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This year marks the hundredth
anniversary of one of the great events in modern history. On November
20th of 1910 Francisco I. Madero denounced the electoral fraud
perpetrated by President Díaz and called for a national insurrection.
This marked the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Today, the
conditions have matured for another revolution, this time with a mighty
proletariat at its head.
Ted Heath’s plans went very "agley" in the early 1970s, and he had a Tory
parliamentary majority that Cameron can only dream of. The volatility
of the world in 2010 means that this new Tory/Lib Dem government will be a
government of crisis. Certainly the story of Ted Heath’s demise has a
lot of lessons for trade unionists and socialists today.
After the Second World War the advanced capitalist world went through a prolonged period of boom, rising working class living standards and relative class peace. By 1970 it was clear that the boom was coming to an end. The ruling class saw the need to confront the working class and drive down living standards in order to restore their profits. Their chosen instrument in Britain was the Tory government under Heath, elected in 1970.
Seventy years on, World War II is remembered. What is forgotten was the largest mutiny amongst the British armed forces that heralded its end.
Seventy years on, World War II is remembered. What is forgotten was the largest mutiny amongst the British armed forces that heralded its end.
Ninety years ago, on the morning of 13th March 1920, a brigade of
soldiers marched into Berlin and declared the German government of the
Social Democrats to be overthrown. Not a shot was fired by any side and
the response of the leaders of the government was simply to flee. The
very forces which the Social Democrats had place so much trust in had
turned against them. The Kapp Putsch, as it has become known as, was
challenged instead by the workers.
Ninety years ago, on the morning of 13th March 1920, a brigade of
soldiers marched into Berlin and declared the German government of the
Social Democrats to be overthrown. Not a shot was fired by any side and
the response of the leaders of the government was simply to flee. The
very forces which the Social Democrats had place so much trust in had
turned against them. The Kapp Putsch, as it has become known as, was
challenged instead by the workers.
Over the last 40 years we have had two periods of Tory rule; one was
Thatcher and Major’s period in office from 1979 to 1997. But there was
another period between 1970 and February 1974 when Ted Heath was
installed in Downing Street. The Tory attempts to attack the working
class and attack the workers’ organisations rebounded badly then.
Should Labour lose the next election, it’s clear that an incoming Tory
government would be a government of crisis. An industrial and, at a
later stage, a political response to their attacks from the working
class would be on the cards.
1980 saw the steelworkers become one of the first group of workers to
take on the new Thatcher Tory government, which had been elected in
1979. A union member involved at the time looks back at the action
which marked the start of the new decade.
Today we mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by publishing an article from the current edition of Socialist Appeal which analyses why the events of 1989 have not had the outcome which the West expected. You can also download an audio file on the subject by clicking here .
Yesterday (Monday 5th Oct) marked the
75th anniversary of the
Asturian Commune. The mining and industrial region of Asturias in Spain
witnessed one of the key revolutions of the 20th century. We want to
bring to the attention of our readers an article by Ramon Samblas
written in 2004 for the www.marxist.com website and Socialist Appeal.
September 3rd: 70 years ago today the United Kingdom declared war on fascist Germany, so marking the start of World War Two. In an article written at the time, Ted Grant summarised what was now in store for the masses of Europe and beyond: ‘Millions, tens of millions, will be killed in the insane
slaughter, whole cities and countries will be devastated,…
Famine and disease will sweep over all Europe. The flower of European
manhood will be exterminating one another. And for what?’ To mark this anniversary we are reproducing Ted’s article from 1939 in full.