is new to the United States, which has been an expansionist power—continental, hemispheric, and global—since its inception. What has changed is the nakedness with which this is being promoted, and the unlimited, planetary extent of U.S. ambitions. NEW THS WEEK! Marta Harnecker: Since we are doing this interview in the same place that you were detained during the April 11 coup, could you tell me your strongest memories of those bitter hours? Hugo Chávez: We initially thought we would have several alternatives, including moving to Maracay, but the tanks I had sent for earlier, [that were] needed to make that move...had been sent to Fort Tiuna instead [under pressure from the generals supporting the coup]. That made our move to Maracay impossible. After consulting with some of my people, I finally decided to accept [the pro-coup generals’] demand to hand myself in. The FARC-EP in
Colombia: A Revolutionary Exception in an Age of Imperialist
Expansion The United States and the Colombian ruling oligarchy have, since the 1960s, repeatedly implemented socioeconomic and military campaigns to defeat the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP). However, this offensive, whose main purpose is to maintain capitalist accumulation and expansion, has resulted in an embarrassing setback for U.S. imperialism and the Colombian ruling class. In a time of growing and deepening U.S. imperialism, it is important to examine this failure. Over the past four decades, despite U.S. efforts, support has risen for what has been the most important continuous military and political force in South America opposing imperialism. I examine how the FARC-EP has not only maintained a substantial presence within the majority of the country but has responded aggressively to the continuing counterinsurgency campaign. I also show as false the propaganda campaign of the U.S. and Colombian governments claiming that the FARC-EP is being defeated. This analysis provides an example of how a contemporary organic, class-based sociopolitical movement can effectively contend with imperial power in a time of global counterrevolution. Left-Indigenous
Struggles in Bolivia: Searching for Revolutionary Democracy La Paz, the Bolivian capital, rests in a deep valley in the heart of the Andes. The geographical terrain of the city is marked clearly with deep class divisions and the racist legacies of Spanish colonial impositions and ongoing internal colonialism, present since the founding of the republic in 1825. The indigenous peoples-over 60 percent of the population according to the 2001 census-have suffered at the bottom of a wickedly steep social hierarchy that whitens in accordance with class privilege. Can
Germany’s Corporatist Labor Movement Survive? For seven years Germany has been governed by a center-left coalition. This government was elected in 1998 because a majority of the electorate was tired of conservatives promising that fiscal austerity, lower unemployment benefits and social security, and restrained wage growth would bring prosperity and full employment. However, the new government's program has made that of its predecessor look like neoliberalism with a human face. The new government, led by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), has launched the most severe attacks on labor and social standards since the establishment of a welfare state after the Second World War. Since, for most of its history, the SPD has presented itself as the main force pushing for expansion of the welfare state, its anti-worker actions have deeply disappointed its followers and surprised its opponents. July–August 2005, Volume 57, Number
3 c o n t
e n t s Even regular readers of Monthly Review may be unaware that the magazine appears in Spanish, Greek, and Indian editions. Moreover, a Turkish edition is currently in the works. Analytical Monthly Review ("AMR"), published from Kharagpur in West Bengal, reproduces monthly all (or nearly all) the contents of MRin English, together with editorial comment on matters of current interest in India. It is in its tenth year of publication. Supported by longtime friends of Monthly Reviewfrom all over India, it is available at a small fraction of the cost of the edition printed in the United States. From the early ’70s to the late ’80s editions of Monthly Review appeared in Spanish, Italian, and Greek (the Greek edition was founded by Andreas Papandreou before he became prime minister of Greece). A small but cheering sign of ebbing global counter-revolution is the reappearance in the last two years of Spanish and Greek editions. The Spanish edition of MR—Monthly Review: Selecciones en castellano—published in Barcelona, appears twice a year with translations of selected articles. The Greek language Monthly Reviewtranslates several MR articles each month and also presents a range of political commentary of particular interest in Greece. In addition, they have released two books in their book-publishing arm, Monthly Review Imprint, one consisting mainly of Papandreou's writings in MR and another on Is Iraq Another Vietnam?—also drawing on the magazine. The very first Turkish language edition of Monthly Review is scheduled to appear by the end of this year.| more|. The Renewing of
Socialism: An Introduction Articles in Monthly Reviewoften end by invoking the socialist alternative to capitalism. Readers in recent years have frequently asked us what this means. Didn't socialism die in the twentieth century? Wasn't it defeated by capitalism? More practically: if socialism is still being advocated what kind of socialism is it? Are we being utopian in the sense of advancing a pleasant but impossible dream? Approaching
Socialism Among the arguments against socialism is that it goes against human nature. "You can't change human nature" is the frequently heard refrain. That may be true of basic human instincts such as the urge to obtain food to eat, reproduce, seek shelter, make and wear protective clothing. However, what has usually been referred to as "human nature" has changed a great deal during the long history of humankind. As social systems changed, many habits and behavioral traits also changed as people adapted to new social structures. Anatomically modern humans emerged some 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. Over the tens of thousands of years since, many different kinds of social organizations and societies have developed. Initially, most were based on hunting and gathering, while for about the last 7,000 years many have been based on agriculture. These societies were organized as clans, villages, tribes, city-states, nations, and/or empires. The Knowledge of
a Better World There is an old saying that if you don't know where you want to go, then any road will take you there. I think that recent years, years of neoliberalism, imperialist outrages, and the virtual destruction of almost every effort to create an alternative, have disproved this saying. Our experience tells us that if you don't know where you want to go, then no road will take you there. What Is
Socialist Feminism? This article, which first appeared in WIN magazine on June 3, 1976, and is reprinted here with the author's permission, is a classic of socialist feminist thought. After decades of ongoing debate on these issues its importance is, in our view, undiminished.—Eds. At some level, perhaps not too well articulated, socialist feminism has been around for a long time. You are a woman in a capitalist society. You get pissed off: about the job, the bills, your husband (or ex), about the kids' school, the housework, being pretty, not being pretty, being looked at, not being look at (and either way, not listened to), etc. If you think about all these things and how they fit together and what has to be changed, and then you look around for some words to hold all these thoughts together in abbreviated form, you'd almost have to come up with “socialist feminism.” The Utopian Vision
of the Future (Then and Now): A Marxist Critique Oscar Wilde said that any map that doesn't have utopia on it is not worth looking at.1 There are few quotes I've cited as often or with as much pleasure as this one. Yet, there is something in the sweeping nature of the claim that has always left me unsatisfied. In examining utopian thinking, I will also try to distinguish what is valid and useful in Wilde's claim from what is not. Introducing Singer Prize Essays,
2004 When Daniel Singer died in December 2000, a number of his friends and many of his admirers contributed to the establishment of a foundation, which would honor Singer's achievement and heritage as a journalist, author, critic, and lecturer. His last and perhaps his signature book was Whose Millennium? Theirs or Ours? (Monthly Review Press, 1999), and the trustees thought it appropriate to adopt the name the Daniel Singer Millennium Prize Foundation. Each year the foundation has invited submission of essays that respond to a proposed topic. The essays may be written in any language (not more than 5000 words). The essays are judged by an international panel of experts in Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. In the past five years we have received submissions from China, Japan, Malta, Mexico, Russia, the Ukraine, the Western European countries, the United Kingdom, Canada, and twenty-six states in the United States. What Is the Soul
of Socialism? At midnight on January 1, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect. Years in the making, the treaty was designed to solidify the rule of capital over the lives of millions of people from Calgary to Guadalajara. It would smooth the way for capital investment across borders, while blunting labor and environmental laws and reducing the governments' ability to tax and regulate businesses. The Soul of
Socialism: Connecting with the People’s Values "Theory becomes a material force," wrote Karl Marx, "once it seizes the masses." The obverse is also true: if theory does not "seize the masses," it becomes impotent and irrelevant. Today, in the United States and many other countries, a socialist critique has been excluded from political and popular debate regarding critical economic and social problems. One reason for this is the domination of the mainstream media by corporations, but the existence of a capitalist propaganda mill does not absolve socialists for failing to translate their trenchant and sound observations about the existing social and political order into language that will resonate with the values of the readers or listeners who are the putative beneficiaries of any socialist transformation. |
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